PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Is It Time For Diamondbacks To CHANGE CLOSERS After Paul Sewald Blows Another Save?

Episode Date: July 29, 2024

Is it time for the Diamondbacks to have some serious discussions about replacing Paul Sewald as their closer? This comes after Sewald blew another save in the D-backs series finale against the Pirates on Sunday. We discuss if this move would make sense and if there are potential trade candidates that might fill that role this season and beyond. We also have our answers to your Mailbag Monday questions, including why this team would even consider trading Jake McCarthy and which Diamondbacks players could compete in the Olympics.An ALLCITY Network ProductionSUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports PHNX Events: Get your tickets to PHNX events and takeovers here: https://gophnx.com/events/bet365: https://www.bet365.com/olp/open-account?affiliate=365_03330244 Use the code PHNX365 to sign up, deposit $10 and choose between either:Bet and Get offer and place a bet of $5 or more and get $150 in Bonus Bets OR First Bet Safety Net offer by placing a bet up to $1000 and if your qualifying bet loses you receive a matched refund in Bonus betsDisclaimer: Must be 21+ and physically located in AZ.  If you or someone you know has a gambling problem and wants help, call 1-800-NEXT-STEP, text NEXTSTEP to 53342 or visit https://problemgambling.az.gov/Sanderson Ford: The Sanderson Ford Summer Sales Event is here and they are teaming up with the boys of summer for a final Playoff Payoff Sale! They are pushing for the playoffs and you get the payoffs like deals on 24 Ford Bronco Sport Big Bend. Just ranked highest in quality in its segment by JD Power. Lease one today for as low as $299 a month for 36 Months with only 10 percent cash down.Indeed: listeners of this show will get a SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLAR SPONSORED JOB CREDIT to get your jobs more visibility at https://indeed.com/allcity. Terms and conditions apply.  Need to hire? You need Indeed.Mint Mobile: To get your new 3-month unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month, go to https://mintmobile.com/diamondbacks.  $45 upfront payment required (equivalent to $15/mo.). New customers on first 3 month plan only. Speeds slower above 40GB on Unlimited plan. Additional taxes, fees, & restrictions apply. See MINT MOBILE for details.Desert Financial Credit Union: Open a free checking account online with Desert Financial Credit Union and get $200 in bonuses https://www.desertfinancial.com/200Gametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply.Circle K:  Join Inner Circle for free by downloading the Circle K app today! Head to https://www.circlek.com/store-locator to find Circle Ks near you!Shady Rays: Exclusively for our listeners, Shady Rays is giving out their best deal of the season. Head to https://shadyrays.com and use code: PHNX for 35% off polarized sunglasses. Try for yourself the shades rated 5 stars by over 300,000 people.Check out FOCO merch and collectibles and use promo code “PHNX10” for 10% off your order on all non Pre Order items.Chicken N Pickle: Head to https://chickennpickle.com to see all the fun you can have at their Glendale location! PHNX will be hosting Trivia Nights and Pickleball Tournaments so stay tuned for info!When you shop through links in the description, we may earn affiliate commissions. Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

into another edition of the pHNX Deepax podcast presented by Bet365. Download the Bet365 app now and use code PHNX365. When you sign up, choose your offer and find out why it is never ordinary at Bet365. Welcome in. My name, of course, is your mayor of PHNX, occasionally known as Derek Montia. His name is the vice mayor of PHNX, occasionally known as Jesse Friedman, also known as your thunderstick. Jesse, it's another one of those days where despite the first of the first of the first. fact that the Diamondbacks won a series, we are left focusing on the negative a bit. And

it's a discussion a lot of you have wanted to have. We got quite a few Mailbag Monday questions about what the Diamondbacks should do at closer. And of course, it's our big topic today. And that is because the Diamondbacks lost the finale to the Pittsburgh Pirates in epic fashion. It was one of the craziest losses of the season for this team. And it was a game that they were winning in the top of the ninth inning. Sure it was by one run. It was another one of those days where the offense really wasn't doing much. So you could very much say that they should have been able to have a little bit more distance than just being up two to one there in the ninth inning to the Padres, but or to the pirates, excuse me. But the debacks, of course, have Paul

Seawald come in. He allows, gives up a run and blows yet another save opportunity for this team. Jesse, what were your thoughts in general? I know we have more about this game to discuss, but the way that this game went down, this was a crazy game. I mean, so we'll talk about Seawald, right? We'll talk about what happened in the ninth inning here in a little bit. But the 10th inning of this game, Derek, was absolutely insane. Bonkers. It was absolutely insane. So, right, it's a, it's a tie game. Obviously, you get to the 10th inning. Justin Martinez comes in for the Diamondbacks. Struggled a little bit lately in in higher leverage situations.

J. Juan Bay starts off by laying down a bunt, and J. Mart looks at third for a little bit too long, wanted to get the out there, winds up not getting an out at all. So you've got first and third with nobody out, not a great start. Jay Mart struggled to throw strikes a bit. He walks Yosmani Grandal. And there was a fielder's choice play that Jose Herrera

was not a great throw by Geraldo Pardomo, but Jose Herrera managed to keep his foot on home plate after review. It was originally called as a play where the Diamondbacks got zero outs, but they do wind up getting an out on replay. And then Justin Martinez uncorks a wild pitch. We had an intentional walk because that opened up first base. And then the very next hitter was Alika Williams who had come in as a pinch runner for the Pittsburgh Pirates, which if you are a pinch runner for the Pittsburgh Pirates, at least this current iteration of the team, you're probably not a very good hitter.

And Justin Martinez hits him with the very first pitch of the back, forcing in another run. That makes it four to two. And then Bryce Jarvis comes in. He's able to get out of the inning, but not before the pirates add two more runs on a bloop single. Essentially, Derek, the pirates did not, they did not hit a baseball hard in the 10th inning. And they scored four runs and made it 6 to 2, took a commanding lead. It felt very much like the game was over at that point. We get to the bottom half of the 10th inning.

And the game was actually not over as quickly as we thought. It got a lot more interesting. Gino Suarez hit what appeared to possibly be a fan interference aided home run. It was reviewed. You know. It stood. It stayed a home run and it made it six to four. Here's my problem with those kind of fan interference home runs is that like if you if you look at what happened,

the ball looked very much like the trajectory was going to make it go out. Like, yes, in a way, you know, the outfielder reaching out could have grabbed it had they had maybe a clean opportunity at it. Sure. I don't really think that if a player goes into the crowd to try to catch the ball, it should be fan interference at all. And I feel personally, like, that's just free game for you as a fan to smack the ball out of their hand if they do attempt to catch it. Like, they've come into your territory now at that point.

we have instances where fans obviously reach way out into the field of play and grab a ball that wasn't even going to be over the yellow line. Like there's instances like that and that's completely different. But this one, I was I was kind of on board. Of course, obviously it was a pro diamondbacks one. So that that's a whole other thing. But I just couldn't believe that after they were able to muster up what they did offensively this entire game, the diamondbacks do what they do in the bottom of the 10th inning. You know, that's just kind of incredible. Not to mention the fact that they had the tying run in Corbyn Carroll,

triple and be 90 feet away from scoring. Yeah, well, that's what I was getting to is that the game was not at all over, right? Gino hits that home run. A couple of groundouts and you feel like, all right, the game is probably over at this point. And then Lordus Gurriel works an outrageously impressive at bat and winds up hitting a homer that was an absolute shot down the left field line. That makes it a 6-5 game with two outs.

And then Corbyn Carroll plays with everybody's emotions by hitting a triple and literally bringing the tying run 90 feet away. And unfortunately, that's where it ended is Geraldo Prudomo grounded out and the Diamondbacks lose 6 to 5. You can't say it wasn't entertaining, Derek. It might have been tragic for Diamondbacks fans. You can't say it wasn't entertaining the way that this game ended. But yes, I know that everyone is thinking about Seawald and what happened in the ninth inning,

the fact that the Diamondbacks had, albeit just a one run lead. I mean, it was a 2-1 game. but this Pirates offense is not great, especially the lineup that they put out yesterday. I know Seawald had to face some of their, some of their better hitters who were on the bench. Rowdy Telez came in and hit a double. Joey Bartz did the other bit of damage in that ninth inning

with a pinch hit RBI double that tied the game. There's no getting around it. Paul Seawald has had just an absolutely brutal month of July, and I know people are asking questions about his job security is the closer of this team, And I think those questions are pretty valid. They're valid, but there's also a question as to what, you know, why Tori continues to turn to Justin Martinez late because we've seen that.

That's one option. A lot of people have wanted for this team. Obviously, he's had some success this year, some great success. His pitches are just nasty. But when we see Justin Martinez in a high leverage situation, he falls apart as well, right? Like he seems that he isn't ready yet. It's not to say he isn't. a very viable weapon for this team and could be seventh, eighth inning guy,

just like he has been utilized. But of course, people want to instantly turn to J-Mart as that, like, obvious option. And in all honesty, we're talking here about Paul Seawald, but Martinez absolutely fell apart there in the 10th inning as well, right?

So it's like there really is an issue when it comes to who they can trust latent games. Seawald has, I think, the closer mentality and the, ability to be out there in those high leverage situations as far as, you know, his calmness and his, is, you know, demeanor and his experience, right? But it seems like this guy throwing two pitches isn't effective. And he's joked in the past that he's not really going to surprise

people with his pitch selection, considering they know what he's throwing. And that kind of seems to be the case here with some of these blown saves. Yeah, that's a, that's a fair point. I mean, there's a lot of relievers that only throw two pitches, right? I mean, that's not just. like a seawalled thing. But what you're seeing now is you're seeing the fastball just not be very effective anymore. And I know a lot of people are talking about the VLO. It is down this season.

That's something that we pegged in spring training is a possible concern when he was, you know, 88, 89 pretty consistently in spring training. You figured he'd get some of that back. But it hasn't really all come back for him. He's down about a tick and a half from a year ago. So, yeah, I think the VLO is a, I think that's a valid point. still think that Seawald's fastball can be effective when it's thrown in the right spots. And I don't think he's been as good at hitting those spots here this month either.

And so, you know, you put those two things together. The sweeper, I don't think has been really at its best either. That's really a pitch that hasn't gotten a ton of swing and miss, really ever since he joined the Diamondbacks. It had a whiff rate just under 33% with the Mariners in the first half last year. It's had a whiff rate of 26.7% ever since he came over to the Diamondbacks. So, yeah, it's not just Velo. It is location as well.

But granted, when you're throwing 91 miles an hour, you know, the funky arm slot and all, the margin for air is not very big. And when Seawald throws one of those pitches in a bad spot, we're seeing it get hit regularly pretty hard. And yeah, I mean, last year, the average exit Velo on Sewell's four seamer was 85.1 miles an hour. This year, it's 93.5. So that is a very, very big difference. And yeah, I think it's valid looking at the weapons this team has in the back end, Derek. Paul Seawald is pretty clearly, at least from what we've seen so far this season, he is not the best reliever on this team. There are other guys who have been more effective than him for sure.

Well, and that's the thing is we've also seen Tori turn to those guys and have those guys also not be very effective in the ninth inning. It's like a curse that this team has had for, you know, the last two seasons. Paul Seawald felt like he was the cure to that curse, especially the stability that he brought with, you know, with that trade for Seawald and what he brought to the bullpen. Now we're potentially looking at maybe the Diamondbacks turning to another player, either currently in the organization or perhaps somebody that they could pick up here before the trade deadline. The part that sucks about this is this does sour, a solid series the Diamondbacks had against a hot baseball team in the Pittsburgh Pirates, right?

They came into here with a very, very good starting, you know, pitching ERA and relief ERA, and the Diamondbacks were able to take two out of three here. Unfortunately, you know, in the finale, I think one thing that you could criticize about Tori Levello is, I don't know how much of a coincidence it is that this team doesn't sweep, considering that Tori LeVolo will tend to tweak his lineup or make some changes and not really go, you know a 100% full throttle in the finale of a series when he could it feels like he could keep you know his foot on the pedal there right there's some questions there about how he managed the game late for sure i still don't blame tory for seawald blowing the save the team is up by one run

you put your closer in and that's what you should expect to do i mean obviously you know having confidence in your guys and keep putting them out there after a while might be to a point where you you know, obviously have to blame the manager. I don't blame Tori right now for trusting Seawald to go out there. I just, I still kind of scratch my head about what this team was able to suddenly do when they were down significantly in the bottom of the 10th versus what they were able to do the rest of the entire baseball game. So yeah, yeah, I mean, there's there's a lot to go around here on this one.

But let's take a look though at the series count presented by Desert Financial Credit Union. Again, Diamondbacks take two out of three. three here. They still have not lost a series in the month of July. And here they could go up against nationals and close things out here with their final series and, and, you know, kind of make this July again, the antithesis to last July. But the Diamondbacks outscore the pirates in the series 18 to 14. They out hit the pirates 27 to 22. Runners in scoring position, the pirates were six for 31, six for 31 with a 194 batting average. Diamondbacks were eight for 28 for a 286 batting average. Starting pitching ERA, there's a positive sign there for the Diamondbacks a little bit,

4.24 to the Pirates for 5.65. Both teams fairly terrible with both of these pitching numbers. Relief pitching ERA, Diamondbacks 4.09, ERA to the Pirates 6.17. So again, Diamondbacks were able to again take another series against a hot team and continue, you know, their battle here for the wild card. It's important because as they kind of distanced themselves, here. We're seeing all these trades taking place, Jesse, and we're seeing which teams are in it based on their actions and which teams are kind of waving the white flag a bit. We are also seeing some of those teams that are selling at the deadline getting quite the hall in those trade returns. But of course, one of the questions we do have is if the Diamondbacks would

go out there and attempt to trade for a closer, are there any options of available on the market right now. Yeah, if the diamondbacks were to trade for a closer, I mean, I guess, I guess maybe that's what, maybe that's what people want to see the diamond backs do. There obviously is still a window of opportunity here to do that. Yeah, and that's the million dollar question for anyone saying, I want to see Seawald out of the closing role. What is, what is the alternative?

Like, what do you propose, right? I mean, if you don't have a good answer to that question, then you can't really entertain the idea of removing Seawald from that role. Um, could the diamond backs go out there and get, you know, I guess Tanner Scott is still out there. Kyle Finnegan is still out there. Um, those are the, the two main guys on the market who have closing experience, who are currently operating as closers.

Um, I would be really surprised at the debacks did either of those things. Frankly, I think AJ Puck was already a pretty big addition to this bullpen. And yeah. We do know, uh, we do know that the diamond backs are still looking at relief pitching. That's something Mike Hazen said the other day. I don't necessarily get the sense. that they're looking at like a back end closer type reliever. It seemed more like maybe a depth kind of option to just help

lengthen things out even further. So yeah, I mean, on paper, sure, you put Tanner Scott in this bullpen and you move CWald out of the closer roll and you're in a great spot. But the cost there is obviously going to be pretty high. And I'm not, I'd be pretty surprised if the Diamondbacks are willing to do that. Well, we do have some candidates here. So let's take a look at some potential trade targets. Again, these might not be closing options, but those options for the Diamondbacks there in the bullpen.

First, we have Reed Detmer's from the Los Angeles Angels. It hasn't had a great season this year, but again, another left-handed reliever that the Diamondbacks could be looking to, you know, have more than just the two arms in the bullpen that are lefties. 63 innings pitched this season, a 6.14 ERA, 1.48 whip. It's had averaging 10 strikeouts per nine, averaging 3.9 walk. out per nine with a 4.37 FIP, which tells you a little bit there more about his season than the 6.14 ERA. Yeah. So Dettmers is really interesting. He's a starter, but the inning total here is a little bit deceptive because he is currently in AAA for the Los Angeles Angels, which I guess tells you everything you need to know about the season that he has had. The angels, the angels decided to send him down. uh reedetmer's kind of a kind of a bigger name uh he is uh he was a very highly touted prospect

not all that long ago and you can see here 10 k's per nine 3.9 walks per nine like if you're a starting pitcher striking out more than a batter an inning like that's that's a pretty notable thing so uh his fit was 437 when he was uh when he was in the majors earlier this year for the angels and uh yeah this is not really a candidate for the closer role necessarily but uh this is a guy who came up in a recent report over at Yahoo Sports, they mentioned that the Diamondbacks have checked in on Reed Detmer's. And this would be a controllable starting pitcher, which is something that we know that the Diamondbacks are certainly looking at.

It doesn't seem necessarily likely that they pull something like this off, but Detmer's is under club control through 2027. So if you, you know, he would be a bit of a gamble, like you're not necessarily getting Redetmer's because you think he's going to be stellar down the stretch in 2024. he's had a bit of a rough season. But his prospect status combined with the fact that he's on the Angels, which apparently the Angels seem to be willing to trade just about anyone on their roster right now.

It'd be interesting for the D-backs to say the least. I mean, I don't know exactly what a package would look like to get something like this done. He's a really hard player to evaluate. And we haven't seen the Diamondbacks acquire players like this too often, like starting pitchers who really struggled in other places. is that they try to fix. That's not really something they've done in the past. But maybe they feel they have the ability to try to get a guy like Reid Detmer's

and help turn his career around. Well, we also have another this time bullpen arm from the Washington Nationals. Dylan Floreau. What have got on Dylan, Jesse? Yeah, Dylan Floreau. He would be not necessarily a closer candidate. He's someone who has closed some games in the past. He's with the Washington Nationals this year.

52 in a third inning, a 206 ERA, a 105 whip, 6.9 Ks per 9, 2.2 walks per 9, 2.615. That's 6.9Ks per 9. That's pretty low. He's not a big strikeout guy. His VLO has dropped a little bit this year. But, you know, an ERA in the low twos is an ERA in the low twos. He is under team control just through the end of this season. He'll be a free agent at the end of the year.

So Floro fits in that category of reliever I was talking about earlier. that kind of seems realistic where the debaqs just add another guy to help lengthen things out in the bullpen. I don't, I mean, maybe the nationals are asking for the for the sun, moon, and stars for Floro, even though, you know, he's getting a little older and the VLO is not quite what it once was. His numbers, his surface numbers are obviously really good. But he's a guy that I could, I could see making some sense for the debacks here in the next 24 hours. It's weird because we've seen some teams making moves and obviously it's just. just our personal opinion. We don't know how any of this is going to play out,

especially when prospects are involved. But by comparison, it feels like the Diamondbacks acquisition of AJ Puck is very low cost compared to what some other teams have kind of had to give up in order to get certain relievers, some of the relievers we've brought up on this show, right? So there's some transactions happening and some names moving around.

But again, the Diamondbacks kind of, you know, If they do want to go a different route with that closing role, they do have options in-house guys that have closed guys that could potentially be very good in that role. I don't want to see Tori Lobello go back to a closer by committee. I think that would be a huge mistake. However, I could see how tantalizing it could be for him, considering some of the hosses he has out there in the bullpen

and how you might want to just go conditionally based on, you know, the matchups for one guy or another, especially with AJ Puck being out there, especially with Kevin Ginkle and the way he's been able to clean things up lately. I also don't think much to probably his detriment. I don't think Tori is going to move away from Paul Seawald. I think it's going to take...

He already said, I mean, he was asked after last night's game, Seawald's Cesar closer, he said yes. So in terms of what the Diamondbacks are actually doing right now, the end of conversation, Paul Seawald is still the Diamondbacks closer, at least based on what Tori said yesterday. So we could have this opinion-based conversation about should they? And I think a lot of us would agree they should. But at the same time, you got to keep in mind what happens when other people step into the same role.

It's not like we're seeing a tremendous amount of success from someone else. And I feel like Tori has kind of leaned towards giving certain guys high leverage situation. So far, Ginkle feels like the one that's been able to get the job done, you know, kind of most consistently, especially in that most recent performance where he kind of cleaned up Zach Gallen's mess. yeah people are making a good observation in the chat of the diamondbacks are about to play three game series with the national so it would be very funny if they were to trade for dillon floro or just come on over and again super convenient right like we could have done it a few days ago he wanted to just make it nice and easy and do it so you can just i would i would love to just one time have them trade major league players on teams that are playing each other and have those guys just go do a jersey swap yeah just walk across it yeah just take off the jerseys here you get yours and i get mine yeah but Of course, we have no idea if the diamondbacks are done making moves. We have no idea how much of a catastrophe, Paul Seawald starting or closing would have to be until Tori moved on.

We really don't as far as how committed they are. Yeah, it feels like the leash has to be getting shorter, right? I mean, four blown saves in one month is pretty significant. And I think the reason the diamondbacks aren't making a change yet is because Seawald on the season is 16 for 20 and save opportunities. Right. And as a 377ERA. Is that great? No, but it's not really all that bad either, right?

That's basically like a league average closer and 80% conversion rate. It's really not all that bad. But obviously, you know, it doesn't tell the story of kind of the trajectory of the season he's had, which is that he was outstanding for the first couple months coming off that oblique strain, a 0.54 ERA entering this month. And then this month he has an ERA of 9.38, right? He's, I think it's 10 earned runs and 9 and 2 thirds inning, 17 hits allowed. Still a good number of strikeouts.

He's only walked one batter in the month of July. It's just a matter of he's just getting hit hard, right? These pitches just aren't they aren't deceiving hitters. They're not missing barrels to the extent that we've seen in the past. Yeah, and people are also talking in the chat about a move that just happened. The roster move the Diamond Ducks just made, which is interesting. They have sent down Yilbert Diaz, Derek, and they have recalled. called Slade Sacconi from AAA Reno.

Yep. And the four-de-man roster is currently at 39. So what do you think about that? Yeah. It's interesting because Yilbert Diaz just through five scoreless innings, you know, there were a lot of uncompetitive pitches in the game yesterday. I think I can kind of understand the D-backs realizing that maybe he needs a little bit more seasoning in the minors.

You know, it worked against the Pittsburgh Pirates. But as we said earlier, the lineup that they put out yesterday, It was especially, especially brutal, even by their standards. They had a few guys out. So, yeah, it is, it is, it is very interesting, though, because obviously this, this opens up a spot in the rotation. Slate Sacconi's been working as a reliever in the minors. I do not expect him to be starting for the debacks. So, uh, one bullpen game and then would, would, would, would anybody be coming home?

Would Merrill Kelly be coming? Is this like way too early for these guys? Yeah. I don't say mid-August right isn't that what merrill said yeah i don't i don't think that they would be ready to take the next turn through the rotation or anything like that i mean i know that they wouldn't right there i mean this week they'd be building up to three innings not the next not the next turn in the rotation that's what i'm saying but the following one after that is that too soon considering yelber just so yeah i think that is so too days 11 or maybe 11 12 days from now yeah i i

tried mapping this out earlier. I think the earliest that I could see either of those guys starting in the big leagues would be August 11th against the Phillies. Just kind of mapping out the days in Reno where they could be, you know, pitching and rehab games and whatnot. You're not getting either of those guys to five innings before August 11th or at least right around then. So yeah,

that's a ways in the future. The debacks do you have an off day this Thursday that they can maybe use to skip someone. Jesse. But they don't have any other off days between. then they're obviously August 15th. They're obviously trading for a starting pitcher. That is also possible.

They're obviously trading for a starting pitcher. That's what's happening. It would be weird to me though for them to make this. Well, yeah. I mean, if they knew they were trading for a starting pitcher, then I guess you'd be like, all right, we're not, we're not going to have Yulver Diaz make another starts.

We might as well bring in Slate as an extra reliever for today. Terrick Scoobel, come on home. Yes. Clearly breaking news. Backs have traded for Terrick Scoobble. There's no other way to answer. That's the only answer. That's the only answer.

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You need indeed. And of course, we have to talk about Mint Mobile, but that allows me really just to talk about my man crush on Ryan Reynolds and going to see Deadpool and Wolverine. That's really what this segment is about. But that's only because the embargo has been lifted and now I can spoil all the things about the movie here right now on this podcast. So get ready. No, I wouldn't do that.

But I do suggest that you check. out and mobile and maybe you can talk about it with your friends do people still talk on the phone I mean I don't know if they actually because none of these guys answer when I call them so I don't think people actually talk on the phone anymore but if you and I talk on the phone all the time yeah to each other but you don't answer when I call and that's very upsetting to me that you just said that you guys talk all the time that's not here or there me and Jesse we have good conversations on the phone I know we do our brothers for life quality conversations well you can have those kind of conversations about all the cameos in Deadpool on MintMobil because they are here to rescue you

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to $15 a month new customers on first three month plan only speed slower about 40 gigabytes on unlimited plan additional taxes fees of restrictions apply cement mobile for details well we are very glad to have all of you here with us and of course we haven't gotten to do this this in a long time. It's been a while. But you know what it is, Jesse. You know, Jesse, that every year on this show is our year. And it's the year of the snake.

So it's very much our year. Every month on this show is women's history month, of course. And every month on this show is, I guess, Olympic history month. I don't know. There's something about the Olympics in there. I don't even know if I'm allowed to say that word because it might be copywritten and we're not a sponsor and stuff. So it's very complicated.

Don't put the rings up while I'm talking. Copy the word? I don't know. What can we talk about anymore? I don't think we can say that without being a partner. But anyway, obviously, every day on this podcast is Earth Day. And every week on this podcast, Shark Week. But on Mondays, you know what we do.

We go to the mailbag. Damon, let's go. All right. What do we got, Damon? First questionnaire? It's all going to be Paul Seawald. It's all Paul Seawald related. There are just going to be one after now.

Let's just get through all the Paul C-Wald questions in a row. Let's start with that. Okay. I don't know how many palsy-walled questions there are, but I don't think. Okay. Sounds good. We're starting off with Michael Rokicke here, and he asks, can someone explain to me like I'm five why Corvin is still leading off instead of Jake

the Rake McCarthy or Damon's favorite player, Heraldo Perdomo. Well, I didn't like Perdomo really in the two-hole yesterday. So I think Perdomo just needs to go back to his place hitting ninth. Can I say real quick? I agree with that completely. Like he, I love Perdomo, obviously. he's my guy but at the same time like I think his value lies in that he's a great nine hole hitter like he's he he gets on base at the bottom of your lineup he's not going to you know his slugging

percentage is obviously pretty in the dirt but like he's he's a guy that's going to just get on base for you know your better hitters at the top of the lineup and he's a good situational hitter which oftentimes you don't have in the nine hole so I think those he's a perfect bottom of the order type of guy I wouldn't suggest moving him up as a good idea. What I don't like is the fact that guys work out in certain roles and or in certain spots in the lineup and then Tori feels the need to move them, right? Like we've already talked about Gabby Marino having a tremendous amount of success in the two hole. Obviously it's a small sample size. So that's why it's easy for us to sit here and say hit Gabby second. Do it, I guess, until it's, you know, not working or do it. But you don't know until you have him in there hitting. So far he has proven that he actually does very well. well hitting in that lineup spot. So yeah, I mean, yesterday was just a weird scenario because Ketel Marte was was on the bench and so was Gabby Moreno.

And so those are kind of your two main number two hitters both sitting on the same day, which I know some people are not too happy about that in and of itself. That's another thing. But yeah, I agree. Like I don't, I don't think that Geraldo Perdomo should be in the lead off spot. Frankly, Herald, frankly, Geraldo Perdomo is not had a very good season offensively. Um, his, uh, his OPS for the year has dipped into the pretty low, pretty low, uh, 600s. Uh, if I can find it real quick.

He's a 623. So that's not a, that's not a guy you want in the, in the one hole or the two whole. And the question mostly is about like Alisa's here, like lead off Corbyn just hasn't work this year consistently. And I think that's, you know, that's the main part of Michael's question is why is Corbyn still hitting lead off when he hasn't been working out there? I think the idea there is that they still want Corbyn to get as many at-bats as possible, despite the fact that he hasn't been doing well consistently.

He's had his moments. It's the fact that Corbyn can change the game by getting on base at any point. I think that that's what Tori sees in him potentially to a fault, right? And I mean, this is probably, again, when you want to talk about Tori's managerial faults, it's believing in guys and trusting them beyond the point that other people, including most of us as fans and people watching feel comfortable in that in that spot right yeah i mean i i think another big part of the question is about jake mccarthy and specifically given the success that he's had for five yeah i i kind of like the idea of jake mccarthy in the lead off spot uh if i'm being

totally honest i mean he has a 366 on base percentage this season that's really good stuff not a power he's fast like corbin he gets on base and he can make things happen that's the big thing about jake is he does the same things that corbin does well and he's He's arguably a better defender in the outfield. And I mean, again, right now, he's he's better at the dish. You know, so I, I don't have an answer for, I don't, I don't have a way to explain why it is. I guess the answer there is that, you know, people, people are given roles. And those roles are the roles that they're in despite the success that they're having.

And I, to worry again, trusts guys or believes in guys to a fault where he thinks everybody's going to, you know, kind of hit out of it or find their way out of these situations. And in most cases, they do. But, you know, I get, I get the frustration with it for sure. What else we got, Damon? Next question here comes from Ryan RV080495 on Twitter. And he says, when can it be decided that it's time to move on from Paul Seawald and look for another closer? This has to be a time when it's just excuses and results are not like there used to be anymore. Are we there yet? I'd say we're there.

If it's you, do you make a change today? Do you take Paul Seawald out of the closer role right now? I think people in the chat, that's probably what they would do. And I think the idea there is, is that who do you go with right now? Do you already put A.J. Puck in that role, considering he's just stepping on to this team, and you kind of can make that move without disrupting the other roles in the bullpen? Where does Seawald pitch?

Are you just going to bench him for the rest of the season? Are you going to DFA them? Like, yeah, I mean, that I think would be pretty clearly outrageous. But yeah, maybe you move Seawald into more of a more of a sixth inning role. Like still like maybe innings where you have a lead, but a lot earlier in the game. And then, yeah, in my mind, I mean, the options that could make sense are Kevin Ginkle, AJ Puck and Ryan Thompson. Those are the three that I think you can have a conversation about. Justin Martinez, I think we've learned in the last couple of weeks, the high leverage.

situations. He's looked pretty shaky. He's looked pretty out of sorts. I don't really think anyone is wanting to see Justin Martinez in that role at this point with what we've seen lately. But Kevin Ginkle has been on a heck of a run here over the last month or two. A.J. Puck, obviously, the numbers that he put up before coming to the Diamondbacks and how good he's looked so far. Yeah, I mean, is it like a, is it Ginkle if you've got mostly righties and puck if you've got mostly lefties? Like maybe people want a sort of a platymealieres. tune closer situation of sorts there. It's not terrible.

It's the way that this other team has, uh, the other parts of this team has worked out well. Connor Mormon says, hear me out closer by committee with a crime face. Like here we are. We're back to this point. Yeah.

See, there's something about that that also like, you know, even though the debacks clearly have more weapons to do something like that now, it just doesn't seem to work. I mean, it just feels like teams that use that approach don't tend to have a whole lot of success with it. and you know i think a lot of the success that guys have had in this bullpen over the last year has been tied to the fact that they do have a very specific defined role and it's comfortable

it's so weird right because it's still just pitching and it should be matchups and it should be you know going to a guy but it's just different you you you end the game if you go out there and you do your job well and if you don't you lose that fucking game and that's hard for a lot of pitchers to to handle that pressure in that moment and that's the reason why some guys guys are basically, you know, cut out to be that closer. They have that ice water in their veins. They're able to go out there. They're able to, to the, you know, thrive under the bright lights of that moment and

and they can succeed. Honestly, I don't want Ryan Thompson out there as a closer. You don't want Ryan Thompson is closer. Because he hasn't been able to get the job done on hitting one finishing move on me. Not one pro wrestling finishing move. He's made attempts several times. And I'm just saying, you want, if you're closer should be somewhat. that can get the job done.

And I'm saying, like, if you're trying to attack me physically, I'm not very fast. You know what I mean? Like, you know. And I'll see. Yeah, I mean, Thompson is another guy. You could make Thompson the closer. I feel like with Ryan Thompson, he, I mean, he just doesn't, he doesn't really have the prototypical closer stuff, right?

Like you're used to a closer, having, you know, being able to get a lot of swing and miss. And that's, you know, Ryan Thompson's been great this year. But he actually gets quite a bit less swing and miss than, then, you know, even an average reliever. So it works for. He's getting, you know, soft contact on the ground. But it's not a prototypical closer fit necessarily. Yeah, geek Martinez is not wrong.

He says tea time would go crazy on the different trial. Absolutely. Now Derek's back in. I'm back in. I'm 100%. No, after what I saw Ginkle do cleaning up that mess that, that like, Gowan left him with the other night. Yeah.

That impressed me more than a lot of outings I've seen out of our relievers this year. It's one thing to go out there with, you know, the bases empty and to do your job. in an inning and it's a whole other thing to have two inherited runners and no outs in an in an inning and go out there and do what ginkled did in that in that instance so i i feel like he kind of has that mentality to get that to get that job done so but we'll see and i doubt that anything's going to happen and i think we have more paul see what other paul see well first off i just have to say christopher chill out my man we're not trading corbin oh yeah no we're not like we're not we love to send Carol to his hometown Seattle team for George Kirby or Logan Gilbert.

It's a down here. It's a down year. It's okay. Wow. We're going to be okay. Oh, boy. Save that. That's a heck of a trade proposal.

Let's relax. Yeah, let's save that take for a later time. Next question comes from chance rushing and he asks, with all the casuals complaining about Seawald, can we talk about the other 13 blown games that weren't Cewald because the set up relievers didn't even hold the game in a position to let Cewald blows. Uh, uh, chances keeping notes. chance has receipts because that is true. And again,

it's something that we've seen out of this team, right? Like people have quietly calmed down about asking for Justin Martinez to be in that close a roll, but people were very loud about it not too long ago. And it's not something that still isn't in the future, right? That is something that's very much in the future because his stuff is incredible. Like, again,

Tori talked about how, you know, everybody was asking him about Justin Martinez during all. Star Weekend, right? So like people know and they're wondering where this guy came from and if he's for real, right? So there is something definitely interesting about Justin Martinez in that role in the future. But we've seen him in these high leverage situations fall apart. And again, that's part, a big part of it. It's not just having the stuff, but be able to throw it and just have that same cold mentality of blowing your hand off, but doing it after you went out there and did it, you know,

in the ninth inning or 10th inning, right? So, but, I mean, there is something to be said about at times that all the guys that probably are candidates outside of maybe, maybe Ginkle have had their struggles at times. I mean, there were some very good sub one ERAs in that bullpen, you know, like a month ago or so. But everybody's kind of gone through it where things haven't gone perfectly for them and they've had their had their issues. I will say, like I don't feel like the debacks have had a lot of games over the last month where they lost in a situation where, one of the other relievers like kind of blew the game before seawald got a chance to pitch i don't really think that's something we've seen we have seen guys struggle for sure justin martina is probably more than anyone else i think back to the think it was on july second against the dodgers which was a game

that did end in a paul seawald blown save jesus martinez gave up a two run homer to show hey otani earlier in that game debucks would have had a more comfortable lead had that not happened so yeah It is valid to say that, you know, not all these games are on Paul Seawald solely. There have been some other instances where other relievers weren't great. You know, Joe Mantipa gave up a homer yesterday. He struggled in extra innings against the Cubs. We saw Maniply not be not be so good in that spot. So it's not all Paul Seawald.

The other guys take some responsibility as well. But at the same time, Seawald has been at the center of a lot of the Diamondbacks losses. And they're the most devastating, to be honest. They're the instances where, especially being the closer, that they sting the most, where we literally watch the, you know, him give up a walkoff and just have to sit on that, right? Do you want me to run through every game, the debacks have lost here over the last month there can explain how it happened? It might make you cry. Oh, my God. Go.

Okay. So on June, this is the Diamondbacks last 25 games. They are 16 and 9. They have lost only nine games. Give me the bourbon, Damon. In their last 25, they played very, very good baseball. But pretty much every time the Diamondbacks have lost in that span, it is come in fairly devastating fashion. So June 28th against the Oakland days, D-Backs had a four-three lead going into the eighth inning.

Ryan Thompson had a rough day then. D-Backs wind up losing. He gives up three runs. They wind up losing nine to four. Who asked for this? Did anybody want this? I think you just said you wanted it, dude. I'm going for it.

July 2nd against the Dodgers. This is the game I just touched on. The D-backs were up five to four going to the. bottom of the ninth and Paul Seawald struck out the first two batters and then gave up three straight hits they wind up losing that one six to five July 5th against the Padres was an insane baseball game this is the game where the Diamondbacks were down seven to two going to the ninth inning and then and then Alec Thomas at a grand slam Randall grisich hit a two run homer they took an eight seven lead and then in the bottom of the ninth inning Paul Seawald gave up a Homer

that one hurt Homer walk Homer yeah and the Padres won that one 10 to 8 skip ahead to July the 8th the Diamondbacks next loss in July they were up 3-1 going into the top of the 9th Paul Seawald retired the first two batters and then he gave up a single and a two-run homer to Sean Murphy with two outs that tied the game debacks wound up losing that one in 11 innings five to four July 9th Derek the diamondbacks lost like a normal game uh Zach gallon just sort of got outpitched by Chris Sale they lose that one six to two uh July 14th was weird That was the Blue Jays game when they were down seven to nothing. And then they scored seven runs and tied it in the fifth inning.

They wound up losing, they wound up losing eight to seven on a Vladimir-Gerrera Jr. Homer. And then these last three losses, there was one that was fairly normal to the Royals where Yolbert Diaz kind of got lit up. But that game in the Cubs, the finale, against the Cubs, that finale in Chicago were Brandon fought outpitched, showed at Imanaga. And then Seawald was down that day. Justin Martinez blew the save. They lost on a, they lost on Humberto Castellanos walking in the winning.

I remember that one. And then, and then that brings us to yesterday's game where it was another blown save. People are talking about getting you sound. Pretty rough tenting. I just think it's crazy, Derek, that they are 16 and nine in their last 25 games.

They have been in position to win 22 out of those 25 games. It's not to say the D-backs haven't played really well over the last month they have it's just i mean they could be they could be playing an absolutely insane level of baseball over the last month outrageous if they had managed to finish off a few more of those so uh yeah it's it's tough i mean i've never seen anything like this where a team is genuinely playing very good baseball and yet also it feels like they've left a lot on the table at the same time that's baseball though isn't it i mean it really is and it happens to even

the best teams in baseball but uh it happens to the diamond back more than we care to admit lately. However, it's still another series win. And I want to say that, by the way, it's still another series win. Let's not forget that despite the fact that they could probably have an insane record in the month of July, they're still, they've still been very, very good. Yes. You know, and it's been fun to watch.

And winning two out of three against the Pirates is a totally fine outcome. Like that finale was always going to be tough with Mitch Keller on the mound. Mitch Keller threw really well. So, yeah, it's just. a matter of how much they've left on the table, despite how well they've played. Correct. All right.

What else we got, Damon? Comes from Stone Garrett, Stan. Hey. He says, who do you think will be the closer after Seawald has gone this off season? I can't really see anybody on the current bullpen being a closer. J-Mart is clearly not ready yet. Well, I feel like we've answered this one probably up to this point already. But yeah, basically.

I don't know. I don't know if it's a no to anybody on the current roster. I mean, we've seen guys have to step up into that role. and do a decent job. So I'm not, I'm not very, I'm not against the idea there of J. Mark being the closer of the future.

I think he definitely has the stuff and he's exciting. He's also taken a big leap forward in a short amount of time from when he wasn't able to even throw the ball in the strike zone at a major league level to doing what he's doing now. So I don't feel like he's far off from being ready, despite the fact that he has kind of fallen apart in a couple of these outings when he's been put out there in high leverage situations. he's also been very good at other times in high leverage situation.

So again, I feel like he's close there. But you know, you don't throw the stuff you do and you don't have people in baseball talking about you the way that he is if you're not a special talent. Yeah. You know. Yeah, the potential for, as you said earlier, the potential for J-Mart to be a closer in the future is very much still there. And yeah, I think that could absolutely happen. But in terms of the options right now, we kind of touched on that earlier. it's not super obvious exactly what direction the debaq should go.

If Seawald continues to struggle, though, I could see the team taking a look at, you know, moving Seawald out of that role and going a different direction before. I don't know exactly how long it would take. But I think the leash is is considerably shorter now than it was, you know, at the beginning of this month, certainly. Ernesto says he wants more closer questions. I think we beat this topic up. Do we have any more, Damon, or are we out? Did we scraped the bottom of the barrel? Let's see here.

We got P.C. Yoshi and he says two questions, which kind of feels like cheating, but that's okay. Yeah, that's totally cheating. He's getting bullpen reps in Reno. Do you see him as a September call-up? I guess I just got called up right now. I think he spoke that into existence. Yeah, good job, piece of yoke. So I guess it's just one question.

And he says, do you think C-Wald is a Mets double agent or he was just also negatively affected by Sal Lakeda saying the NL Wildcard race is over since he's a former Met? No, this is Frank the tank's fault. This is 100% Paul Seawald touching and fraternizing with Frank the tank. That's what day did that happen? Do we know? That happened. Let's see.

Wasn't he got bad. Yeah, it was before he got bad. Yeah, he came out to throw out the first pitch, but it wasn't a Met series. June, I'm seeing a video on Twitter of that, June 30th. Uh-huh. And then what happened after that, Jesse? A lot of bad, right? A lot of bad.

Pretty much immediately. Like immediately, immediately. It was immediate and he was he was untouchable before that. He was great before that. And ever since then he's been even in his saves that he gets, he still lets runners on not very many clean innings it feels like.

But again, going back to the Slade question, like it's still interesting how Slade's going to fit in here. Obviously we know Slade is incredible the first time through the rotation or through the starting lineup, right? So maybe Slade gets used in a limited capacity maybe you know that's the reason why he's here or maybe just maybe the arizona diamond backs make some sort of move for a starting pitcher which would be kind of crazy but yeah i

just uh i just mapped it out the debacks because of the off day on thursday they could go with just four starters for a while but they will need a starter on august sixth that is the first day where they would need a fifth start what if they did what if they did a bullpen start on that day when Then when is the next time after that that they would need a starter? Yeah, they could do a bullpen game then, but they don't have any off days. So that feels a little, that feels a little bit dicey because, I mean, I guess if you're like shuttling guys back and forth from Reno and whatnot, maybe you can make it work. Soconi is obviously here to provide some extra length. I was going to say, so maybe they just make a move to bring Yilber potentially back before that date so that he comes back to start on that date?

He has to stay down for 15 days. Yeah, so they can't bring Gilbert back. until uh yeah what is that like august 14th yeah yeah wow i don't yeah i don't yeah i don't know i mean maybe it maybe it is just a bullpen day and then they'll figure it out from there i mean you know tommy henry is still theoretically an option maybe they want to go that direction i i don't we'll hopefully get more information on that feels it's fishy there's something something's up here jesse something is up it's there it's the only it's the only possible bring them home well we'll We got one more.

Then I got to do some ads. But what do you got here, Damon? Last question of the break. And it's Eddie Waters. And he says, are we actually entertaining trading away McCarthy? He's put himself above Thomas, in my opinion. No. The answer is no.

There is no way at this point the Arizona Diamondback should be entertaining, trading away Jake McCarthy. However, his value probably couldn't be higher than it is right now. Yeah, yeah. Which is unfortunate timing that it's right here at the trade deadline. because if Mike Hazen is wooed by some sort of deal, especially for some sort of incredible pitcher, then Jake McCarthy very much could be on the table. I don't think he should be.

I doubt that he actually would be. But again, you don't know if Jake McCarthy's value is ever going to be as high as a trade piece as it is right now. That's a very valid point. I mean, McCarthy has a 767 OPS, a 118 OPS plus. that's a touch higher than his OPS plus in 2022 when he was, of course, also very good. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think the debacks are trading Jake McCarthy, you know, not this trade deadline, but he, I have to agree with what you said.

Like his trade value has maybe never been as high as it is right now. And I mean, I think his trade value after 2022 was pretty high as well because of how well he played. But that year even felt different because if you looked at his savant page, in 2022 it was like okay this guy just kind of massively overperformed and that's why he had this breakout season this year that is not and maybe that's the case to a certain extent but the expected stats for him are as good as they've ever been this season um so yeah if they did trade jake mccarthy derrick all i will say is they better get a heck of a lot back because this fan base would uh right they they they love that man and i can understand why yeah well it's kind of like my morally

ambiguous popcorn bucket I got from Deadpool and Wolverine, Jesse. I want it. I just want it. But the value of it right now on eBay, astronomical. People are selling them for $150 all day long for a popcorn bucket, folks. I want to sell mine now, but I don't really want to because the reason why I bought it was because I wanted it, right? And I want to keep it.

Jesse, I don't know about you, but that's right where my mind went to too. Yeah. That's exactly what I think of it. It was a better analogy than I expected. Thank you. I got to give there. Thank you. Thank you.

When you're on eBay, sometimes your items might tempt you to sell them. And I mean, right now at the trade deadline, it might be very tempting. But, of course, don't do it. Don't pull that trigger. And we know a little thing about money, but you know who knows more about money than us and value and trades and stocks and all of that stuff is Desert Financial Credit Union. Of course, we thank them so much for sponsoring an account. And we also thank them for being Arizona's largest, most trusted local credit union for more than 84 years. Right now, you can look to Desertial.

Desert Financial for any kind of financial planning that you are trying to achieve. Of course, achieve your financial dreams and goals through Desert Financial. They have checking in savings accounts, mortgages, loans, credit cards, investment options, and so much more. Join a credit union that is committed to giving back to the community and sharing success with their members. When you open a free checking account online right now, you can get $200 and bonuses. Get started by visiting desertfinancial.com slash 200. And also baseball, you know, we have a little takeover event coming up here on Wednesday. We do. We do.

We can't wait to see so many of you to defend that pool. I don't know who we're defending it against, but I will fight someone till the death in honor of that pool. But of course, if you want to join us, if you don't have tickets for that takeover event, unfortunately, it's all sold out. But you can still be there at Chase Field with us. Come over and say hi, hang out and do that through game time. Game time is the place for last minute ticket deals. You can save up to 60% off by buying last minute ticket deals for sports, concerts, comedy shows, and so much more.

Right now you can save even more with exclusive in-app deals on select seats ahead of the game or event. And I'll be honest with you, based on my recent experience, it's just kind of fun to value hunt. You can literally shut the app down and come back 15 minutes later and suddenly there is a new ticket or cheaper deal than you saw just a little while ago. So they have all in pricing, which is great because you can toggle with that on, and you can see exactly what your ticket is going to cost. No surprises on the fees or how things are going to break down. And you can also get the lowest price guarantee. GameTime said they will credit you 110% of the difference.

So if you can take the guesswork out of buying tickets with GameTime right now, download the GameTime app and create an account. Use our code of PHNX and you will get $20 off your first purchase. Terms do apply. Again, create an account and redeem code PHNX for $20 off. Download game time today last minute tickets lowest price guaranteed all right well Geek Martinez says let's go Jake is in the lineup that's good news Yeah he is he is playing more consistently it feels like yeah at least in the last

as he should be can we go up to a Braden's comment from earlier this was a while back I thought it was pretty pretty amazing there it is yeah it's the one at the bottom uh brayden said I wouldn't try trade Jake. I did on MLB the show last year and my return looked good initially, but Jake went on to win all MVP. A L MVP. Okay. With the Orioles. How? Which is wild to me. Like, why in the biggest Jake McCarthy stand? I don't know if I don't know if you'd necessarily be buying into Jake winning ALVP. But, uh, why does that even happen? Because MLB, the show knows ball, Damon. They know ball. That's how that happens. I mean, you can't be hitting more than like, and maybe 20 homes. Like, did he steal 120 bases?

Like, I don't like you questioning fictional Jake McCarthy winning the ALMVP with the Baltimore Orioles. I don't like that scenario either, but it's hilarious to me. Thank you so much for sharing it, of course. Welcome back here to the PHNXD Back Show presented by Bet365. And we have some more mailbag Monday questions, Damon. What do you got for us? Next question comes from Kevin Lundberg.

And he says, with it being over 100 games now, when will each of you individually worry that this is what Corbyn Carroll is far from even All-Star caliber, let alone MVP, or do we have to wait until year three to see if the sophomore slump was only that? Oh, yeah, I'm definitely not deciding who Corbyn Carroll is as a player based on the results of any single season, right? But yeah, there does come a time if we get to season three, and Corbyn's playing more like this and less like he did in the first season that you might have to admit that maybe he is a bit more of a league average player than we thought and maybe even, you know, below league

average in some cases, but I will say that I am cautiously optimistic. That's not what Corbyn Carroll is. And I still think that, I still think he's going to be a great baseball player. I just think that there is a whole different level of pressure applied to a young player a season after they, the team he's on went to the World Series, right? And I mean, it's not to say Corbin isn't mentally tough. It's just a matter of, you know, you, you date it back to that almost, you know, injury that he had at one point where we had that scary moment last season. And Corbyn since then has kind of been different due to changes to his mechanics. I think he can figure out a way to get his mechanics back to a point where he's productive and doing a better job. We've talked about how flat his swing

has been. We've talked about him changing his follow through and not doing the one-handed follow-through as much. There's a lot of things there that Corbyn has changed to his swing, I think, that that's causing the problems. But at the end of the day, I still think that he's a driven player that, he's a driven player that will find a way to get back on track. And I believe in Corbyn in that manner. Yeah, I agree with that. Corbin could go the rest of the season with, you know, the OPS kind of in the mid-600s and just not really looking in sync at the plate.

And it still would not lead me to really question if he's like just actually maybe not the player that we first thought he was. For me, it will it will be telling what it looks like next season. If he continues to struggle the rest of the way this year, after having a full off season and time to kind of undo maybe some of the things that he did this past off season that wound up being, you know, wound up hurting a lot more than they helped. After a full off season, he's not able to make those adjustments and, you know, early next year. We're still kind of looking at the same sorts of numbers. That's when I would maybe more seriously, you know, kind of reevaluate Corby and Carol in my mind.

For right now, it still feels like a super talented baseball player who just is struggling against, the very best pitching that he's ever faced, obviously. And it's been rough. And, you know, the mechanical adjustments he made over the offseason, clearly were not good things. But I still think given a full off season in the grand scheme of things, Corbyn is still really easy to bet on for me. All right.

Well, it's we got, Damon. I'm not out on Corbyn. I just want to throw that out there. I needed to hear that from you. I mean, I've been as critical as almost anybody this entire season. But I think that, I mean, J. Rod's kind of done a similar thing. thing like he had a bad sophomore year i think that he's that level of talent and it'll be figured out but let's go on the eighth question it's the basketball and football guy and he asks any chance

that merrill kelly and or edwarda rodriguez who could be back for the philly series and when they both come back will they take yelbert diaz and montgomery's places in the rotation or diaz and nelson's place did you slip a who in there yeah i i do that every time he doesn't exist um i don't know I mean, the Philly series, that's August 8th, right? Like, that still seems very early. And we're even skeptical that those guys would be back even by the midpoint of the month, let alone after that, yeah? Yeah, well, yeah, kind of like I was saying earlier,

I think if you map it out, you could maybe see those guys throwing three innings at some point this week. I mean, that would be the next logical step, assuming that their bullpins yesterday at Chasefield went well. Those guys should be throwing three innings at some point during the middle of this week. So four innings would be at some point early mid next week. And then you could get to five innings after that. So mapping it out just kind of roughly the 11th, which is the series finale against the Phillies, that's the earliest that I could see either of these guys pitching.

I think they've got Meryl ahead one day ahead of Vrod right now. So I wouldn't rule out the possibility that you could see maybe one of those guys in that series, but it still feels more likely to be the series after that, which would be when the team is on the road. they play the Tampa Bay Rays, the Miami Marlins, and then the Boston Red Sox. That feels more likely to me, maybe the beginning part of that road trip than getting back for the Philly series.

But on paper, it could be possible. That's soon. That's soon. All right. What else we got, Damon? Next question comes from Aber D. Back. And he says, my kids are going to chase for the first time on Wednesday.

We're coming over from Scotland. And they want to catch some baseballs. Any seat recommendations? That's rad. That is awesome. Scotland. That's amazing. That is amazing.

What do you think? Left field? Yeah, probably. Yeah, left field would be, I mean, if you're looking to catch a home run ball, then, then, yeah, left field. I mean, I guess you maybe have a higher chance of getting a ball in general if you're somewhere on the baseline, like a foul, foul ball situation. That's fair.

That's fair. But that's so random. Yeah, unfortunately, the odds of catching a ball are not particularly likely to matter where you sit, of course. Batting practice, I would say would be. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Like, because the gates open while batting practice is still going on.

You might have to catch the opposing team taking batting practice because they usually go second after the Diamondbacks. The problem there is that if we're talking about Wednesday's game, that's a day game. And the debacks do not usually take batting practice. I don't believe there are plenty to take batting practice before Wednesday's game. I'm not sure if the Nats would either. So, yeah, unfortunately might be a little tricky seeing batting practice. But who knows?

Coming all the way from Scotland, right? Like the baseball gods have to be in your favor. It's true. We hope we wish you the best of luck. This is Drew. Ask what's his name? Zach Hample, where do you stand or whatever?

Right, right. That's the guy to ask. All right. Well, what else we got, Damon? Chris here says it's Aberdeen Diamond Back. Like,

it's like an abbreviation for that. So I'm sorry for saying Aber, but yes. Okay. Next question comes from H.H. Rocker. And he says, how long till the broadcast team

is banned from using the term sweep? Right now. Well, right now. We've discussed this all the time. Steve, Steve has an addiction to jinxing this team. He loves it. And, you know, he's a great guy and we all like Steve, but he, he is, he loves the drama.

There are, there are some things. There are some things I feel like is his job as an announcer to do. And it's, it's not jinxing the team. It's our fans. No, it's just us as fans being ridiculous thinking that the words that come out of a person's mouth actually jinx the baseball team, right? But then I think what's actually happened is, so many people have kind of given him a hard time about him jinxing the team that like I'm starting

to believe he loves it I'm starting to believe he just thrives in that moment you don't watch the broadcast but Derek and I discussed it on like one of our last post game shows when o'neal cruise came up to the plate in that ninth inning and it was like a one run baseball game or maybe there was a runner on and sewald was in so he'll give us up a lot of home runs Steve was like and here's O'Neill Cruz who hit the Ford F1, Sanderson Ford F150 in the, in the outfield earlier today, about 450 feet. And you're like, what are you doing right now? Why? It is uncanny that the Diamondbacks have only one sweep this season. That was May 7th to 9th against the Cincinnati Reds. Derek, that was going on three months ago. Diamondbacks have gone without a sweep.

And to be clear, I believe the Colorado Rockies have two sweeps this season. Like you do not have to be a very good baseball team necessarily to whack up to rack up like a handful of sweeps. Yeah. Yeah, they're just like baseball and it's general randomness that happens for pretty much every team around the league. The Diamondbacks though for whatever reason they've gotten close. I mean that Cub series looked like a look like a sweep. Obviously they weren't able to finish the job there and they weren't able to finish the job yesterday against the pirates either. All right. Well, well, well, so we got Damon. Let's move on because Jesse keeps making me upset. Now we have goofy questions and Don's bread says, what's your fast food hot take? I'm sure Derek has like 20, so why don't we just give him the floor? What's your fast food hot take? I mean, where do I even start, right? Here we go.

Lock in, everybody. Jesse, you can swing that mic away from you. No, Jesse has his fast food hot takes too. He's just concerned that Max is going to run out of his office screaming at us about no free ads. He absolutely is going to be doing that. I'll say that regional fast food places now being everywhere has ruined the excitement of traveling and eating fast food places. I used to love going into a town that had a bunch of weird fast food places I'd never seen. And now those places are all here everywhere.

Like I'd go into the Shake Shack. What's that? Jollybee. Oh, yeah. Like now that stuff's all everywhere and there's nowhere you can go. But I will say, no, there's no in and out slander in my heart. at all. I'm with In and out we're not so affordable.

I would understand the take that it is overrated. But in and out is the cheapest fast food restaurant that you can go to at this point. That's the allure of it though. Yeah, that's still good. That's the allure of it. And it's still good. It's still good. It's still totally. And it's cheap. But yeah, I mean, I don't I don't get like the waiting for

45 minutes. No, that's insane. That's very much the case, right? Like when it comes to like, for instance, Waffle House. Waffle house is a perfect example. I love Waffle house i know it's not fast food but it's like fast diner food right and it's i i would never defend like it as being like a culinary experience or any of waffle house like regular i love waffle house so much jesse i love waffle house i can eat tootry go actually lost the fantasy right now yeah but see i'm not trapped there for 24 hours so there's a big difference when you're not trapped there

for 24 hours right um my fast food hot take is that wendies is the best fast food there's my hot take. Wendy's Best Fast Food Burger. Best Fast Food Burger in particular? Best fast food burger. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty good.

It's pretty good. It's expensive, I will add. I would rather, I would rather pay several dollars less in and out than go to Wendy's. Well, the thing is is Wendy's is pretty cheap. Yeah. You're not going to sit in line.

I feel like Wendy's like kind of used to be cheap and it's not anymore. Everything used to be cheap, Jesse. There's this thing called inflation. That's fair. That's fair. Welcome to 2024. I've never been super fond of Wendy's French fries. to find myself a little disappointed

there from time to time. Do you dip them in the frosty? Yeah. I don't normally. Yeah. If you don't dip them in the frosty, they don't even go to Wendy's. You don't go to Wendy.

If you're not going to dip the French fries in the frosty, don't go to Wendy's. I think it tells me everything I need to know about Wendy's French fries, though, that you feel the need to dip them in ice cream for them to be good enough for you. That's fair. At the Wendy's at 30th Avenue and Greenway, basically. So I just, that's what we did as kids.

And you know what? it's still great. I know it's trying to get some trouble with Max here. Yeah. What's up with all the food sponsor? I know. I don't know. I don't know.

I have a decent one. I think it's become popular to be like Arby's is disgusting. And I think Arby's is pretty good. I really like Arbys myself. Arby's here's a fast food hot take. I want an explanation from Arby's how they can give me 10, 10 beef and cheddar for $10. Show me the math on that. How does it make sense financially for you?

Each one has a half a pound of roast beef on it. I'm not going to lie. That's a little concerning. It's amazing. They don't actually do that, do they? Oh, yeah, they do like, I think it's like five for $10. They have crazy deals on the beef and cheddar where it'll be like, you know, down to a dollar. I've seen like two for five.

I've never seen 10 for 10. You haven't seen the like the late, the RBE like anniversary thing they had. They were going crazy with their beef and jettors and stuff. Max is going to lose. lose his mind. Yeah. Illegal pizza is the best. That's what I want to throw out there.

Walk over to IPs. I mean, illegal pizza is in a different category. Yeah, that's not fast food, right? No, that is absolutely fast food?

Oh, no, you walk in, you order it, you get it, is Chip? No, see, this is a hot take.

I'm more thinking, fast food, you guys lost it. Fast food has a drive-through. Some of them don't. This one doesn't. You get your food. Oh,

some of the illegal piece. How is that not fast food? You get your food in two minutes. You're not wrong about that. But like, see, this is why I wouldn't consider Chipotle fast food. You're wrong, right, right? You're wrong. There's a hot take.

If I went on my phone right now and I say fast food and I type it in on my maps, Chipotle will come up. That is a fact. So you're wrong. I'm sorry. Okay. I don't know if I don't know if Apple Maps is like the arbiter of life. Oh, yeah.

I don't know about that. More so than Derek and Jesse. Yeah. whoever those guys are I thought Damon respected I thought he did do I thought he respected fast food more than this What a great call AZ Katz G

Yeah what a great call EGs is awesome Yeah that's a good that's a good call too I really enjoy their drinks All right what else we got Damon Let's get one more because we've been on doing this show For way too long and people are sick of looking at us Last question comes from Elizabeth And she says what Olympic sport would each Dback compete in

Besides track slash marriage This is the question We get as the last question A question that's going to take me 45 minutes to answer it? I mean, the obvious answers here are like track, right? Or like Corbyn running. Right. Anything.

Dre Jameson running anything. I think we were specifically asked to not just do the track marathon thing, right? All right. Yeah. I would like to see. I think Miguel Castro and Alec Thomas would be a pretty dynamite beach volleyball duo. Oh, wait. Do you see it?

What about like Ryan Thompson? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Ryan Thompson and Miguel Castro are also close, right? He's talked to us before about his relationship. That's true. I feel like with beach volleyball, you want like one guy is super tall and then another guy who's like maybe crazy fast.

That feels like, balance each other out well. So maybe Ryan Thompson and Corbyn Carroll and then Alec Thomas and Miguel Castro. AJ Puck, I guess. We've got to put him with someone too. Maybe he gets Jake McCarthy. Okay. What about Alec Thomas has the build of a gymnast? like he would be doing the rings or the pommel horse.

He's about five inches too tall to be a gymnast. I mean, yeah, like that's definitely true, but I definitely think that he would do a good job at that. I think Corbyn could kill it on a skateboard. Yeah? He just looks like a skateboarder. Oh, yeah. Skateboarding is an Olympic sport now.

He definitely does. I mean, a few of the guys do. Dre, another guy that looks probably like a skateboarder for sure. I don't know why, but I envision Lordus Gurriel taking off that fencing mask after winning his match. Oh, okay. And having his purple hair pop out and him do that. And like it just be magnificent.

Like, you know. I would like to see Gabby and Lourdes as like a rowing duo. Yes. I think that is some serious potential. Any kind of tandem where the two of them are. Yeah. Anything where Gabby and Lortis synchronized diving. Synchronized swimming.

There we go. Yeah. Just in sync with each other. Yeah. What about a handball? I feel like that. That's the game that baseball players would be really good. I really got into handball the other day actually watching it.

That's actually a sport. I think Ryan Thompson could be really good at because of the arm slot, right? I mean, isn't cricket one of them? Like, cricket is probably the closest sport to baseball. Yeah, right? That's fair. The devats would win the gold medal. The handball, they have to like throw it into, like, you know, I don't know.

I don't know. I like that. Anything else? I mean, there's a lot of boring sports, but I mean, I don't know. I feel like Jerry would be good at it. something I'm trying to put my water polo what it would water polo water polo what about like fencing we are right yeah I mean I see now I just want to see Lordus and yeah or Lordus and Perdomo fence each other that I mean one of the like one of the table tennis table tennis yeah that's what Perdomo's good at come on what about what about archery

anyone anyone stand out there as an archer and as an archer Fernando Rodney yeah I guess that's the right answer there arell Kelly just just pinpoint command yeah yeah no yeah like I mean Brandon fought maybe Jumantiply like how did you get started in this while I was hunting and then eventually I found out I was a world-class archer so then I transitioned over to this sport there you go yeah there we go to Thompson and Derek yeah me and me and me and me and me and me and T-time going at it judo well we thank you guys so much for the wonderful questions as always we thank you guys for being here hit that like button before you get out of here by the way

do us that favor of course also follow us on twitter i'm at cap underscore caveman with a k jesse is at jesse n friedman of course the people's producer damon is that damon dog that's d a wg we are damon's dogs bark bark make sure to join us tomorrow uh for a dual episode we don't know exactly when we're going to go live because we got a little bit of a media availability with uh the man himself mike asan uh so we will be going live shortly after the trade deadline with a trade wrap-up show and then we will also be bringing you a post game show tomorrow night so make sure to keep it locked right here of course you can follow our show at phnx underscore deeax but of course all roads do lead to at p hnx underscore sports on twitter instagram and facebook we thank you guys

so much for your time we appreciate you stopping by we'll see you tomorrow in the meantime have a wonderful evening and remember kids baseball is fun but it's so much more fun when you don't have to keep asking the question who is going to be our closer