PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - How should the Diamondbacks prioritize their spending with a limited budget this offseason?

Episode Date: November 29, 2023

Despite still having several positional needs, the Arizona Diamondbacks seem to have roughly $20 million available to spend on free agents this offseason. We discuss the Snakes payroll and how they can pull off acquiring a starting pitcher to complete their rotation. We also discuss if MLB will ever partner with a cryptocurrency company again after being named in the FTX class-action lawsuit. 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/200Get 10% off your first order of Hero Bread at https://www.hero.co/ by using code PHNXSchedule 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/Go to https://saturdayneon.com and use code PHNX for 10% off your order today. Free shipping for orders over $200!Gametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase.Pins & Aces: Check out https://pinsandaces.com and use code PHNX to receive 15% off your first order and get free shipping.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!: Score 25% off a bag of your favorite OGeez! Fruits or Creams. Go to https://zenleafdispensaries.com, add a bag of OGeez! to your cart, enter promo code “PHNX” and pickup at a local Zen Leaf Dispensary. 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.

Hello and welcome in to another edition of the PHNX T-Backs podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Monta, occasionally known as your mayor of PHNX. I'm sitting next to this man who I may not, may or may not be artificial intelligence. It's your thunderstick and my vice mayor, Jesse Friedman. You haven't put my voice through the machine yet? No, that's not. I will refuse to do that. I don't want to know if you're replaceable because then I'll start getting ideas.

But as we've talked about, the Diamondbacks, of course, have still a lot of holiday shopping to do when it comes to their free agency season, their off season, everything, all this money that they have to spend. They still have several positional needs. And in looking at some information that Jesse took a deeper dive into, the Diamondbacks might not have as much money as we necessarily thought they were going to have. We've talked about this not in substantial amount of money that's going to be reinvested back into the team. We've talked about what the payroll could potentially look like. We've even fantasized about throwing money at Yamamoto or Otani or some of these other big names on the free agency market. But after the Diamondbacks fell short on Sunny Gray, Nick Picoro wrote a story that kind of detailed some of their spending. And that's what caused us to go down this path a little bit.

Yeah, Nick wrote a story last night just about how starting pitching is still the Diamondback's top priority, which certainly makes sense, right? I know that it wasn't the first thing that they addressed. They had this opportunity to go get a third baseman. And as we've discussed, I think it made sense for them to pull the trigger on that deal, even though it is really early in the offseason. Cal Rally, by the way, was on foul territory and he was discussing that details talking about how Gino is the absolute heart and soul of that Marin. team and that they're going to feel a little bit lost without them. Lacky. Lackable sympathy here.

I just want to say that that's a good thing. That makes us feel good about this for sure. Yeah. There's no, heard nothing but good things about A. E. E. E. E. E. Hine Oswara, there's a person, obviously a really key part of that Mariners Clubhouse.

But yeah, getting back to starting pitching and this need that the Diamondbacks have that I do believe is their biggest need in it. and from what Nick wrote, and from what I've heard as well, that's how the debacks view this as well. Starting pitching is the thing that they need the most this winter. And Nick did say, as you mentioned earlier, that the Diamondbacks did make a run at Sunny Gray.

According to this story, of course, that ultimately fell short. He signed with the St. Louis Cardinals for three years and 75 million, as we've talked about. But yeah, there's also some stuff in here from Nick about the Diamondbacks payroll situation. Up to this point, people have been very vague, right, about exactly how much the Diamondbacks had to spend this winter. Ken Kendrick, of course, on Burns and Gambo at the beginning of the offseason, talked about how there was this, you know, economic windfall as a result of the Diamondbacks

postseason run, but he didn't get into specifics about how much money that actually was. Nick wrote in here that according to a source, the Diamondbacks, the ultimate payroll that they wind up with could end up in the $130 to $140 million range for next season, which would give them approximately $20 million to spend this winter, which is not a lot of money, Derek. No. It's not a lot of money. No, it's not for the fact that they still have to get potentially,

if you were looking at positional needs, a DH, an outfielder, and that starting pitcher. We take a look at Sunny Gray's contract and Sunny Gray right there was not, would be essentially too expensive for what he signed for. And that makes sense as to why the Diamondbacks didn't really pursue him. But, you know, we talked about some candidates yesterday in Seth Lugo and Michael Waka. And there are a lot of options out there for the Diamondbacks to go get. Guys that had good stats, guys that were good pitchers, they're just not those big, you know, free agent names. And it's, it's, you know, of course we know that the Diamondbacks, you know,

had talked about reinvesting in this team and the economic win. and all that. But I just have to question if they were ever going to go after one of those elite starters in the first place. It's not to say, like we talked about yesterday, that they're not really priced out of the market, but when you start looking at some of these bigger contracts, you know, I don't know if the Diamondbacks were ever in the race or when all of a sudden done for some of these, you know, big name pitchers, if they were ever in the race considering what they're going to end up with. Right. Yeah. I mean, if you only have 20 million to spend this winter. I mean, like, how seriously could you have really been on Sunny Gray? You know,

I mean, he signed for $25 million a year. I guess maybe the debacks were trying to go to four years, but a lower average annual value. Maybe they were offering like, I don't know, four in 70 or something like that. Well, and these aren't hard caps, right? Yeah, that's true. These are just like ideas they're floating around internally about how much they want to spend, but should someone be available for some sort of reasonable amount, but is maybe a little bit out of their price range, I don't see them not pursuing it. I mean, overall, I know we're going to talk about the Diamondbacks current payroll, but we're also going to talk about how far they are off from the competitive balance tax threshold.

And that's one thing that they can literally double their payroll right now, and they still wouldn't even be close to what the competitive balance tax threshold is. And that's what most of the teams in our division are going to be spending. We've heard about the giants. The giants are all in on Otani. They're all in on Yamamoto. they're all in on everybody. It sounds very much. They might come in second place on all of them. They might give it their darned this. They've been known to they've been known to come in second when it comes

to acquiring certain free agents. But they're lucky that they missed out on those guys. In some cases, it wasn't the worst thing that the Giants missed out on some of the guys they were going after. But I'm just saying along with the Padres, along with the Dodgers, we're going to have the Giants making attempt to get big name free agents and spending probably a lot more money than the Diamondbacks are going to spend. So obviously there's, there's, you know, there has to be like a gray area that they're willing to go into past that 20 million into maybe 25, 30 million, especially if they're planning on fulfilling a DH as well as an outfielder. Yeah, yeah. I mean, if it is true that the Diamondbacks wind up spending 20 million for the rest of

the offseason. And Nick also wrote that, you know, Ken Kendrick has been known to stretch things a little bit coming off of, you know, playoff seasons. We saw the payroll uptick in 2012 following the 2011 postseason run. We saw the same thing in 2018. So, you know, I do think that there's a chance that the Diamondbacks spend north of this number. But if it is in fact 20 million, yeah, you got to figure out a way to parse out that 20 million in the way that serves you best. And it certainly is not going to be a Sunny Gray, a Blake Snell, a Yamamoto. Those things. just aren't going to be possible. It would have to be someone like what we talked about yesterday, with Seth Lugo and Michael Waka. Even those guys would be maybe pushing it. I mean, if you give

Seth Lugo $13 million, if you're really only going to spend $20 million in the rest of the off season, that leaves you with $7 million to get a backup catcher, to get an outfielder, you know, to get a DH if that's something that they want to do. So it's going to be tough. I mean, and I know we talked about this the other day, but it sounds like the trade market might be a way that the diamondbacks really, they might really have to lean into that because you're not going to fill all of these needs with $20 million in free agency. Ryan's asking about debucks, by the way, which I'm very excited. We haven't talked about debuts in a long time. So we might be calling them diamond bucks now. Diamond bucks sounds pretty

cool too. I'm on board with that as well. I hate Diamond bucks. Oh, diamond bucks. That's fantastic. that's that sounds like uh and i'm going to really i'm going to really stray out of jesse's realm of knowledge here it sounds like some sort of team the young bucks would form with somebody else in pro wrestling that's for one guy out there and one guy only watching this but uh when we talk about the diamondbacks current payroll in 2023 there's some interesting things obviously uh we're going to talk about you you've added you've added the some estimated payroll in there you've obviously added swarez is in there but as they're constructed right now madison bumgarner and Mark Melanson are two retained salaries for next year.

Madison Bumgarner making $14 million next year. Malanson, $2 million. And right now, the way the way things are, that's nearly 20% of their payroll for 2024. Yeah, if you're just looking at like the opening day payroll number. Yeah, like I mean, obviously it's going to go down once they add some and it's going to be more like, you know, probably closer to 10% rather than 20%. But still, that is a significant amount of money that the Diamondbacks have and retain salaries. next year, obviously Madbump being the big part of that, that those are going to be gone, you know,

and that's something the Diamondbacks, once again, this kind of reminds me of the Dave Stewart ears, where Mike Hazen took over and he kind of had to do some maneuvering to get out of some of the spending that the Diamondbacks had done. That's what, you know, is going on, I think, this season. And I wouldn't be surprised to see the Diamondbacks, you know, hold off on maybe getting that, on doing that big free agent spending, maybe until the first. following year, maybe until the offseason of 2024, just due to that. I mean, right now, if

they are planning on going through with this $20 million plan, like you said, that doesn't leave a lot of money. So, but let's take a look at their current payroll right now because this will kind of illustrate where the Diamondbacks are at right now. Yeah, so first of all, the Mark Balanson money is just his

buyout. Correct. It's not, they're not paying him to pitch this year. But he does have, there was an option to the debacks are still on the hook for that $2 million dollar buyout, as you said. But yeah, if you, this is just a breakdown of where things stand today. The Diamondbacks have $64 million worth of players who are under contract. That does include Bum Garner as well, as well as Mark Malanson.

And it also includes the guys that you would expect it to, right? Merrill Kelly is under contract. Cotel Marte is under contract. These are guys who are not subject to arbitration this winter. We already know exactly how much money they are going to make. Cotel Marte outside of Madison, Mum Gardner, is their highest paid player, and he is only making $13.6 million next year. You got to give a credit where credit is due to this Diamondbacks team and how they were able. And again, I mean, it's about quality.

It's about the time that they sign some of these guys. But that's the reason right now this payroll is the way it is because in three years and five years, you're not going to see Cotel Marquis. Martin and Zach Gallen making sub-15 million dollars, most likely. Yeah, arbitration next year for Zach Gallen is going to be interesting because, yeah, it's 12 million this year. It might be close to 20 next year. I mean, Zach Gallin is going to make a lot of money in his last year of arbitration. But yes, so our eligible players, we've got 34.6 million there.

God, can we just, sorry, can we just extend Gallin before we have to do an arbitration meeting with him? Because that's just going to be an unfortunate, terrible experience. They might be able to agree on a number. You don't have to go to an arbitration hearing necessarily if you can agree on a number. Please, let's not do that. But, yeah, I would imagine that might not be something that devax would want to do. We'll see what happens this winter with all these arbitration cases.

Christian Walker also arbitration eligible this winter. This is his last year of arbitration. He's estimated to make 11.5 million. Paul Seawald is also in his last year of arbitration. He's estimated to make 6.8. Ryan Thompson, Kevin Ginkle, Joe Mantiply. All those guys are ARB eligible as well. all that comes out to 34.6 million.

We are very confident that the debacks are going to wind up keeping all of those guys. So that money is pretty much set in stone at this point. We've got 9.7 million here for pre-arbitration players. These are guys who have less than three years of service time generally and are still, you know, still not making a whole lot of money right around the league minimum, which I believe this year is 740,000, something like that. We got lots of those guys. I think there's 13 of them altogether.

And then what you also see here, which is maybe not included in some other payroll numbers that you might have seen, but I think is important to include. This is certainly something that debacks will be budgeting for $5.2 million for injured list players, because when a guy goes on the injured list, you still have to pay them and you also have to pay someone to come in and replace them. That might be a conservative estimate when all is said and done, but $5.2 million there. And then you also pay guys who are on the 40-man roster, but in the minors a little bit more as well. So we have 2.3 million there. It all comes out to 115.7 million as the year-end payroll. This isn't an opening day payroll. That would be lower because you wouldn't have to include the injured list and all the 40-man money and all that stuff.

This is like, what is it going to cost to keep the current team that the Diamondbacks have throughout the entire duration of the 2024 season? They're already at about 115. And it makes sense why if Nick is reporting that, you know, they're going to wind up between 130 and 140, they would have about 20 million more to spend, give or take, through the rest of the off season. So maybe they push it.

Maybe it winds up a little bit higher than that. We have seen the debacks spend a little bit bigger at times. We've seen them sign Zach Granky. But yeah, it's going to be a little bit of a challenge to try. try to you know piece together solutions to everything the diamondbacks need with 20 million dollars it's spot rack.com i think right uh they have their their estimated payroll uh at 94 9202 37 that's just without the arbitration 904 94 million 94 000 you're i'm sorry 94 million but the uh again the estimated competitive balance tax space is around 140

million right now right and like even even taking into consideration the additional 20 million that you said that's still 120 million before they get close to that competitive balance you know tax and that's that for me is the problem is when we are talking about how much the diamondbacks have to spend i understand they're not the podries they're not the dodgers they don't have that kind of money however in order to compete with those teams i feel like they there there's still a lot of room for them to spend and i mean after this you know after this playoff run they have to see how much you know the winning especially here in the valley means and if if you can continue to put a competitive product out there on the field people will come people will watch this team they

filled that stadium they filled that stadium against the dodgers during the playoffs so you can't doubt the the diamondbacks fans to come out you just need to continue to put a competitive product on the field you talked about those other years where they had a good season and then they tried to build on it by spending more money next year and then things didn't work out it's how they spend the money and not exactly how much they spent with that being said they still also need to open up the pocketbook here uh i think michael said it here in the chat but he said uh if there were ever an off season to spend it's this one with how many guys are pre-arbs still and that's such a great point yeah this is i mean just in general if ever there was an off season to spend like

You're just in the World Series, right? Yeah, but how close we are. You've got Zach Allen and Merrill Kelly under contract for two more seasons. Yeah, I mean, the debacks should absolutely be going for it. And like we've talked about before, I mean, there is the whole TV situation, which I'm sure is having some sort of impact here. The debacks are increasing payroll, but I have to believe that they would be increasing it more so if it were not for the TV situation. and the uncertainties surrounding that, we'll hopefully get some more specifics on that

as the offseason goes on. But yeah, I mean, if ever there was a time where you should really be trying to push the chips in and really, really be a good baseball team, this would be the winter to do it. And maybe they wind up going north of that 20 million number, but if they don't, we're really going to be threading the needle, trying to meet all of the needs that this team has.

I don't know, Jesse. How do you want to see them spend the money? You know, let's say hypothetically, let's not limit them just to 20 million, but no, that we're not jumping from 20 million to spending 60 million for this season. We're not, so it's got to be 20. You can maybe go 25. You can maybe go 30.

But like you said, even Seth Lugo and Michael Walker, those guys are still going to cost you below. That would be about two thirds. I mean, maybe you could try to backload it with one of those guys. Like, all, we'll give you 10 million. in the first year. They did that with Bumgardner's deal a little bit. Yeah, maybe, yeah, maybe it's $10 million in the first year and 16 in the second or something

like that. DeBucks have some money coming off the books next offseason as you talked about. But, yeah, I mean, if you have $20 million to spend, starting pitching again is your biggest need. So I think you would probably allocate at least half of it to that, right? Yeah, yeah. I think it's just necessary. Like, you just can't really solve the starting pitching need with a lot of

less than $10 million, maybe by a little bit. One guy that we'll talk about today, you could maybe get for less than $10 million. We're going to try. It might be doable. I'm excited to talk about him because I love this guy. But if you want, like, if you want, you know, Jorge Soler, I mean, that, that's probably 15 million right there. I was going to say that's going to take up the majority of everybody.

You can't get Solair and a starting pitcher with $20 million. I just don't think it's possible. And that goes back to what I said earlier about the trade market and how you might just really have to lean into that this offseason in order to, you know, try to bring in guys and spend some trade capital, bring in guys who maybe will increase the payroll a little bit, but, you know, or maybe in their earlier arbitration years or something and, you know, have a little bit of control left. That might be the direction they have to go here.

Michael's so right here. He said, again, if CM Punk can go back to WWE after everything he said about them in the lawsuits, the debacks can sign Otani. I mean, hell did freeze over when it came to CM Punk coming back to WWE. Elise says this is why the D-BACs lose the faith of the fans. And then she goes on to say of the Fairweather fans in Phoenix, I mean. And that is true. I mean, that's one thing that, and I don't know.

I still am of the mindset that there's a lot of cities that get a lot of flak, including Phoenix, about being Fairweather fans. But really at the end of the day, we haven't had a lot to root for at times here for all of our sporting teams. and it's understandable when some people just don't want to invest their emotions in a team like that last year's team let's be honest especially once july came around was on the brink of just going completely off the rails breaking our hearts and ending it like so many diamondback seasons have ended before and instead it took the wild ridiculously fun turn that we got and you know at this point that that's something incredible to build on build on in a positive way don't go crazy with it because at this point this team isn't a team that just has a few years left to compete. They are set up for a while to be competitive. A big factor that though is getting a starting pitcher because they know they have two great guys that we have no idea how much longer they're going to be here for in the valley. And they know that if they sign a guy, it would be great.

It would be great to sign, you know, one of these studs to a longer term deal that you can just have that confidence knowing that Diamondbacks are going to have one starting pitcher here for like, five years plus you know yeah but nick did mention in the story too he did he did use the phrase re-sign gallon that did that did appear in the article uh see nick wouldn't just throw those words around i know nick nick's uh nick's not nick's like you jesse nick doesn't want to give us false hope that's that's my job my job is to give false hope well i mean yeah in in context the way that he said it was not at all diamond baxter definitely going to extend him it was just it was just to suggest that, you know, maybe as they're thinking about what they want to spend this winter, they might want to be saving something for an investment in gallon. It also mentioned an investment

in Gabby Moreno. Of course, that wouldn't cost too much in the early years. Yeah, let's get that done. I think Corby and Carroll this year in the second year of the deal is making $3.6 million. So the first few years of a Gabby Moreno extension would still be quite reasonable, but you'd have to factor in the long-term cost of that. So I'm sure that's something that they have in mind as well right now. Now, for sure. Yeah, it's going to be really tough. This is where Mike Kazin's job is more difficult than the job of a lot of other GMs in this sport. You are just in the World Series.

I'm sure that he, I'm sure that the Diamondbacks front office wants to do everything in their power to come back next year and make the playoffs and try to make another run at this thing. And $20 million, I mean, that is, that's tough. And it also, if I'm being totally honest, giving a. Oh, Hennio Suarez, $11 million next year. I think you, I still like the move for the debacks. 15 million next year. Well, we were talking about 2024. I'm not at 2024.

Yeah, 11, 11 million. I think it's 11.3, including a signing bonus for 224. It's not a cheap. That, I mean, if in fact, they have 20 million more to spend, that means that they gave more than a third of their offseason expenditure to a Yohenio Suarez. I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad decision. It's not.

But, yeah, I still think it probably made, the most sense for them. Yeah. Third base and starting pitcher were their biggest needs. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, could you, I don't know, could you have gotten someone really cheap to play third base who maybe wasn't quite as good as Suarez, but gives you a little bit more money to go get, you know, maybe a higher tier of a starting pitcher? I don't know exactly what that looks like. We talked about Justin Turner, but that's not going to necessarily cost you enough for you to not take on Suarez's. Turner can't play third base. That's what I'm saying. Torres, his range at third base is excellent. He's going to be there all the time.

He's going to play there. I mean, he'll have probably like 10 days off the season. But, you know, he played all 162 games last year. And like I said, Tori will die before he lets a guy do that in his starting lineup. But we know that we have a solid guy that,

that much like a lot of the positions on this team, it's taken care of. You know, you don't have to think about it. You said backup catcher. And a big part of that backup catcher is because you know Gabby is your everyday guy now. But catcher is just not a position that you can go with an everyday guy anymore in Major League Baseball.

You got to give him rest and especially Gabby. Gabby's got to still have some time to, you know, to recover from that rigorous position. They really, they really used Gabby. They beat him up and they beat him up all season long. I hated it. I hated it. And they basically started him every game for the last two weeks of the regular season. And then he played an entire month in the playoffs starting every game.

And then it gets like two nights of sleep before he has to be back training for next season is what I feel like. Right. Yeah. This is not a short off season for the snakes. Don't you think that Hazen would leverage in his contract negotiation to get more than $20 million to spend this off season? Like in his contract? Yeah. Like when Hazen was extended?

Logically. Logically, I just would think that he would want to go into that being like, I know that I have more money to spend to build. a winner here. It's too fluid of a situation. There's just too many variables impacting the spending of the organization that you can't really just, you know, put that in your contract and demand that they let you spend more. No, it's more of a pre-agreed upon just kind of like handshake deal type of thing. There could be something like that. But why wouldn't why wouldn't he then go to the Red Sox who apparently want to sign Otani and stuff if that was truly an option that was on the table? I mean, the Red Sox haven't necessarily spent a ton of money lately either. But yeah,

It's a fair point. And it's a, I mean, that's a big, that's a big part of why people were wondering if Mike Hazen would want to go to the Red Sox because you're going to just have a lot more money to spend there. At the same time, it's also a hellish division to play in. I mean, the NL West is, is pretty brutal too. Well, the expectations are lower here. If you go to Boston and you fail, you're not going to maintain your job.

You could fail here and people still won't pin it on you as the GM. He's done an excellent job. and the maneuver. And he hasn't failed here. He's been he's done nothing but kind of pretty pretty side. Yeah. I mean, there have been mistakes. But overall it's been pretty good for my case. I think the key factor here is is if he moves to Boston, then he has to put up his Christmas lights himself. That's a great point. Am I right? That's what it came down to. Tori's flying to Boston. Do you know the amount of stress that I am under right now because I haven't put my Christmas lights up yet? And there are several houses in my neighborhood fully decorated. I'm feeling that stress, that pressure. That pressure.

that Tori described of playing in the World Series and on the side constantly thinking about whether he was going to go with like color change lights this year and blowups or if he was going to go with more of a traditional cardboard cut out of cartoon characters that he was going to paint himself. There's not a lot of time to paint those characters, you guys. Did you seriously think Tori wouldn't fly to Boston

to put up the Christmas lights? No, I think Tori absolutely would fly anywhere in the world Mike Hazen is at. He made a commitment for life. Tori's going to be going up in a walker and there's going to be discussions about Tori, you know, having to rent a cherry picker to take himself up to the roof and put the lights up on the house when he's too old to climb it. Isn't putting up lights in like a cold northeast city? Like that has to be awful. Oh, terrible.

That just has to be terrible. And the danger has to be exponentially higher. And people just aren't getting as much enjoyment out of it. Yeah, because I'm not walking around in your neighborhood. In Arizona, people are walking around drinking hot cocoa, enjoy. Christmas lights like I don't want to walk around when the wind chill is minus 10 degrees like it's hardly even worth putting up Christmas lights over there smartest thing you've said the whole show well I appreciate you guys being here right now on the pH and exports YouTube channel of course

if you haven't subscribed to the channel yet make sure to do so leave us a like drop us a like gabby he's busy on his off season but he'll stop by tell you to drop a like uh make sure uh you sign up for notifications that way you don't miss when any of our wonderful shows go live if you were listening on the audio podcasting side. Make sure you leave us a review. Also make sure you're subscribed over there. We appreciate it. Of course, this holiday season, the best gift to get anybody, whether you're a procrastinator or whether you're like me and you actually think about people at a time is still Arizona lottery holiday scratchers. They are the perfect gift because they make last minute shopping easy. They make great stocking stuffers. And of course, they, they, even for the people that you

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You take it to any place wherever you bought it, a Circle K, anywhere that sells lottery tickets. Does it have to be where you bought it? No, it doesn't have to, no. No, it can be any retailer that sells lottery tickets. It's that easy. You win $50 just stop the gas station on your home. It's kind of messed up, though.

Like, because you could buy it from one place and then you could redeem it somewhere else. It's the state's, it's Arizona lottery's money. It's not their money, Jesse. Okay. So the Arizona lottery is just like reimburses them. Yeah, yeah. They'll give it back to that gas station. That gas station keeps all.

those tickets. And it's kind of fun because when you ring it up, it plays a little song when it hits the barcode on the back. It's like do do do do and then you get your money. So who doesn't want to hear that song during this time of the year? Go get your holiday to scratch your tickets now. Of course, baseball is going to be fun and it's not going to be very expensive next year. If you are in Arizona Diamondbacks fans, go watch games. But a great way to get your tickets. If you're just looking for individual tickets, last minute is with our friends at game time. They are the place for last minute ticket deals for a reason. They have some of the lowest tickets you can fine and of course they are the fastest growing ticketing app in the country for a reason so do not

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And the first one is potentially one of my favorites. And that's Marcus Stroman. Former, we'll say this for now, former Chicago Cubs starting pitcher. And let's take a look at his numbers from this season because Stroman was once again another Cy Young candidate that much like Zach Gallant kind of not going to say fell off, had a little bit of a tougher second half of the season, but still was one of the best pitchers in the National League. He was fantastic through July 15th. On July 15th, Marcus Stroman looked like he might go win the NL. Siong.

He had a 2.880RA. He was 10 and 6. Everyone in Chicago was talking about Marcus Strowman winning the Siong Award and not Justin Steele winning the Siong Award. That is correct. Although he was certainly having, you know, a good year in his own right. Yeah. And then, as you said, Marcus Stroman's second half was a bit of a mess.

Yeah. He had three starts after July 15th with those great numbers on July 15th, he had three starts after that that were absolutely abysmal. over 15. So those kind of tanked his numbers a little bit. And then it was revealed that he had a hip injury and he was placed on the injured list. And the initial word was that Marcus Stroman was out for the season. Yeah. We did not expect to see Marcus Stroman for the rest of the year.

At which time, many Diamondbacks fans, you know, breathed out a collective sigh of relief because you were very much in contention with the Cubs. The Cubs don't have Marcus Strowman for the rest of the year. That's good news. And then Marcus Stroman comes back and pitches not as a starter, although I think he might have like opened a game or two for them. But he was really pitching. It was like eight innings total. Yeah, eight innings all together out of the bullpen.

I think this is like three or four appearances. And he wasn't great. He had a 5.63 ERA in those eight innings. I believe the Velo was down a little bit. Didn't look like at all the same pitcher from the first half. And yet at the end of the season, he still turned down. I believe what was a $20 million or something like that, about a $20 million option that he had with the Cubs.

So he still, after that disaster of a second half, was still willing to bet on himself in free agency. And it makes him a really interesting, like, I don't know what Marcus Stroman is going to get paid. Yeah. I really have no idea. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. I think that there is something to be said about, you know,

the right hip inflammation, right? Pitchers are a creature of habit. It's very difficult to pitch when, your mechanics are affected by an injury by something that's like kind of a nagging injury like that you'd like to believe that that was affecting those three starts prior when you have a 15.63 era over three starts yeah no i mean and and based on his performance in the first half and overall i mean we are talking about a guy that probably i mean like you said he did turn down the deal from the cubs but he probably lost a considerable amount of money of what he was going to make

this this off season with that second half his overall numbers still pretty damn good a 136.2 innings pitched 3.95 ERA a 1.26 whip 20.7% strikeout 9.9% walk rate and then a 3.58 whip but those numbers like you said

I mean a big jump from his 2.880 RA that he was as of July 15th. Now I still believe based on that injury that that's the pitcher he was more than he was in the second half. Even coming out of the bullpen, you know we've talked about it. I've talked about it

probably like a million times, but let's be honest. It takes a while for you to ramp back up and get back to being who you are as a pitcher. Whenever you take time off, the biggest problem here is the Cubs were in a battle for a playoff position. And there was probably a sense of urgency to have him back in some form earlier than they were anticipating on him actually coming back. They weren't even anticipating him to come back. That's what made it so weird is all of a sudden Marcus Stroman shows up.

And it's like, all right, I guess he could pitch out of the bullpen. I mean, that's the thing is, and of course, you still didn't know what you were going to get out of him and you didn't get the best version of him, obviously. But you were desperate. You know what I mean? Like if one of your best pitchers is making his way back and is saying that he feels like he can come back and help the team in any capacity and honestly is willing to accept that role out of the bullpen, right? Like that's kind of a telling, you know, thing about him as a pitcher that he's willing to do that because not a lot of starters, especially a guy that's going into, you know, a free agency off season potentially is willing to come out of. of the bullpen and maybe not perform well which can impact you know what you're going to receive they i mean they probably would have had to stretch them out so i guess logistically if they wanted

to get marcus stroman back into some games the best way was to just have to pitch out of the bullpen um so but like a lot of guys could turn that down like that's not something that most starting like not all starting pitchers are going to be willing to accept that kind of role and do that like they're just going to say well you know it is what it is if i can't get stretched out in time yeah i'm not going to be back you probably don't want to give mark is Stroman like $20 million a year for three seasons if you expect him to be a reliever. But yeah, I don't I don't think I don't think anyone expects him to be a reliever forward.

But there are some big questions about like, you know, I mean, was this all just the injury that happened? Is that why he was so ineffective in the second half of the season? Or, I mean, Stroman's 32 years old, right? He's getting up there a little bit. He obviously doesn't have the size that you're typically used to seeing from from a right-hand candid starter. Fan graphs, they're crowdsourcing. They have three years, $66 million. That's their estimate for Marcus Stroman, which yes, I acknowledge that's $22 million a year, which is more than

we just said the Diamondbacks had to spend this off season. But even, I mean, it was interesting. In Nick's story, he mentioned Blake Snell and Marcus Stroman. He still mentioned some names as guys, those types of names as guys that it would make sense for the debacks to pursue. He wasn't necessarily implying that they would be able to land any of those guys. Sure. But with Stroman, I'm skeptical of the three years 66 million, to be totally honest. I think that if you have that disastrous of a second half where you're hurt and just so ineffective, it's hard for me to believe that that guy is still going to get $22 million a

year for three seasons. I think it's possible that Diamondbacks could get him for a little bit less than that. But yes, even so, he's going to, he would take a significant chunk of what you had to spend. end this off season no matter what. So I know maybe there's a way to backload it somehow like we said earlier. But yeah, Stroman is about the highest tier of starting pitcher that I could possibly imagine the Diamondbacks landing given what we now know about their spending. About their spending for sure.

Yeah. And even then he might still cost too much and might not be worth the investment risk at this point. Yeah. Another guy that we are very familiar with and could maybe make some more sense financially is none other than former Arizona Diamondback Wade Miley, the 37-year-old goat himself. Wade Miley was on the Milwaukee Brewers and had himself a fairly decent season up there in Milwaukee.

Let's take a look at his numbers this year. He pitched 120 and a third innings. He had a 3.14 ERA with a 1.14 whip, 16.1% strikeout rate, 7.8% walk rate, and a 4.69 FIP, which not great there at the end. Not great. Not great there at the end. But that 3.14 ERA again like we talked about yesterday with Seth Lugo, like we talked about with Michael Waka. These are things that especially right now, if you're talking about leaving Brandon fought potentially in the third spot in the rotation, I don't hate out of a fourth or fifth guy in the starting rotation. I just think that the Diamondbacks, if they're going to go after a guy like Wade, they're going to need like two wades is what I feel like in order for them to. fill out the rotation. Yeah, I think that's a very valid point. Wade Miley is not the most durable guy out there. He threw 37 innings in 2022. He, as you said, through 120 and a third in 23.

So, yeah, there are some pretty significant durability questions there. You can't sign Wade Miley and expect to get 180 innings or something like that. It's just not realistic. And he had a bunch of injuries last year. Yeah, he had time off at least for injuries. Nothing major, but just kind of nagging injuries he didn't miss a ton of time with them but yeah he did have a lat injury and an elbow injury in uh in 2023 so a shoulder and elbow that's not exactly uh what you're the ideal injuries for a man's 37 years old he also had hip discomfort and back discomfort yeah everything i mean yeah i can speak from that you have to have just mad respect that wayed myly has managed to be this effective this deep and i mean he's 37 years old the fact that he still had a 3rd

3.14 ERA in over 120 innings. Yeah. It's really impressive. He is really good at limiting hard contact still. He was in the 93rd percentile and hard hit rate this season. So that's something that FIP wouldn't take into account. So, you know, maybe that 4.69 is a little bit misleading. But yeah, the peripherals do not at all support Wade Miley, uh, continuing forward with like a low

three ERA. Uh, there's just not really enough swing and miss there at this point. So, uh, yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't expect him to repeat the season that he had necessarily, but how much money the Diamondbacks have to spend, Van Graffs has one year $8 million on Wade Miley. That would be really reasonable. That would absolutely fit.

Yeah. I'll take that. Michael said, here's the thing, guys, the debacks don't necessarily need an ace. They just need guys who won't suck. Think of how many starts Davies and Madbom got last year. Yes. You're absolutely right.

Madbom didn't get nearly as many starts as most people would believe. and Zach Davies. Four. Four. And Zach Davies was actually, was the team ace for at least a week at one point. The first turn through the rotation, Zach Davis better than everyone else. That's right. The rest of the season, not so great for Zach Davis. But yeah, you're right. And the Diamondbacks were able to win 84 games

with basically Zach Allen and Merrill Kelly doing the majority of the work most of the days. Brandon fought learning how to become a big leaguer. where Brandon fought wasn't good in the regular season. That's what I mean. I mean, he was sent down. We talked obviously about the Strom conversation when he was down during the All-Star break. Like that right there just showed where he

was at at the midpoint of this season. He was much better in the second half. He had like a low 4ER in the second half of the season. But he was still figuring things out and adapting from the minor leagues to the major leagues and then became just the absolute stud that he became in the postseason. Right. And hopefully that carries over

to him continuing to perform like that next season. If he is able to do that, then yeah, like Michael said, there's your number three guy. Again, you're really just looking for a four and five guy. And that could that could really be Wade Miley when it comes to especially a one year, $8 million deal. So if I told you that the debacks rotation on opening day is Zach Allen, Merrill Kelly, we'll put Wade Miley in the three spot.

Brandon fought Tommy Henry. How do you feel about that? I don't feel great. Don't feel great. I hate this episode. I know. I know, it's all dejection. It's all just sadness.

So maybe Wade Miley at five, Brandon fought at four, maybe a Seth Lugo at three. See, but, okay, if Lugo is 13 million and Wade Miley's $8 million, then you've already say that's $21 million. All right, I get it. I get it. We'll start a go fund me. I will start that. Can you backload a contract with Wade Miley?

Just say, I will pay you $1 million this year and then we'll pay you 500K every year for 20 years. Yeah. I take that if I was Wade. It's the end of my career. I'm going to get that $500,000 paycheck on Barry Bonds Day. It's going to be good. It's going to be good. I don't think that would be a terrible rotation.

It would be better than the rotation that the Diamondbacks had this past season. Given the expected improvements from fought, Tommy Henry missed most of the second half, but was a pretty decent starter for this team. Wade Miley had a low 3RA this last year. I don't really expect that again. but there'd be a lot more stability there than what they had this past season. But yeah, I mean, in a like in a seven game postseason series, do you feel great about Wade Miley and Brandon Fottin?

It's still not, still not an ideal situation. We have disappointed known baseball GM, Elise. She says I also hate this episode, Damon. Sorry, I thought you would love it. Like, we tailored it for you. We thought we were going to talk numbers and business and we thought you would be all about it. I'm sitting here just totally dejected because all I can think of. about is how we just went to the world series and we're talking about the same topics

that Patrick Lyons at DNVR Rockies is talking about right now. Oh, like Wade Miley? Wade Miley on a one year deal, kind of round out the middle of the rotation. We went to the World Series. Yeah, that means we're a good team and we're fairly complete. They just need a couple more pieces. That's how they see it. No, I'm with you.

There's a lot of money floating around. Let's spend some money. The $20 million thing is also not gospel. This is just what Nick sort of suspenseful. suspected it's not like the debacks spend 30 million i wouldn't be like i would be surprised but i wouldn't be like so incredibly shocked this is a situation shocking if it was in one guy if they spent like 25 million a year on one player at this point then that would be shocking but that would be shocked if they spent 40 million total or 35 million total anything below 40 million you know more

i wouldn't be surprised i really wouldn't because again that's that effort to reach out If the deal is right and they can make that deal, I think that the money is going to be available to them. Again, we're talking about a team that is literally spending half of what the competitive balance threshold is. They can, they can find some money somewhere. They can scramble.

That's what I'm saying is I'm with you. We need to, we need to find some money somewhere. Unfortunately, Derek, I'm not, I'm not sure that the current competitive balance threshold has a whole lot of sway in how much money. God damn. Jesse, no.

Yes, it should. It should. It's the ceiling. I'm not sure that that's, I'm not sure that. For at least three feet under the ceiling. That's what we should be aiming for. But I think it's $237 million is the threshold. Technically the Diamondbacks competitive balance,

payroll is $128 million. So they're about $100, $108 million shy. Did you already say that? Is that the number you gave earlier? I said they were almost halfway there. Or they still had half a little bit more than halfway there. Yeah. So that doesn't that make you feel better?

No, it still fucking does it. Not at all. Not at all. Stop defending it. But you know what we can do? We can take that money that they have now. Let's take that $20 million. We take it to Heel of River resorts and casinos.

We'll turn it into $80 million before we know it. Right. Then we'll add another $100 million on top of that. That is the clear solution. Right. We're going to talk about FTX taking people's money and spending elsewhere and getting themselves in hot water. So why not?

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It was their top golf game that they have there where you can go up and you can hit, you can hit balls and see how far they go. But this maniac Damon over here is pitching. They had a pigeon game on there where you could throw baseballs and stuff, all sorts of fun. Top golf swing suite. Top golf swing suite. Thank you.

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Treat yourself this holiday season. Grab one for yourself. Grab one for a friend or a loved one. Of course, you'll get access to Jesse's newsletter. You'll get access to our members only Discord lounge. You'll get a free piece of merchandise from the PHNX Locker and so much more, including discounts with our partners. So sign up today, get that box sent out to you and make your holidays even brighter. Speaking of things being brighter, the spotlight on the FTX scandal is a little bit brighter.

And it's brighter on the MLB because now Major League Baseball is part of a class action lawsuit due to their partnership with the cryptocurrency. trading company. Now, I know some of you, much like Jesse, he doesn't care about cryptocurrency and he doesn't even understand what most of this stuff even has to do with because... You can have to explain this to me like I'm five again. It's not FIP. It's not, uh, it's not ERA plus. It's not, uh, any kind of expected stats. I need a baseball analytics. I know, I know. I know. All right. Well, we'll try to explain it to you like your five. But, uh, if you may remember MLB entered a partnership deal with FTX. And part of that logo on umpires, right?

That's the, that's the partnership deal. So basically, uh, the partnership deal, uh, involved them putting as a lot of people remember the FTX logo on umpires, fairly big, in fact, the FTX logo, uh, was on their backs. They like a giant logo like on their, on their big as the avnet patch. As big as the ABNET patch. As bigger than the internet. Didn't take over the world, but, uh, they did enter, uh, that deal with the company, which was, uh, which was kind of wild. to me, right? It's wild to me the idea of advertising on an official, right? Like, I don't know if

you see that any sport. Yeah, you wouldn't think that's here. Max is our official advertising guy. Max, would you step in here really fast? Because I just want to get your take on this. Maybe you can speak into my microphone. You watch a lot of like football. And I say that the proper way because we're talking about soccer. Right. There's a lot of advertising going on in that space in that world. But Is there ever, do you ever see any advertising on officials in any other sport? I was going to say the only other time you really see it is some soccer teams. They do like EA, like FIFA, right? Okay.

They put like the, when it was EA sponsoring FIFA like the video game. Yeah. They had it on there. That was really the only other time other than FTX and MLB officials. I don't like it. Okay. I don't like that. Thank you.

I appreciate your take on that. And I think the reason why is like, yeah, even with the EA thing, that's a video game. That's kind of innocent. Like, yeah. I mean, it's not really, it's not a cryptocurrency trading company. And I just feel like in general having advertising on your officials just back then kind of rubbed me the wrong way. It just, you know, at first I didn't even know what it was, much like you. I thought it was maybe like, I thought it had something to do with some sort of major league baseball analytics or something like that, like some sort of, you know, company that they were using for, you know,

like the breakdown of the strike zone or something more involved with the game and then you come to find out that it's this company and it's just weird you know not there's a lot of lines we talk about advertising on players on teams ballparks obviously something we're all used to but putting it so ftx no longer yeah so back to the back to the thing yes so fdx does not long does not exist because they were involved in a scandal the scandal was basically involving reinvesting the money that people were putting into that company into another company they created and their company essentially was a cryptocurrency trading company, which is like a cryptocurrency bank or like a stock trading company, right? And in those situations, whether you're talking about a stock trading company or a bank, if you panic or if you have a moment where you need to decide to sell all of your stocks or pull all of your money out, those funds are typically available to you and have to be based on regulatory agencies demanding that those companies, those entities have those funds available to pay you out.

When FDX, when people found out FTX was reinvesting their money without their knowledge into another company they had opened, they understandably got upset, got a little panicked, went to pull their money out, and discovered that this money was no longer available. And so we're not talking was that other company called Diamond SportsC? Zing! No, it was not, but it might as well have been. But like FTX investors are furious because we're not talking about thousands of dollars lost. We're talking about billions of dollars loss, right? This is $11 billion fraud case now when it comes to FTX. And like you said,

imagine what the Diamondbacks could do with $11 billion. Billion with a B. Billion with a B. Like just remember like how crazy it is that million, the million versus billion things when it comes to seconds, right? Let me find it because it's wild to me. A million seconds is 12 days, a billion seconds, 31 years. Big difference there between millions and billions.

It's $11 billion, essentially fraud case. And like the biggest reason why MLB is being implicated in this class action lawsuit, along with Formula One racing, is that having those advertisements in MLB legitimized FTX as a company, especially, I think, when you talk about the fact that they put them on umpires, right? Like that takes it that extra step beyond just advertising again in the ballpark like any other company advertises or you know it's not a great look for baseball like you got your own fires walking around with like a totally like a logo of this company that's just buried in scandals. It's so wild right. And I mean you got to imagine that the fallout is going to cause sport leagues to rethink and like dealing with partnerships with any company like this that might be volatile any kind of cryptocurrency kind of situation. anything, right? Yeah. When you sit there and watch football on Sunday, a lot of the commercials are financial

companies in some way, financial investment firms, financial solutions companies, whatever the case may be, stock market stuff. But there is a lot of stuff that's advertised as partners with something like the NFL. And like, again, this, especially when you're doing it at the level of putting those ads on your officials, you know, that's, that's like got to be so embarrassing. But it goes beyond embarrassment. Now they're getting implicated in this lawsuit. Yeah, I mean, my big takeaway here, which something I don't really often think about is, you know, putting a patch or whatever on a uniform or any kind of advertisement in the ballpark.

It's not just an investment that that company is making in Major League Baseball. It's an investment that Major League Baseball is making in that company. Like, you have to make sure that anything that you're partnering up with as an ad partner, that it's reputable, that it's not going to suddenly fall off the face of the planet and have all sorts of issues. And then suddenly you look bad for having signed up with them as an ad partner, right? Something that I've never really thought about before. Well, and I mean, even here, right? Like we have a lot of advertising partners. And again, Max is still in here.

You know, he can hear me. So I'm going to say nice things about him. But the one thing that's beautiful here is that we do work with local companies that are trusted. There are companies that have been around for a number of years. But they're also companies that kind of go with what we do. Right. And like when it comes to when you get to the level of these sporting, you know, organizations and these teams and the leagues, like it kind of gets out of control because the spending is so crazy that you're not having, you know, a little, a little local beer company

advertise with you anymore. It has to be one of the biggest beer companies on the planet. You're not having, you know, a little local thing because you're generating so much revenue that the only companies that can advertise with you are the companies that are making millions and millions of and like that's it just gets you into a situation where the the partnerships are based on money and whoever is willing to pay that amount you're willing to partner with them and not really think about the consequences of if that company is reputable or if that company is someone that you really want your your league associated with especially in this capacity something i learned today when when researching this i had no idea minute made park was apparently once known as enron field Yes, it was. Yes, it was. I was like, I was like an infant when the Saturday was like, I think it was like 1999 or something.

Oh, man. But yeah. And then after selling their naming rights to Enron, Minut made, or the Houston Astros, of course, had to go and get their naming rights back. They couldn't have Enron being the name of their facility after everything was exposed. And so I think they paid, I read it was like $2.3 million just to be rid of Enron as their naming rights. partner, which absolutely blows my mind.

I guess the debacks are safe. Like Chase Bank is, I mean, I don't know, maybe Chase Bank is not necessarily the, I guess maybe there's some controversy there as well, but they've been around for a billion years. So we based our mascot's name on the fact that the company was once called Bank One. Let's not forget. So there's a lot of stuff there. But I mean, yeah, like you said, though, it goes the other way, too. It goes with when it comes to those companies like investing in players, right?

that players go through scandals and they had deals with Nike and all this other stuff and that's when you see those sponsors all drop off. I think the one thing here is that at the end of the day, most people don't really blame MLB for FTCS, you know, and it's failures. But there are investors in FTCS that believe that they were, you know, that this company was validated by the partnership with MLB. And I think they might have a case on their hands. So again, I think this is going to be interesting on how it impacts the business of sports going forward,

especially when it comes to like cryptocurrency finance and things like that that are still kind of brand new to us without really knowing what they're getting themselves into. I mean, all of those cryptocurrency commercials have gone away. But my God, it was every commercial there for a little while during, you know, a lot of sporting events and things. So it's just a fast-paced kind of changing situation. but we'll see what happens when it comes to that class action lawsuit in MLB. I will say this. If you need to refill after all of that talk about money, great place to do that is Circle K because you'll save yourself some money.

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It also has zero calories, zero sugar, and no alcohol. So if you're looking for an alternative for any of those things, check out Wink. It tastes like your favorite refreshing flavored seltzer. And it's available now in either in a 2.5 milligram or 5 milligram can. You can find Wink right here. Arizona look for wink at all Sunday good dispensaries in the valley and botanica dispensaries in Tucson you can also save money online by going to drink wink that's wynk dot com and use promo code p h nx for 20% off uh well that is all we have for today but tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow is a good

day tomorrow's a great day tomorrow's a great day because right here in studio we are going to be joined by Arizona diamondbacks reliever Kevin ginkle the gink Let's go! Fire me up! You're going to need to build new brick walls in this office for me to run through because I'm going to need a lot of them to run through. So, yeah, Kevin Gingle will be here with us in studio tomorrow. Make sure to join us at 1 p.m. for that. I hope it's as excellent as we anticipate it is going to be. In the meantime, you can follow us on Twitter.

I'm at Kapp underscore Caveman with a K. Jesse is at Jesse and Friedman. Of course, the people's producer, Damon is at Damon Dog. That's D-A-W-G. We are Damon's dogs. Park Park. You can follow our show at PH&X underscore D-Backs, but of course, all roads duly to at PH&X underscore sports on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. We appreciate you guys so much for stopping by. We always are thankful for your time. We will see you tomorrow. And until then,

remember kids, baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun when you just let us spend as much money as we want to spend this off-season.