PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Is Brandon Pfaadt the frontrunner for the Diamondbacks starting rotation after a solid spring debut?

Episode Date: February 28, 2023

After a weekend of long, high scoring losses, Brandon Pfaadt helped the Arizona Diamondbacks get back on track with a solid performance and the shortest baseball game we’ve ever attended. Is Pfaadt already emerging as the frontrunner for the final spot in the D-backs rotation?BUY D-BACKS TICKETS HERE: https://gametime.hnyj8s.net/c/3442941/1410622/10874 SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports PHNX: Make sure to get your hands on our new “Slim Valley Reaper” t-shirt! Go to https://phnxlocker.com/products/slim-valley-reaper now!DraftKings: Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app now (https://bit.ly/3Jl1dMX), use promo code PHNX and make your first deposit of FIVE DOLLARS and get TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS in BONUS BETS INSTANTLY! Gambling Problem? Call 877-8-HOPENY/text HOPENY (467369) (NY), If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, crisis counseling and referral services can be accessed by calling 1-800-GAMBLER (1-800-426-2537) (CO/IL/IN/LA/MD/MI/NJ/OH/PA/TN/WV/WY), 1-800-NEXT STEP (AZ), 1-800-522-4700 (KS/NH), 888-789-7777/visit ccpg.org (CT), 1-800-BETS OFF (IA), visit OPGR.org (OR), or 1-888-532-3500 (VA).21+ (18+ NH/WY). Physically present in AZ/CO/CT/IL/IN/IA/KS/LA(select parishes)/MD/MI /NJ/ NY/OH/PA/TN/VA/WV/WY only. VOID IN ONT. Eligibility restrictions apply. BONUS bets: Valid 1 per new customer. Min. $5 deposit. Min $5 bet. $200 issued as bonus bets that expire 7 days (168 hours) after being awarded.  See terms at sportsbook.draftkings.com/basketballlterms.Rotowire: All the best fantasy news and updates at https://rotowire.com/phnx OGeez!: Learn more about OGeez! at https://ogeezbrands.com//. Must be 21 years or older to purchase.Underdog Fantasy: Sign up for Underdog Fantasy today! Go to the link https://play.underdogfantasy.com/p-phnx and use promo code “PHNX” to receive a deposit match up to $100Four Peaks: Drink, eat, find, and experience Four Peaks at https://www.fourpeaks.com/.  Must be 21 or older. Enjoy responsibly. Bad Birdie: Use code “PHNXBB15” for 15% off your next order https://glnk.io/7qnq/phnx-sportsMor Furniture: Save up to 50% all through the holidays! Check out https://morfurniture.comRoman: Go to https://ro.co/PHNX today to get 20% off your entire first order. 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 to another edition of the PHNX D-Backs podcast right here on PHNX. And guess what? Baseball games have been played this time. We get to talk about that stuff. Of course, I'm your mayor of PHNX, occasionally known as Derek Montia. This sick boy next to me is the vice mayor. He's also the thunder sick, Jesse Friedman. I'm just warning everyone that my hearing is currently at about 60%.

Yeah. When I flew in from Seattle last night, you know, your ears are like, they're supposed to pop at some point, like after you land and that never happened. So if it sounds like I'm like yelling at an obnoxious volume at any point during this show, I assure you it's just because I can only hear like 60% of myself right now. He keeps reminding me not to touch him because he's sick. And then I keep wanting to high five him because we watched a baseball game that was two hours and four minutes today. I wasn't high-fiving him over a D-Backs win. That goes out to the press people. I want you guys to know this.

That was over the time of game and not over the D-Backs win. But of course, this show is not only brought to you by victory, but it's brought to you by the fine folks at the Drafking Sportsbook app. America's top-rated sportsbook app. I just want to flush everything else that happened this weekend down the toilet. I want to flush the 42 runs that they let score in three baseball games down the toilet. I want to flush the fact that all of those games, were somehow still over three hours.

Well, when you give up 42 runs, of course, they're over three hours. But I really just want to say, I love the pitch clock. Oh, I love the pitch clock so much, Jesse. The pitch clock is the greatest thing ever, you guys. Oh, man, it was so good. But anyway, yeah, Ben says the show wasn't as good without Jesse, but it was pretty good. Sorry, Darren. You're not wrong.

I told him in a text message that he's not allowed to go away anywhere soon. but he also brings back a cold with him, so I'm kind of sick, sick of that. Ben also says that Emmanuel Rivera Homer was absolutely destroyed, and yes, what we saw today was a pitching duel that ended with the Diamondbacks having a walk-off win, a three-run Homer by Emmanuel Rivera in the bottom of the ninth that not only won the game, but clinched the shortest time of game I've ever seen of actual baseball that was nine innings being played. Yeah, I mean, I think it probably is for me. me too. Like, I don't remember ever going to a major league game that was nine innings that went

the, I mean, two hours and four minutes. Like, are you kidding me? We were joking at one point about it being a two hour game, but we knew that wasn't going to happen, like, especially because we had said that in the moment. We were kind of on pace for it. Like throughout most of the game, I was like, nah, we're, we're definitely going to have an eighth inning that goes like 25 minutes or something to set us off pace. But that never happened somehow. And obviously, there wasn't a whole lot of offense in this game, Emmanuel Rivera three-run Homer, that walked off this game was the only offense that we actually saw the entire way, at least as far as actually scoring runs goes. But it was a fun game. I mean, the Diamondbacks, obviously Brandon fought probably the biggest story from this one.

We'll talk about him. But there were a lot of pictures on the D-back side in this game that I thought looked really good. Scott McGuff. We got to see him. We got to see Justin Martinez throw 102 miles an hour in this game. 100 miles. He was just sitting at 100 miles an hour. Yeah, he touched 100 and two and he literally like sat 100. I think his, uh, uh, the pitch that he threw softest in the entire outing was 99.8, if I'm not mistaken. So, uh, Justin Martinez absolutely brought the heat. And he threw some pretty nice splitters along the way. So he looked awfully good as well. I know from sitting near him that Brent Strom was very, very pleased with everything that he saw out of the pitchers today.

But the big story like Jesse said was Brandon fought. He was outstanding. today. Obviously, the big reason why this is going to not only be a big story today, but it's going to continue to be a story is that fought is in the running potentially for that fifth rotation spot. And after what we saw out of him today, it's hard to say that he is not currently kind of in the lead based on his, I guess, the other guys that are in the race and their performances over this past weekend, not looking so great. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we've seen everyone once now, right? All the guys that it appears are in the running for this fifth rotation spot. We've now seen all of them. We saw Tommy Henry. We saw Ryan Nelson. We saw Drey Jameson. And today we saw Brandon Fought.

Two guys out of those four have separated themselves quite a bit, right? Drey Jameson and Brandon Fought both were very effective in their two innings. Ryan Nelson and Tommy Henry, not so much. They both got lit up a little bit, at least in the box score. So I don't know if I would say Brandon Fought is in the lead. I don't know if I would say Drey Jammison is in the lead. At this point, it's probably way too early, you know, off of one outing off of literally about 20 to 30 pitches to really be, you know, deciding who's in the lead. Like, you can't really rank these guys after one turn. I absolutely am going to rank the number one turn. But yeah, I mean, if you're Derek, then you probably will.

I do. I rank everything, Jesse. I rank beers in the beer fridge. I'm going to rank everything here. And yes, it does go wow wheat and then followed by Hopnott and then everything else. But anyway. Yeah, no, Brandon Fonlech. though he looked outstanding today.

Talk to Jesse about what was working today as far as his pitches go. Now just pound in the zone. I think that was the main point, being aggressive. It's spring training, so you're trying to show all your pitches, kind of develop them before the season starts. So that was kind of the main goal today. And yeah, obviously with everything, you know, that Brandon Fott still has to show.

I think that's the one thing that probably separates Jay Jameson a little bit is that I feel like the Diamondbacks, in every case, at least to start the season, want to go with experience. And that's the one thing that might give Dre the edge a bit there. He did perform exceptionally well at the end of the last season. Already had his debut, whereas Fought could still make that debut. But as Gabriel Farrer said in the comments, Fought is too good to be wasting away in the minors. And I kind of agree with that. And again, it is just one game. One game I'm very excited about because Fought helped kill. contribute to this wonderful two-hour and four-minute game time. But it was also just the way that he worked. He worked efficiently. He worked quickly. His fastball was outstanding. And again, we got one of

the questions about it, but he was throwing a really heavy, you know, fastball that was hard to hit. And it just looked like he was, looks like he was ready. You know what I mean? That's what it looked like. Yeah. Yeah, I think there was some adrenaline. He had been at afterwards. There was definitely some nervousness coming into this outing, which you'd expect. He did make a spring training start last season. So this isn't his first. But, but like this year, he's really genuinely in the running for a rotation spot, whereas last year was just, you know, kind of a go get him. You know, he got nothing to lose, that kind of a situation where he's really competing for something. You definitely saw that nervousness a little bit. I thought his early on, his fastball, he was spraying

around just a little bit. But you could definitely see he settled in. And you can see why people, are as excited about Brandon Fott as they are. He just has this steady presence on the mound. And like you said, he was, he was quick. He was efficient, 23 pitches over two innings. You're certainly not mad about that. He got a double play ball by noted ground ball artist, Eric Cosmer, who is in the middle of the Cubs lineup today. But yeah, I don't think that was just Eric Cosmer and his propensity for hitting ground balls. I think Brandon Fought executed. Bit of a column A, bit of call him. Yeah, yeah. Brandon Fott did execute some solid pitches. in this game. I think he got four swings and misses.

So yeah, what I will say about going back to the conversation about this fifth rotation spot and how this will ultimately shake out, unfortunately, either Brandon Fought or Drey Jameson, it's kind of setting the other two guys aside for the moment. One of those two guys is going to start the year in the minor leagues. There's really no way around that, right?

They're two, both of them are too good and too valuable for the debacks to put them in the bullpen. I don't see that being a possibility. So barring some sort of injury, I think that's just how this is going to shake out. And, you know, Nelson and Henry are certainly still in the mix. I don't want to count them out, like I said before. But all I know is DeBax fans are going to riot one way or the other, whether it's Jameson or fought along with the other guys. People are not going to be happy to see them starting the year in the minors. But we will see both of them, I am sure, at some point this season.

Well, and we've seen some young guys pressing when it comes to the bullpen, like you said earlier. Justin Martinez definitely making a very loud case for him to be a part of the Diamondbacks bullpen. And as it stands, when you look at the depth chart now, it doesn't look like Justin Martinez right now is factored in, but absolutely could win a spot in the bullpen. Corbyn is another name. Jesse actually talked about Corbyn potentially being like a longer reliever if he would kind of be a one-plus kind of guy. Tori talked about how he used a lot of guys for one-plus last season with the DH being newly implemented. such. But yeah, I think that the one thing that we saw today, at least bullpen-wise,

is that a lot of the options that they've brought up or have brought to this team were very effective and looked very good. It looked promising. Cautiously optimistic about the bullpen going forward. Yeah, I mean, like we said at the top of the show, like there were a lot of guys who pitched really well today. Corbyn Martin pitched really well. Justin Martinez, like you said, I mean, just, you know, touching 102 miles an hour, 11 pitches, I think eight of them are strikes. And that's really the key with Martinez, right? We've seen some guys show off some big stuff in years past. But Justin Martinez was actually commanding it reasonably well in his outing today.

So he's certainly going to be a name to watch. Scott McGuff, I thought, looked pretty solid as well coming out of the bullpen. He threw a 12 pitch, pretty easy inning. during this game, Joe Mantiply looked good as well. He threw nine pitches in his inning. It's good to see some of these guys who you're really expecting to actually be a factor in the bullpen potentially do well. We saw a whole lot of relievers really struggle over the weekend. Frankly, if you go down the list of all those guys, not many of them are actually going to make the opening day roster when all is said and done. Whereas today, you saw guys who really do

have a shot to make the opening day roster and those guys pitch really, really well. And the debacks turned it around, like we said, the weekend wasn't so great. We had a chance to meet Sean Roof, which is the manager of the Emeril of Saad Poodles. Shout out to Sean, who told us he checks out the show. It's awesome. Always awesome. It's always like unbelievable dust to hear that from especially managers and such within the organization. But he also said after the game when we saw him that now that our conversation and meeting brought the team good luck.

So I guess I got to go dapp up Sean Roof. Sean Roof, yeah. We'll go find him every day. Because we don't want the Diamondbacks going back through what they went through this weekend, giving up 42 runs in three games. The worst loss being to the San Diego Padres, which that one just, that one hurt. That one hurt bad. That Padres lineup is scary. I know it's spring training.

It's so scary. Like, it's so awful. And now we have this news that Manny Machado has agreed to an extension with the team. I don't know where they get the many. Stop asking me, all right? I have my own suspicions about drug cartels and I have connections to the Cayman Islands, but I don't know because these were the San Diego Padres. These were the lowly Padres, right?

That's something that was thrown around at us at one point. A lot of people that are my age will tell you that they still can't believe that the San Diego Padres are the team spending money like this. We've just grown used to them being this team that existed and kind of had some cool, you know, logos and colors, some stuff. going on. Tony Gwynn played for him, right? Yeah, that kind of stuff, right? But in the long run, nothing that has ever been like scary as far as a franchise goes. Now they're just terrifying. Like the things that we saw in that game make it hard for me to have hope for the future in this division. Like the only thing that I'm thankful for is the new schedule where we will not be playing the San Diego Padres nearly as much. And again, Mani Machado thing takes the

the entire idea of him coming to the debacks, which we were sure about happening off the table. And I hate that. Yeah. I mean, it makes me think back to days, kind of like you're saying, where like the Padres used to be kind of boring, you know? Like, those were the days, right? The Padres are no longer boring. They, it feels like it's only a matter of time at this point before they, they cut a similar

deal with Juan Soto. I have a hard time seeing Peter Seidler and that ownership. group letting Juan Soto walk. I think he's probably destined for a big season. That's not a crazy hot take. He didn't play particularly well after the trade last year. But if anyone's going to bounce back

in 2023, Juan Soto's going to bounce back. I mean, we know he's that good. And yeah, in that lineup the other day, we didn't even see Fernando Tatis. Of course, he's going to miss a few weeks to start the year. But eventually he factors in as well. And yes, along with Manny Machado,

almost all these guys are are under team control for an absurd length of time. So it might not work out great. I mean, in the end, and a decade from now, maybe the Padres regret that, you know, they've got all these guys in their upper 30s approaching their 40s,

still with the Padres. But yeah, Mani Machado still at the top of his game. I don't see them regretting this one anytime soon. Again, it's interesting because of where the Diamondbacks are. Here we are talking about Brandon Fott and how he factors in. Yeah. And you look at that Padres lineup, even, you know, when they pick up a guy like Michael Waka who isn't, you know, like you said, his best days might be behind him.

He's not great. Yeah. But at the same time, you know, again, that's the thing is their pitching staff and everything is so good that they don't really need him. It just further adds depth to a team that depth might be the one area that you say that they lack. And they're adding depth too. So it's just unfair all around. It's unfair all around. But the Diamondbacks have plenty of depth, and their depth is coming from youth.

And that's the one thing that's great about seeing Brandon Fock go out there today, have the great outing that he had. He was asked about basically, you know, competing for this fifth rotation spot. And, of course, he's going to give, you know, an answer like this because there is only so much that he has control over. I kind of just telling myself to control what I can control and go out there and pitch the best I can, whatever happens. happens and we'll see if in the spring training.

I'm trying to teach myself to do that, Jesse. I told you to text messages. I'm trying to just control what I can control and let the rest happens. But I'm not that person. I'm not cut from that cloth. I want to get angry about things that I have zero control over. Traffic. I don't know.

Planes being late. All that stuff. I just want to be so furious about everything. The day that Derek Montia operates with that kind of mindset, that would be a pretty, I can't imagine. I don't know. In the meantime, I'll still be getting security to throw people out of the inning's best for putting their hands on me. Yeah. That actually happened. I do,

I do kind of feel for Brandon Fott, though, being in this situation because we were having a similar conversation at the end of last year, right? Brandon Fott was doing everything you could possibly ask him to do to get a late season call up. Yeah. And instead of calling up the guy who has a two and a half ERA and leads minor league baseball and strikeouts, The Diamondbacks were like, hey, Dre Jameson in that, you know, seven and a half ERA. Like, yeah, let's bring him up here. And, you know, Ryan Nelson's numbers weren't much better. Of course, those guys wound up performing extremely well down the stretch.

And I think, you know, those were both good moves when it was all said and done. But Brandon Fott's kind of been waiting his turn here for a while. And yeah, whether he's the frontrunner right now, I don't know. I still feel like, kind of like you were saying earlier, the Diamondbacks seem to value the experience. and there's kind of a pecking order here. I think the fact that Trey Jamison has already pitched some in the big leagues, maybe gives him the edge, along with Ryan Nelson and Tommy Henry, of course, you know, if they're able to bounce back in future outings.

So, you know, it might still be kind of a waiting game for Brandon Fott. But, I mean, if he pieces together a few more outings like this one, there has to be some level of performance that he could reach in spring training where the D-backs are like, okay, fine. We'll just start. We'll just open the year with you. Look, you're good. Okay.

Well, yeah. Eventually, the debacks are going to have to give in and call him up. Whether that's opening day or not, of course, we'll have to wait and see. Well, Stefan Kreitin actually is a name that has been vital to this team, I would say, at times. But also has had his ups and downs as a member of the staff. Tori Lovalo announced today that Stefan Creighton has retired for Major League Baseball. So when it comes to how crowded. the Diamondback's bullpen was and how crowded, you know, what they were going to do for some of these options.

There's one less option for Lavello. And he had some very nice things to say about Crichton and this decision that he's made. Before I let you guys go, Stefan Crichton has decided to retire. So I had a conversation with him a couple mornings ago. And he came in and just explained to me that it was time for him to turn. turn the page and take the next journey of the next part of his journey away from baseball. So it was a very sad conversation for me

because I know what he's offered this organization and he laid it out there for us and he got injured and he kept trying to come back and he felt like it was just time. Like it was something he felt in his heart for a long time. So part of me was sad but a part of me was excited for him because he was very convicted in this decision. and he's going to go in a different direction and be very successful. He's a special human being.

He did some very special things for this organization. And we're proud that he was a part of it. And I wish him nothing but the best moving forward. Appreciate that. Yeah, Spon Crighton at one time was kind of in the running. He closed games. He closed games for this team. He had five.

He was closer. He had five saves in 2020. He had four saves in 2021, a year that didn't ultimately go very well for him. But then he got hurt. And unfortunately, it's something that happens a lot for guys where they get hurt and it's hard to bounce back. But yeah, I mean, in 2020, Stefan Kreiton was the best reliever the Diamondbacks had. I mean, it was pretty good, right? 26 inning, seven runs, nine walks, 23 strikeouts at 2.42 ERA, save five games.

He was like the Diamondbacks closer for a span of time there between 2020 and 2021. And he's been in the organization ever since. but unfortunately things didn't quite work out for him. Ben says having a rotation with perfect health is unlikely. Who's to say that he won't make it sometime in 2023? And I don't know if that's in relation to the previous comment about Justin Martinez or about Brandon Fott. But either way, yes. I think Justin Martinez and Brandon Fott are both going to be a major part of this team before the end of this season.

Yeah, Martinez probably not in the rotation. So I'm assuming we're talking about running five. Yeah, I'm having a rotation. You're right. You're right. You're right. Reading is hard. Words are hard.

You guys know everything's hard for me. What if, how many innings do you think Justin Martinez could maintain the VLO for? Like, could Justin Martinez build up to the point where he's thrown 102 in the seventh inning? That'd be, that'd be pretty cool. For maybe four innings? I'll take him as a starter. This is why you're not the manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks. They always tell me that.

Hey, that guy looks good. Let's see if we could pitch nine in eight days today. You know what? You're in. that's the way I manage But of course, that's because I've been drinking, and you should too. Grab yourself some Four Peaks Brewing Company beers,

wherever you get your beers. Go down to their 8th Street pub. I don't know if anybody went and got in on the beer can derby on our behalf. But I hope if you did, you had a PHNX sticker on the side, and you cheated. That's the most important part is I wanted you to cheat. But there are spring training tours over at the 8th Street Pub through March. So make sure to check them out over at Four Peaks Brew on Twitter.

Remember, there are calendars at 4Peaks.com slash events for all your beer week entertainment. And our friends at Four Peaks will be out at the M3F Festival, March 3rd and 4th. Jesse, do you know what that is? The M3F Festival? No. I believe it's an electronic music festival, if I'm not mistaken. Yes, I'm getting the nod from our guy, Sean Paz, who of course knows. There are actually some decently, like, decent artists.

Charlie 92 is going to be there. There's like a few artists that people might actually, no, it's not your. you know, just some random music festival. Like there's some, there's some solid names there. Actually, I mean, even at like, I've noticed that with even like Budzapalooza this year, there's some great artists coming to that. So make sure to check out those events. I just was at Innings Fest and the lineup was incredible.

So there's all sorts of wonderful events, especially around this time of year. But like I said, they will be out at M3 Festival, March 3rd and 4th. So grab your tickets at M3Fest.com and enjoy a wow wheat beer while you're there. Hell yeah. Must be 21 years or older to enjoy it and enjoy response. Also, baseball season is upon us and you know, I know, Jesse knows, we all know, you do not want to be involved in a fantasy baseball season for the entire season. Let's be honest. Let's just. There was a time. There was a time when I did. And that's when he was like 12. Yeah. All the time in the world. I had all the time in the world. Oh, remember those days. I had like, I didn't just have one league, Derek. I had like four. That's fucking gross to me. And I don't even want to hear. I don't know how I managed it. But even even even even if you're. Even if you're. I didn't even if you. who had no job. I don't understand how you would have time for that. But Underdog does daily fantasy sports differently. And of course, they offer the option for you to grab five of your

friends, pick up to six players, no positional limits, NBA, Major League Baseball, football, whatever you want. Make sure to grab that and whoever wins, wins some cold hard cash at the end of the night. And we are riding on pitch counts in 2023. I've told you guys that. We're going to get together on Twitter. I'll throw out my picks. You guys, maybe we'll just agree on them together, or whatever. We're going to ride on pitch counts and win some money. And it's this easy to get started.

Go to underdog fantasy.com or download the app. Sign up with promo code PHNX and Underdog will match your first deposit up to $100. Jesse, we don't have a lot of time. We got a lot of stuff going on. We got a lot of pitch clock shenanigans.

We got the baseball game that was exciting. But you know what? The two hours and four minutes gave us some extra time. I looked at Jesse and the first thing I said was we just got an hour back of our lives that we wouldn't have gotten back. Do we even like baseball, Derek?

Like, I swear you just want the game to end as soon as possible. No, I want baseball to be reasonable, all right? And today was great. Like, today aired on the other, like, it was too short, but I'm fine with that. You're going to want two outs instead of three pretty soon? Is that what's next? So it's seven innings? Yeah, seven innings, two outs.

Mark Salaires here. He says, pitch count 2023. By the way, great seeing Mark. Me and Mark have everything in common, by the way. We like professional wrestling. We like baseball. We like watching. Jesse get beat in ping pong, and we love magic.

And we got to see Penn and Teller this weekend. That was great. But that was this weekend. And that was then. This is now. And of course, you know, every week on this goddamn show is Shark Week. Every day on this show is Earth Day. And every Monday, regardless of if baseball games are being played.

And if they're two hours, three hours or four hours, we go to the mailbag. Sean, let's go. Always something interesting in my mailbox. I try to get to everything in my mailbox. And then once in a while there's a letter that makes me go. Oh, wow. Mikaela Decker in the comment says, I think Ryan still has a shot if he performs better in his next start.

Absolutely agree. I am the one that jumps to conclusions very quickly. Tori Loblo is not. Jesse is very reasonable and level head. I am not. He just couldn't, from what I've heard, Ryan Nelson was just really struggling with his breaking stuff. He just had a hard time landing his breaking stuff.

And we saw at times last year when he got a little over-reliant on his fastball. And he didn't throw that many fastballs necessarily. but the breaking stuff just wasn't all that effective because he just couldn't command it. So yeah, but he's definitely still got a shot for sure. All right, Sean, first question, what do we got? First question comes from Larry Jones. Larry asked, as I mentioned in the Discord chat,

the home run that Perdomo hit over the weekend was harder than any other ball he's hit in the majors. He said he wanted to add strength over the offseason. Do you know if he succeeded? The one batted ball is super encouraging. Again, Jesse's reasonable. I jump to conclusions. Larry, I'm 100% with you.

Geraldo Pardomo is going to hit 40 home runs. Our wrist king is here. No, but yeah, he did look bigger. There's a lot of guys that kind of look in better shape one way or another. Prudomo looks bigger. We talked about some of the guys. I think somebody in the chat said some of the guys look slimmer.

Completely agree. Carson Kelly looks slimmer. I think Brandon Fott kind of slimmed down. We also had, Jesse and I were talking about that Madison Bumgarter looks leaner as well. Like, he doesn't, he was quite big. last year, but it wasn't like hefty big. He was like muscular and he does look like leaner now.

So hopefully that leads to some more success for Madbun this year. But what are your thoughts, Jesse? Perdomo hitting more home runs is, of course, a good thing. Yeah, yeah. I think it's a good thing. More per damn power. Yeah, yeah. More homers is better than less homers.

No, yeah, it was interesting. Perdomo hit that home run against a lefty, I believe. and last season he did not homer against a lefty the entire year. Of course, he's a switch hitter. So most of his powers come batting left-handed against righties. It's interesting, though. I mean, if you look at his splits last year, he actually had a higher OPS against lefties despite not ever hitting a home run.

But yes, yes, the risk king, of course. But yeah, yeah, I think it's a big thing for Pardomo, getting a little bit stronger. I can't personally speak to how much. stronger he is, how much weight he's put on necessarily. He doesn't look entirely like a different person necessarily, but adding strength is definitely an important thing for him because last year, frankly, he just didn't hit the ball that hard. When pitches were in the strike zone, Geraldo Perdomo would, he would be a little bit overwhelmed at times. So when he would put the ball in play, it just didn't go as far. And the exit velos were not as high as what you need to see from

an everyday player. So yeah, hopefully some of those things turn around for him this year. All right. What else we got? Gabriel at Boldis Bronze asks,

what makes Fott's fastball so heavy? The speed or the spin? Well, I can tell you this much. We asked him that, and he said he doesn't know. So it doesn't sound like Brandon Fott cares very much for analytics or a lot of the things

that Jesse literally just covets and writes at night on a little pad of paper just for himself out of excitement. But Fott, we talked about his spin rate being one of the best spin rates in baseball. Yeah, yeah, we shared the video once again today. If you haven't seen it, go check out our, go check out our Twitter profile at PHNX underscore DVax. We posted our diamond mind video that we made a few months ago, detailing Brandon Fott's game.

And specifically, we touched on the spin rates as you were just talking about. I believe the spin rate on his four seamer was even higher today in his outing than it was last season from the data that we saw in AAA. Good luck hitting that. But like Jesse was telling me, though, at the game today, like one of the things about the spin rate really is it's more about how it changes the pitch shape and changes the movement of the pitch more than just the spinning, right? You can have a high spin rate, but if the pitch isn't moving, it's really not doing much to affect the pitch. the batter's ability to hit it or some of those things that Brandon Fott has success with. So a lot of it, I think, is about Brandon Fott's pitch shape, which you talked about in that video quite a bit.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to make it sound like, oh, high spin rate equals like Sy Young winner or something. You know, obviously it's, he said it. You heard. It's a little more complicated than that. Generally speaking, pitchers with higher spin rates, pitches with higher spin rates have more movement. And specifically more like late movement, it tends to kind of jump on guys in a way that

other pitches don't. So the fact that thought has, you know, those pretty eye-popping numbers with specifically is four seamer and a slider, you know, those are great things. However, what we don't know necessarily, we don't have the data for, at least I don't have the data for, is how much of that spin is actually translating to movement. Some guys have high spin rates, but it doesn't necessarily translate as well as other guys who use their spin more efficiently. and maybe have a lower spin rate. An example would be Ryan Nelson, who we've talked about is having maybe the best fastball

of any Diamondbacks minor league or at least in terms of the life on the pitch. Nelson's spin rate is actually quite a bit lower than thoughts, but his efficiency with that spin is off the charts extremely high. And so there's an example of a guy who's spin rate isn't necessarily that high, but the movement is crazy because how much of that spin is actually, contributing to it. So we'll have to see. We'll have to get a little bit more data on FOD before we fully understand it. But suffice it to say, his four seamer is pretty darn good and it looked pretty darn good today. Next question. Let's go on. Sean, what are we got? Brighton Bobbitt on Twitter

at BB underscore Nitro asked. It's obviously early still, but is there anyone that's surprising you so far this spring can be a positive surprise or a negative surprise? Well, I'm going to say from what we saw today, Catele-Marté looks outstanding. Yeah. Tertel Marte is back, y'all. Defensively, he made a spectacular play. Christian Walker also looks in mid-season form. It's incredible how, like, how effortless that guy makes playing first base look.

Yeah. He had some pretty insane scoops today over there first. I mean, it's incredible. And he makes it look so easy and effortless when he does it. But Cotel Marte, he, Tore talked after the game about him, looking, you know, like feeling stretched out, his legs feeling really good. So these are all very positive signs because really, you know, as much as we want to hold his defense against him last year, I really feel like it was the injuries that were holding him back and also still adjusting to playing,

you know, back at second base, which now he is there, he is playing there. And again, I think that's one of the other questions we got. But we'll get to that. But Cattel look great. Yeah, yeah. he was definitely a guy on my list too. I wouldn't necessarily say I'm blown away by anything I've seen offensively. Not that I'm disappointed offensively. Oh, he was frustrated. Today we heard him verbally like, getting upset about striking out. I think he swung at a pitch that he didn't want to swing at in a three to count at one point.

We wound up striking out. So, yeah, offensively, I mean, we haven't seen enough to say much. But yeah, the play that he made in the early innings of the game today was a play that, frankly, I don't think he would have gotten close to making last year. year. He looks significantly more agile. It looks like maybe his lower half is a little bit leaner. He's able to get around a little bit better. So that's huge for the debacks. Even if Ketel, you know, doesn't become a 900 OPS guy again, he's able to get some of that offense back from last year and play even just an average defense at second base. That would be a really positive development.

And like Ben says, S tier hair, S tier hair on Ketel this season. Yeah. Yeah. And it is. It's mostly about him getting on base more. I feel like that is actually the thing that I think, Yeah. And I think he doesn't have to do as much. I think there was a period of time where Ketel really did feel that shift to it being on his shoulders. And I don't think that he has that anymore with the support that he has now, the young guys. And I think, like, that's one thing that's hilarious to me. You guys think that, like, the rest of the team doesn't know how special the young guys are.

They absolutely, fucking glutely know, like, we can't talk to them without them bringing up the young guys in some way, shape or form. So they're very excited about playing with Alec Thomas and Corbyn Carol and Jake McCarthy and they give them their flowers any chance they get. And they talk often about how fast they are. And honestly, they also talk about how they're kind of pushing the envelope when it comes to the whole team. I feel like again, they know that those guys are there to potentially take the positions from them. And these guys are, you know, it's competition is good for everybody, you know. Yeah. I don't know if anyone's necessarily, you know, coming for Catell's spot at second base.

I think that's true. That's probably fairly safe. But they do have all the praise for the younger guys. And I think again, when it comes to Catell, it's more about taking the pressure off of him as the guy that needs to do it offensively, knowing that he has a great team surrounding him now. Yeah. Another name that I would bring up as far as surprise is,

I guess this one's also on the positive side. I don't necessarily want to say surprise. But Corbyn Martin, we've heard specifically about his performance in a live BP session where he looked really good. We saw him in an actual Cactus League game for the first time today. I thought he looked solid. He wasn't necessarily, you know, he didn't necessarily blow me away or anything. But based on what we've heard from Tori Lavello about him so far,

combined with a pretty solid inning in the game today, makes me think that Corbyn Martin is like a guy. Like he could factor into the bullpen situation for the Diamondbacks. And I don't know if we came into spring training really with him even on the radar. Like, let's face it, he's kind of been this failed starter that, you know, has made a couple of appearances in the big leagues. It hasn't really looked that great. And the miners last year's numbers weren't very good. But the debacks have told him this year, like, we want you to focus on being a reliever, which is a hard thing for a lot of starters to hear.

It's something that a lot of starters, of course, don't want to ever experience. But I think once you kind of get over that hump and you embrace, like, okay, this is the. role that I'm in now. You can adjust your arsenal a little bit. You can simplify. You can throw a little bit harder. And in the early returns for Corbyn Martin seem to be good. It seems like he's kind of narrowing down on fastball curveball as being his two main pitches. We heard about him hitting 97 in live BP. I think it was 96.3 or something today. But either way, I mean, I think with those two pitches, he has a chance to be a solid reliever. And he was, he was getting guys to swing and miss in live BP. That was the most important thing. His out pitch especially looked extraordinary. We have some video of that on our Twitter

account. So check that out over at PHNX underscore DBAX. But yeah, I mean, not too many. I don't think there's too many negatives yet. I want to say that we haven't had a chance to see many people. I'm sure people are disappointed by what we saw Tommy Henry and Ryan Nelson this this weekend. Yeah. I think negatives, those are probably the main ones. But it's so, I mean, it's such a small sample that it's hard to really call anything a negative or a positive at this point. I mean, it's just... I'm calling lots of things positive. I mean, like, imagine...

No, I am. Imagine, like, you evaluating, like, during the regular season, evaluating a starting pitcher after two innings. Do it. Like, it doesn't matter. Like, if your first two innings are kind of a disaster or if your first two innings are great, like, that doesn't necessarily mean the whole outing is going to be that way.

So that we're still at that point right now. And the wildest thing about spring training, is, and this is completely honest, this is completely true. You could give up six runs and there's still tons of positives that Tori LeBullo could find in your own, right? Like so it really isn't about the runs. It isn't about the hits. It isn't about, there's other things that they're looking at the stuff, how well the stuff plays, how coachable you are, and how much you can adapt to those situations. Another big thing with Tori is, is how these guys react to these negative outings, to these, when they give up those big runs.

Can you come back out and get some more outs for them after having a big inning where you gave up a lot of runs? These are the things that matter to Tori more than necessarily what the box score says. So that's the reason why spring training you can't always take the bad outings and say like this, like I said earlier, that this needs to be flushed, right? Like I don't want to think about these weekend games, especially three hours and all of those runs being scored after, you know, what we saw today. But, you know, Tori has to take something away and he can't be like me. He can't just rush to judgment based on two innings of work from some of these guys. But he leaves that up to me. Tori knows I'm quick to judge.

You would have demoted like half the guys down to minor league camp at this point. We would already have the roster trimmed down. No doubt in my mind. What else we got, Sean? All right. Kevin Simian says, will we see Cattel play second base full time this season with spot starts at centerfield? We will never see Cotel play center field ever again.

Wow. I don't know how. Why? Why would we? Why would we? Why do we need to? Do we ever need to see Catell in Centerfield ever again? No, I mean, I think I agree with you. I'm just, you come out very emphatic. I was so strong with that. I guess if I actually asked Tori that question, I absolutely did not. I'm just saying based on my experience with Tori and Cotel and the options, why? Why would the options that they have would Cotel ever go back out to centerfield? Yeah. I mean, frankly, and you know, we have seen Cotel make some improvement. defensively, it looks like, at least from what we've seen so far. Sure. But if you have a guy who grades out as a subpar second baseman, probably don't want to put that guy in centerfield, right? That's not usually how this works. I think maybe in a grave emergency situation,

maybe the Diamondbacks would throw Catel in center again, but they have their share of center fielers, right? Everyone, basically, that we project to be a starting outfielder for the debacks can play center field other than maybe Lordus Gerex. you probably would want to throw him out there. Or Kyle Lewis. Or Kavana-Smith. You know, depending on how the roster spots shake out.

Yeah, there's a few. There's a few. But yeah, I mean, Kutel didn't play a single game in center field last year. I'd be really surprised if he did this year or, frankly, any year from this point on. It was a bad idea. Let's just leave it in the past. What else we got, John? Last question.

Last question. Jacob asks, who has more heat? De Niro or Justin Martinez Jesse won't get this reference Yes absolutely that was a Pro Wrestling reference And I'm going with Justin Martinez I'm going with Justin Martinez

I'd like to explain it to me So I at least understand what's happening here Heat in pro wrestling Jesse is where like A bad guy In wrestling Does something That that causes people to boo him and not like him Right which is kind of his job right

So they call that heat. That's the nickname for that. A bad guy. So implying that there are good guys and bad guys in wrestling. Which I guess we need to talk about this. Given that apparently this is wrestling. Wait, have you had this conversation face to face it?

So apparently, I've not. I'm not. So Jesse. We haven't had this conversation directly, but Derek did plenty of gossiping last week while I was out of town from what I've seen. Did I let you down? I feel like I led you down. I think you did. I think you did. Because here's the thing.

talked about this and this is just the wildest proposition is like finally you didn't know professional wrestling was scripted however you also didn't think a guy called the undertaker that rose from the dead to fight people

wasn't the coolest fucking thing you'd ever heard in your life explain yourself did you think these were just like personas that they took on to like intimidate their opponents and then they got into a physical altercation like UFC? Yeah, I mean, frankly, Derek, the entire world of pro wrestling, all of the, all of the things that you've told me, it generally goes in one ear and out the other. So, I didn't let you down. This isn't my fault. You're not listening to me.

But, but I still, you know, I still remember the things to a certain degree. And no, I will maintain that never once has it come up that pro wrestling is actually scripted. You have never told me that. and as I've told a number of people at this point, if Derek Montia didn't tell it to me about pro wrestling, then I don't know it. The entirety of my pro wrestling knowledge comes from you, Derek. So yes, this is entirely your fault. I don't think you can really pin any of this on me at the end of the day. You can't possibly making assumptions that I would know anything about pro wrestling

that you didn't tell me. He left for being an undertaker to be an American badass and then he wore a motorcycle down to the ring. Oh, man. I acknowledge that it does. It makes the madness that is pro wrestling make a little bit more sense to me in retrospect. I've never been so disappointed with you in my entire life than I am in this moment. But that's fine.

I mean, it's okay. I've grown accustomed to that. Well, we thank you guys, of course, for the Mailbag Monday questions. I think somebody asked in the chat, it was Chris Melton. She said, which of you two are happier that Jesse is back? I mean, I don't really know how to like, I mean, I'm having. happy I'm back. Yeah.

So it's kind of, I think this one's kind of up to you. That was a wildly unconvincing answer. I mean, I'm happy. And like I'm supposed to be happy he's back. Yeah, sure. I texted him nice things and said,

don't ever go away again. But that's just because then too much of the show falls on me, right? Like, you know, I'm not. It's more of a workload issue. It really is. It really is.

It really is. He's not wrong. But of course, the other issue. is Jesse's place needing to be furnished. So of course, we know about the Chase Loungees. We know about some stools that he bought. He went and bought some more Chase Loungees.

I don't know. That's really what I'm excited to be back for. Is all of the Chase Lounge is? His hotel room was surprisingly lacking Chase Loungeers, folks. So, of course, you know. I call the front desk, but. Hey, this is an odd request, but can you guys bring up another Chase Lounge to my room?

Not another one, Derek. There were none to begin with. There wasn't any in there. There was not enough. It's entirely egregious. He needs suggestions. So tell Jesse what furniture to buy for more furniture.com. Of course, he can get the white glove delivery service, and so can you.

So make sure to grab yourself some furniture. Maybe buy Jesse some furniture. Either way, save big on the best furniture in the valley when you head to more furniture. com. Make sure to grab that delivery service. It's wonderful and you don't have to lift a thing. You know you don't know how to pivot the couch to get it in right. So just have them come.

and do it for you. Thank you guys so much for being here in the chat. We appreciate all of you guys here. These late night episodes, we didn't know how they were going to go. So far, you guys have made us really want to do more of them. So we thank you guys for being here. If you haven't done so already, make sure to subscribe to the PHN Export YouTube channel. Sign up for notifications. That way you don't miss when any of the shows go live. Also, if you're listening to us right now in your favorite audio podcasting app, please subscribe to us there. Sign up for no, or excuse me, leave us review. Let us know how we're doing. Most importantly, Jesse wants thumbs up. He wants all the thumbs up. give him all the thumbs up on this show.

And do that because he writes wonderful, wonderful articles over at gophtnx.com. Not just, not most of them are free and unlocked, but if you want all of them, grab yourself a diehard membership over at go phtonx.com. You get Jesse's full count newsletter as well as writing from Craig Morgan, Gerald Borgay, Howard Balzer, and all of our writers here. Wonderful stuff. You also get access to our members-only Discord lounge. You get free merch from our PHNX Locker.com as well as 20% off all future.

You also get members-only access to our Discord, which is the best place to be an Arizona sports fan. Members-only merch, members-only discounts with our partners, and of course, members-only events. So sign up today for your die-hard membership. Let's talk about it, Jesse. Let's talk about how much I love the pitch clock. I love the pitch clock so goddamn much. Here's the thing. Baseball can be boring, and right now for me, at this point of my life, I've kind of grown used to baseball.

I've accepted all of baseball's weird rules. Derek doesn't like it and he wants the game to be over as soon as possible. That's what he's saying right now. You know what I don't like? I don't like being at the goddamn ballpark for four hours. That's what I don't like. I have other stuff to do. You guys saw?

Was that Innings Fest? I had Penn and Teller. I talked about it earlier. You were here. I don't have time for three and a half hour baseball games. And what I saw today was wonderful. But we even had our own pitch clock shenanigans in this game because there was a weird moment where Joe Manciply got assessed a penalty for taking too long for his warm-up pitches prior to the start of an inning.

And then Cubs hitter, what was his name? Brennan Davis, I believe it was. Yes, Brennan Davis, spelled incorrectly, at least in my book, also got assessed a penalty for not being in the box within the eight seconds. So the count started before a single pitch was thrown at one in one. It was pretty weird. It was as weird as you can get. and we're only going to get more weird shit like this in baseball as the season progresses.

I told Jesse, this is only going to matter once it's something like this happens in a critical moment and a critical game that gives somebody a win one way or another, but definitely not the way that they wanted to start an at-bat. And actually, Tori Lavello commented after the game about how it wasn't advantageous, advantageous necessarily for a hitter to start one-in-one in the scenario. and also kind of said that it was Carson Kelly's fault at the end of the day for taking a long time to get out there because he was the last batter to end the Diamondbacks half of the inning. So he had to get back to the dugout and get his stuff on.

This is what Tori had to say about it. It's very confusing. We don't know a lot of those ground rules and we're learning piece by piece. I think the hangup wasn't necessarily on Joe, but Carson Kelly, who made the last out, the second inning, bottom of the second. so he was late getting out there. I think there's just going to be a little bit of gray area or leeway given by the empire knowing if the catcher wound up on the basis or was left on deck. So I think in the future you're going to see that kind of waved off and given an extension of time.

Unless the catcher is maliciously doing something, in which case I think they should penalize the pitcher, but Carson wasn't. He was doing his best to get out there. we'll figure that out. Those are questions that we're going to have. But I don't know. I think the pitcher gets the advantage. If the count's going to start one and one, I don't know if that's the right call. If that's how the rule is going to be, we'll address that and find out those answers. But I think the pitcher will have a distinct advantage if he starts with the one-one count. I promise you, just Tori did not look like that in real life.

That he was not a jaundice or what was going on there. But yeah, it was, it was interesting, though, the way that he kind of assessed it, that it was a series of events that thus led to both violations, right? Then he went on to talk, which we don't, we have video of it, but we're not going to throw it up there because it kind of gets confusing and kind of goes all over the place because it does. He starts to talk about it being potentially a strategy coming out of, you know, warming up. Yeah.

Yeah, as a pitcher, you might be willing to take the violation for the ball if you're going to end up forcing the batter into getting a violation for the strike by not giving him enough time to get in the box. I mean, the thinking, as Tori talks about there, is from a pitching standpoint, you'd rather have the at bat start 1-1 than 0-0. Not by a huge margin, right? I mean, the count's still even. But in a 1-1 count, you throw one-strike. You've already got the hitter in a 2-strike count, right? So it's not a huge difference, but I do think a 1-1 count is a little more advantageous than an O-O count. It's funny how baseball, like, players, managers, they see it differently

than we do. We're like, what's the difference? 1-1-0. They're like, oh, no, that's a huge advantage for the picture. Yeah, I'd have to look like more at the, the statistics behind that. I'm sure there's a very objective answer to that question. I'm sure it is that a one-one count in general is something that you would want from the pitching standpoint. So yeah, our team's going to go out and be like, no, I'm just going to hold the ball instead of throwing my warm-up pitches what I'm supposed to. Because, yeah, it's going to be a violation on me. But then if I hold the ball until eight seconds, then the hitter, you know, I mean, I guess the hitter could still step in the box.

and maybe avoid that, but I mean, the thinking is that you're, you're kind of forcing the hitter into a, into a penalty as well. So, yeah, I mean, it's a very confusing situation. It's where I talked about there. But yeah, it sounds like Carson Kelly was really the guy who started it, not Joe Manciply. It's always tricky. If you're the catcher, you make the final out of the previous inning. You have to, you know, get the gear on and everything. So I guess Carson needs to speed that up a little bit next time in order to, in order to avoid that. Well, and that's not the only situation. There were bigger situations throughout spring training already, even though spring training just started, where games were decided by a violation or by a call. And that's, I mean,

we definitely expect to see more of that, but hopefully, you know, teams will acclimate so that it doesn't have such a huge impact on the outcome of the game like we've seen. Yeah. Yeah, we haven't talked about the most important thing that happened over the weekend, Derek, which was that, trying to remember which day this was. This was, I want to say it was on, it was either Friday or Saturday. Red Sox Braves, right? Bottom of the ninth, tie game, base is loaded. Cal Conley is at the plate and he doesn't engage with the pitcher as of the eight second mark, right, which is what you have to do. You have to be alert to the pitcher as of eight seconds. He doesn't do that. And it's strike three. And we don't play extra innings in spring training. So the game is over because of a

pitch clock violation. Exactly as Abner, Double Day. intended what he invented the game of baseball. Yeah. I mean, isn't it just crazy? Like, this could happen, right? This could actually happen. I mean, this was a, about as high leverage of a situation that you could get. Right.

Like, not a spring training game, but like a critical playoff game. This could absolutely happen. And that's when I think the pitch clock could really go south for baseball. Is if come this October, there are big moments that are spoiled by the pitch clock, right? There was a great video of the. the World Series last year, where Bryce Harper apparently. Yeah, Bryce Harper's big home run set to the money ball music. And then instead of him, you know, the sound of the crack of the bat and him hitting that

home run, instead it cuts over to this situation that I just described for this, a pitch clock violation and the game just ends. Yeah, it's fantastic. If that happens in the postseason, if something like that happens in the postseason, I don't think it's going to be a good look for baseball. I think a lot of people are going to be critical. It's kind of like basketball, right, where they talk about not wanting the referees to decide the game.

at the end of a close game. Like, we might end up seeing some of these calls be used frequently during the season, but we might see a little bit more leeway during the playoffs, so thus that they don't have the calls impacting the game. When Jesse and I sat in the meeting, the one thing they talked about was how long it took for minor league players to acclimate to these new rules. And to be honest, the majority of players were able to acclimate to the rules very quickly

within the first week or so. Yeah. It seemed like more than eight, I think it was more than 80% were acclimated by the end of the month. So the hope here is that they didn't want to give any kind of like kind of leeway or they didn't want to give a, what is it, like a grace period during the spring training period because these games are kind of meaningless.

So this technically is the best time to get these major league players acclimated to these rules. And hopefully if they follow through with the same time frame that the minor leaguers were able to follow through, you know, by the time the season starts, for the most part, They'll be kind of, you know, used to them and just kind of accepting them as part of the everyday, you know, part of their game. The thing with Tori bringing this up, though, was Tori definitely doesn't seem 100%, you know, certain on these rules himself. None of us are. And he also very much wants to see, like, what things are going to, like, what strategies can we implement versus what things does baseball need to actively look out for and change?

The thing today, he was kind of adamant about the fact that, like, they do need to. to kind of give the idea that a catcher needs to get back after is at bat and put on a whole bunch of equipment to get back out there and be ready to catch a pitcher warming up like seems to make sense, right? It seems like it's common sense. But even the umpires still aren't fully, you know, kind of have their mind wrapped around these rules. So you'll see calls like we saw today.

And I'm sure when umpires kind of have some experience dealing with these situations, we'll see this stuff kind of rectify and change and not be gone as often. Yeah, I mean, I think the umpires have been instructed to just call everything, you know, kind of by the book as of right now. Tori alluded to maybe there would be some sort of an extension or something like you were saying, you know, to give Carson Kelly a little bit more time to put the equipment on. That seems like a pretty reasonable provision that they could, that they could, you know, put into the game to just make things the way they really should be. Yeah. It's hard for a catcher to go back and put all that shit on and get back out there and not have an impact. I wasn't a catcher in Little League for very long. I believe it lasted one day.

And then I was very sad that game. And so my coach was sympathetic and decided to never make me the catcher ever again. Your coach was nice because I was just the fat kid and I got stuck as catching. I was the rules in the 80s. Yeah, no, I, you're the chunky guy. You get back here and be catcher. I definitely was not the chunky guy. But this was kind of the stage of Little League where, you know, everyone's terrible.

we should just have everyone try everything, you know. So anyway, getting back to what we're actually talking about with all the rule changes and everything, what they showed on the broadcast today was 1.97 pitch clock violations per game. That's what we've seen so far, at least entering the Diamondbacks game today, which is not terrible.

Which is not terrible. No, it's very similar to what they saw early on when they implemented the rules in the minor leagues. And if you think about it, I mean, it's basically two violations per game, one for each team. That's one ball and one strike, right? Or two balls, two strikes, right?

Like, you're not really impacting the game in a meaningful way with two violations, right? And as you were talking about, that number is just going to continue to go down in the minor leagues as of, you know, about a month or so after the rules were implemented. Guys had pretty much figured it out. I think the violations cut in half or maybe even were less than that as of that point. So hopefully by the time we get to opening day, guys, have kind of learned a few lessons, right? Maybe they have to learn those lessons the hard way in spring training.

But hopefully once opening day comes, you know, people know what they're supposed to know and are able to adapt as they need to. When opening day comes, you need to have the Draft King Sportsbook app already on your phone, already ready to go because we are making some money this baseball season. Of course, I already have my long-term bets in. That's for Zach Gallen to win the Cy Young, which I'm not so sure about now after his, we're having conflict with Zach Gallen. Yeah, he came after us on Twitter.

He's still calling us Spinks. We had to change his name of the podcast as you saw on Friday. I don't like that. I still want to know how much money Damon was paid by Zach Gallen to do all of that. But, of course, you ride with us this year, and of course, we are going to make some money on baseball.

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and also a big shout out to our friend from Mountain Mike's pizza Mount Mike's. Of course, we forgot actually, Jesse. Without you being here, this is what happens. I don't do the things I'm supposed to do. We have an extra pizza to give away now because we did not give away our free pizza on Friday.

So we get to give away two pizzas this week? Maybe we'll give away two pizzas this week. Maybe we give away one tomorrow on Tuesday's show. But either way, Mount Mike's pizza, fantastic pizza, fantastic beer selection. Head over there. They have their Mesa, Chandler, or Tucson location. We're not forgetting about you guys down south.

The lunch buffet is fantastic. We thank you guys as always for the food that you bring to the office. They keep us well fed. Head over to Mountain Mike's Pizza.com or head to those locations in Mesa Chandler, Tucson to place your next order. And by the way, if you sign up for a diehard membership, just a reminder, new diehards get a $50 voucher upon signing up for being part of our thing over here, part of our family. So we thank you guys that have already done that for doing that. A big shutout to Mountain Bikes. And again, yes, Jesse, we'll throw, we'll give it out a free pizza.

So come back tomorrow. You have to be in the chat, right? That's the way it works. You got to be in the chat. Come back tomorrow and we will give out a free pizza. We don't know how we're going to do baseball games because we lucked out today. Jesse and I made it back here with plenty of time to do today's show because today's game was only two hours and five minutes. And I don't know what to do with myself because are we going to see this in the future?

We didn't attend the weekend games when you saw how those win. So maybe we're the good luck charms. Maybe we're the ones that bring the short game time. Forget the pitch clock. It's Jesse and Derek that do it. But I'm glad you're back because that was too much work to do all by myself. So glad you're here. Glad you guys are here.

Of course, in the meantime, you can follow us on Twitter. I'm at cap underscore Kman with a K. He reluctantly is at Jesse N. Friedman. Our show is at PHNX underscore devs. I am reluctantly at Jesse Ed Friedman. But of course, all roads lead to at PHNX underscore sports. on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. You know, that actually is true because I would have loved to be at Jesse Friedman,

but I don't know who it was, but some other Jesse Friedman apparently exists and already had taken it. Don't Google. Don't Google. Yeah, I'm not going to get good results. Please don't Google. You can Google my name with the word Diamondbacks, but if you just Google my name. Maybe you'll get that Greg Schulte impersonation or maybe you'll go down a rabbit hole about another guy that you didn't even intend to go down.

But either way, we thank you guys for being here. course. Shout out to our diehards. We love you guys. Thank you guys so much. We love all of you. Thank you all for being here on behalf of Sean, Jesse, myself. We always appreciate your time. And remember, kids, baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun when baseball games are two hours and four minutes. Let's fucking go.