PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Is J.D. Martinez the best fit for the Diamondbacks and more with Fangraphs’ Dan Szymborski

Episode Date: January 11, 2024

Artificial Intelligence has taken over the show! Dan Szymborski from Fangraphs stops by to discuss his ZiPS projections for the Diamondbacks in 2024, who Dan favors for the D-backs DH search, and more! But that’s not all! We are also joined by D-backs catcher Tucker Barnhart to discuss his journey in baseball and the impact Torey Lovullo had on his decision to come to the Valley. An ALLCITY Network ProductionSUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports PHNX Events: Get your tickets to D-backs Takeovers, Knockout Nights & Suns Watch Parties at BetMGM, and MORE here: https://www.eventbrite.com/o/phnx-56002330273 Desert Financial Credit Union: Open a free checking account online with Desert Financial Credit Union and get $200 in bonuses https://www.desertfinancial.com/200Schedule a free in-home estimate with Empire Today! All listeners can receive a $350 OFF discount when they use the promo code PHNX. Restrictions apply. See EmpireToday.com/PHNX for details.Sign up for Gila River Resorts & Casinos $1,000,000 Big Red’s Showdown! Stay in the game and get rewards; it’s that easy! https://www.gilamilliondollarshowdown.com/Gametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase.Circle K:  Join Inner Circle for free by downloading the Circle K app today! Head to https://www.circlek.com/store-locator to find Circle Ks near you!OGeez!: OGeez! is not your average cannabis-infused gummy. Head on over to https://www.ogeezbrands.com to find out where you can purchase. Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. Four Peaks: Follow them on social @fourpeaksbrew & @fourpeakspub! Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. WYNK Seltzer + THC: Go to https://drinkwynk.com/ and use promo code “PHNX” for 50% off. Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. When you shop through links in the description, we may earn affiliate commissions. Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Well, hello and welcome in to another edition of the PHNX T-Backs podcast right here on PHNX, a big ski to you all. Of course, I'm your mayor, PHNX, occasionally known as Derek Montia. This is my vice mayor, your Thunderstick, aka Jesse Friedman. We are very excited to be joined by several guests today, including Dan Zimborski from Fangraps, as well as Arizona Diamondbacks catcher Tucker Barnhart, which is very exciting. We have a clip from an interview we did earlier today to discuss about Tucker. But of course, before the robots and the computers get mad at us, we need to bring Dan Zimborski in here as quickly as possible. Dan, what is that? Dan's on a trial.

What's happening here, Dan? Well, I'm renting my face and I have to describe to be able to keep it. No, as you guys are aware, I've been having some technical difficulties, and I had to find virtual camera software in about two minutes. And it seems to be defunct software that their registration server is down. So I'm not sure if they're charging me $12 and not. We'll find that out. Oh, isn't it ironic? That computers are the things bringing you down.

down right now. So I'm guessing Tucker is going to have a more professional result than I did. Well, we don't know if it's really you or if it's AI, but we will believe it's you and we will proceed as such. It's me on a trial basis. Okay. All right. This is, yeah, this is what this is what you get from Dan for a short period of time. This is the trial run. We only get 10 minutes of an interview and then if we want the rest of the interview, we'll have to pay the annual subscription fee. But we are very excited to have you here and we appreciate it. We, we, we, we are huge fans of zips, fan graphs, and everything you guys do over there. Especially big fans of the neural network.

We are, yeah, we're huge fans of the neural network for sure. I'm always, I'm always surprised because I always get the impression that people are mostly annoyed with my various AI neural network nonsense. Not at all. I'm, I'm an AI hipster because I was doing these weird GPT things before it became cool in 2020. I've been doing this is like 2019. So I'm a AI hipster. Well, and I mean, AI has kind of come under fire.

And I've kind of always laughed at the fact that like you particularly dabble in the like kind of fun, you know, side of artificial intelligence. But I mean, it has become something lately that people kind of scrutinize. And then there's a growing kind of like mob against artificial intelligence and understandable in some ways when it comes to like some of the things about copyright and, you know, replacing humans and movies. and such like that, but I've always enjoyed the way that you have worked together with AI. Yeah, well, the plus is I'm not trying to put people out of jobs. There you go. I'm just trying to express the problems with my brain in visual and text form. So that's, I think chaos and nonsense is the best use of an AI still. Yes, yes, absolutely right. We've talked about Jesse being AI generated all the time.

It's the reason why some of his answers tend to be, they lack empathy that a fan base is really looking for. But again, we went over your Zips projections for the Diamondbacks for 2024. And there still seem to be some, you know, especially after the run that they went on and we know how baseball is. But it still seemed to be evaluating the Diamondbacks kind of wins projection for next year, seem to be still fairly low. Is that based just on history or what kind of? kind of dictates how they project a team's like wins and losses. Well, at this stage of the off season, it's still very preliminary.

Okay. Basically, Zips is using the individual player projections and using our depth chart playing time, which you can see if you go to the depth charts on Fangraphs, kind of just pro rating the performance at the positions, adding up the war over 47.7, which is where replacement level is, And then come up with kind of a pseudo win total. Zips, I mean, I don't think it's negative about Arizona. I talked a lot about the Diamondbacks last year because Zips was pretty positive about

him. Not positive as in going to the World Series positive. Right. But Zips saw a lot of upside there. And Zips still, you know, likes them, but it just does not see them, you know, as having the same depth and star talent as the Dodgers do, for instance. For sure. And that's understandable.

Few teams do have that kind of depth in Star Power at this point. I did want to touch on a couple players' projections in particular. Number one, I know last year you talked about how it appeared that Brandon Fott's family had possibly interfered with his projection. And this year, I mean, I think it has a 3.96 ERA, something around there. Maybe it was 3.97 for 2024, which is pretty positive for a guy who had an, you know, an ERA of almost six in his rookie season. And obviously he was much better down the stretch and certainly in the postseason.

I know Zips factors that in as well. What is it about Brandon Fott that you think Zips gets so excited about moving forward? Well, one of the things about Fought, about F8 is that if you look at his minor league record, it doesn't look. I mean, the numbers don't really pop out at you until you really consider the context of the levels he was in. Yeah. The Pacific Coast League, I mean, you look at a minor league picture within the IRA, you have like 3.71 in Reno, four and a half in Amarillo. And you might think to yourself, hey, that's not that exciting. But the thing is, offense has exploded in the upper miners in the last few years. I mean, the International League scored nearly six runs a game this year. The Pacific Coast League had some of its highest offensive seasons ever in the last couple years. And you've you're even seeing that in the double A leagues, a lot of offense. So when you take that into consideration, it's a much better AAA and double A performance than it might look like at a glance. Right now, just given the difference between the majors and the minors, you kind of want to mentally promote pictures a little more and downgrade hitters a little in your estimation.

And that Zips includes postseason information in the projection. does help him quite a bit. So I think it's still pretty positive on him. Not quite as positive last year, but it still sees him as a very legitimate, you know, number three starter type. Do you think his family is still hacking your entire projection system? I would think they'd be a little more ambitious if they were, if they were.

Because I think you wanted to like, if you're going to hack a nerdy baseball writer's computer, I mean, really go all in. Don't just hack and then make them a mid-range. starting right right why are you why are you changing your grades and giving yourself a B plus right like what are we doing if you're going to hack into the computer system give yourself an A yeah it's like robbing a bank but just taking the rolls of pennies yeah yeah that's it's counterproductive it's counterproductive I I did want to also ask you about Eduardo Rodriguez probably the biggest move the diamondbacks have made this offseason four years 80 million dollars this deal can can

escalate up to around a hundred million dollars I was kind of surprised with how how positive the outlook is from Zips, a 365 ERA for 2024. That's what Zips has and seems to be fairly positive moving forward. What is it about Eduardo Rodriguez that you think makes the system kind of like him moving forward? Well, he was one of those players who early on was underperforming his FIPP, his fielding independent pitching. And that tends to be a leading indicator of a guy who's going to have kind of a breakout to an extent. Zips also thinks that If you look at his profile, there's still the potential for his strikeout rate to get back to what it was when he was in Boston, 2018 to 2021. Because his swinging strike rate didn't really decline that much as much as a strikeout percentage has.

And so there's that chance kind of built in that he could be a 9-10 strikeout per 9 guy again in Arizona. He's one of my favorite pitching transactions this offseason, simply because it's not an absorb. morbidant amount of money. And he's one of those guys who just, you know, he had to get a lot of press and he fills a need for Arizona. And that's what I always get on when teams, it's not just about evaluating a player accurately. It's also about filling a need. For example, the Reds and Candelario, it wasn't really a person they needed. But Erod, I think the Diamondbacks really, really could have used him because they didn't get what they wanted from Bumgarner over the years.

Yeah. Speaking of Bumgarner, I get in trouble when I talk about Bumgarner and compare him to E.Rod around here. I hate when he does it. But they were both. I mean, I think both guys were 30 years old at the time of signing. Both lefties, obviously, there are some comparisons here. But I think you wrote in the story about the Diamondback Sips projections about how the outlook for E. Rod now is significantly better than the outlook was for Madison Bumgarner, you know, back in, back in 2019, when the Diamondback

made that move. Why, why is that? I think in in bummergarner's case, if you look at his stats and context, he was pitching in a much easier environment than Rodriguez had. He had put up numbers in San Francisco. He had shown a continual kind of decline in his peripheral numbers. He allowed a lot of home runs for a guy in that park. In 2019, he allowed, I think, 30, 31, 32, somewhere around there in home runs, which is, which is too many when you're playing half your games in San Francisco, which is, you know, a terrible place for hitting home runs. I believe offhand that Zips had his war the first year projected Bumgarner as like 1.6 or something. I got a lot of people who are mad at maybe because I said that I'd rather have Kevin Gausman than Madison Bumgarner.

One of those, one of those predictions that have worked out. Many have not, mind you. We are, I've talked a bit about who the Diamondback still need to add and we feel like obviously the right-handed bat is a big addition. We also know that the diamond back still kind of need that DH spot filled. J.D. Martinez has been a name that's kind of been linked to the team as well as a few other names. Solerre, Reese Hoskins, Turner. Justin Turner.

So what are your thoughts, I guess, on those four guys and who would potentially be the best fit for this team? Yeah, I think getting a DH is probably the best thing to do. I think if you ask me like my perfect world going on from here on out, obviously not Arizona training for Juan Soto because that's probably an impractical thing to happen. But I would prefer them just have Carol, Gurriel, and Thomas, three starters in the outfield. Jake McCarthy and the rest can be, you know, fourth and fifth outfielders. And plug, and you know, Jorge Soler is someone I really like as a DH because he's a he's got. who needs to be a DH and he's, I think he's got a little more tread left on his tires than Martinez does, even though it would be fun to have that reunion.

Yeah, sure. But it's good for the Diamondbacks because this hasn't been a particularly deep crop of free agents, so to speak, when you talk about hitters. But there are DH type guys out there. So the opportunity is still exist. I think that they can look, that they'll probably look at the names you make. and see who just is the best fed who can come with the least cost who's most willing to come there I'm trying to I'm trying to get you to make me think logically here instead of going with my heart for J.D. Martinez

because like you said I mean when you watch a man hit four home runs in at Dodger stadium for your team it's hard not to fall in love with him but sure yeah I mean statistically it does feel like like you said that so lair might have a bit more to offer especially if the deal ends up being like a two-year deal don't know what you're going to get out jadie martinez for more than one season it just it might make the more sense i think my my fear is that the dodgers are really good at kind of ringing out talent from players i'd always be worried about getting people after they leave the dodgers yeah i mean no slight on the diamond back staff but the dodgers seemed to do this i mean they they i mean jason hayward has been way better than i ever expected him to be in la right uh i mean they they they initially kind of brought Albert Pooleholes in immediately from the Angels and he had a pulse.

Of course, that worked out for the Cardinals somehow. I just think, you know, Martinez, he's going to be 37 before the end of the season. And there's always that additional risk that a 37-year-old hitter is you're going to be the one to see him age. And there's the old Earl Weaver Maxim, it's better to trade a player a year too early than a year too late. I guess it just kind of goes the same for acquisitions or sign-ins. I do want to ask one more on Martinez real quick. The Zips projection for Martinez, I don't have in front of me. I want to say it was like a 105 OPS plus. I think Steamer was kind of in the same range. At first glance, that seems really low to me, just given, you know, the season that Martinez

just had. I know 2020 was kind of a disaster for him as it was for a lot of pretty good players. I imagine that's factoring in there. Why is it that you think? you know, these projection systems are really not high at all on J.D. Martinez compared to some of the other guys on the market. A lot of it is his age. It was actually 106 OPS Plus, which is pretty much the same thing as 105. But when you look at the aging curve when you talk about 36, 37, 38 year olds, it's not a gentle slope at this point. Otherwise, every, you know, player who's a big hitter at age 36 will be a league average hitter at age 45, which we know doesn't happen. At some point, there's a cliff and there are a lot of scenarios in which 2024 is that year.

And since the Diamondbacks are likely in contention in 2024, I think they want to be a little more risk averse at this kind of thing. If they were just kind of fielding someone who'd be an occasional pinch hitter, kind like Jason Giambi at the end of his career, that would be one thing. but I think this is a key team need. And even if Soler doesn't have the upside that Martinez has, I think that the safer pick might be the better one here. Do you think, sorry, one more nerdy baseball question.

So, Lair, it's kind of interesting to me to think of him as a safer bet in some ways. Because even he is kind of, you know, he was really good in 2023, obviously. 2022 was not a good season for him. 2021 was. It seems like, you know, projection systems view him very favorably. And, I mean, based on the season he just had, I certainly can understand why. But I don't know, at least in my head, I don't necessarily see him as like sort of the safe, the safe option. But, yeah, I don't know.

I'm kind of curious, you know, why do you think these projection systems are so favor him so much? Well, one thing, I mean, the age is, of course, a bonus. He was doing it in Miami, which is a pretty bad environment to hit home runs. And if you look at his previous two seasons, he generally greatly underperformed from a slugging scenario, his stat cast data. 2022 was a partial season for him for a few reasons. But in 2020 in the COVID year in 2021, he had X slug, which is statcast's estimates. of slug from statcast data for those who aren't familiar had him up around a 500 slugging percentage.

Sure. Zips doesn't explicitly use X-Stats. It uses its own kind of thing, which is integrated in the projections. I don't know what Steamer does in that regards, but I imagine there's something similar. Jared doesn't tell me all the secret sauce. So that there's probably a good case that despite kind of the mad 20 to 2020. 2021 that he's closer the player he was in 2018, 2019, and 2023.

Doesn't mean he's going to hit 48 home runs again or anything. Sure. But I think that he has a surprisingly solid case to be a two to three win designated hitter. And I think that's that's about what you're going to get in the market. How much of a mistake do you think it would be for the Diamondbacks to not bring in a DH? Last year we saw Tori kind of use that spot at times, kind of like to give positional players a day off their feet and a chance to still be in the lineup.

Do you think that that's something that would work or just with kind of how the division is changing, how the Dodgers are just getting better? Is that going to be a bit of a mistake for the franchise if they don't address it? I think the thing is you want to try to get as much, well, let's put it this way. The Diamondbacks were seventh in the NL and runs scored last year. That's not a team that has overwhelmingly large amounts of offense to spare. So I think that they should try to eke as much out as they can because things happen. If you don't add in a DH, you know, if Guriel gets injured or God forbid Carol gets injured,

then the dominoes hit you harder because now you're already kind of cobbling together a DH position. I think you can do both goals. Use the DH at times to rest players, find, you know, the ideal matchups in individual games. that are beneficial and still have a relatively full-time DH. You don't have to give Solair, no, 162 games at DH, but I think 130, a couple as an emergency, corner outfielder in a pinch, I think that is kind of a doable scenario,

and you still can use the DH to rest players because one game of Soler's defense isn't going to be that massive. We're talking about it's like one run every three weeks when you talk about bad defense and baseball. Sure. Do you kind of switching to a league-wide perspective here? Do you have a favorite move this offseason? Hmm.

I think it would be Shota Imanaga with the Cubs. I think that given the market for pitching, they got a pretty good deal for Chicago for him. We were discussing that yesterday for sure. That's a deal. Yeah, I really like that. It's not a huge commitment. You're not having to spend $250 million to bring in Imanaga.

And you're talking about a guy. I mean, he struck out more guys in Japan than Yamamoto was. Obviously, Yomoto's young. He has a higher upside. But I think people are sitting on him, possibly because his velocity isn't great, but he gets a lot of movement. He's not just throwing a straight, crushable 92-mile-per-hour fastball down the plate. There's a lot of life and a lot of movement in his pitches.

We saw that, you know, in the WBC. back before 2023. So I think it's a really good signing. I wish the Cubs, or from the perspective of a Cubs fan, because I'm not a Cubs fan, but I think they should have, it would have been nice if they signed him and were able to close a deal with Strowman.

Yeah. But I'm a Naga, I think is a really good signing and one of my favorites. We were discussing, obviously, the free agency season moving so slow. And I know that it's hard to compare because last year, It felt like things were kind of happening fairly quickly and fairly early on.

So is it what are your thoughts overall on on how slow free agency has been and and what the impact of like Shoah's deal was kind of on free agency? I think there's a few things in play here. One, I think Otani, everyone was waiting to see what happened with Otani simply because I think, you know, number of teams were at least interested in him. Another factor is that this free agent market is not particularly deep in position players. Really, there were only a few interesting outfielder is available at all in free agency this year. I mean, Guriel was probably one of the top five outfielder is available in free agency.

It just wasn't a deep market. And also, last offseason was kind of the first normal offseason in a few years, because in 2020 and 2020 when you had COVID, 2022 you had the lockout and that uncertainty. And this was like the first real normal winter for spending and everything just going back to how the world felt like it was before COVID. And there was kind of a little short-term influx of cash because MLB sold their stake in MLB Advanced Media,

which brought, you know, a decent amount of cash to every team. So everyone had a little more in their pockets last year. So I think once you put all these together, that's why it seems a little slow. Yeah. Last thing for me, Dan, it seems like this offseason,

like you said, has been odd and strange. And we've been frustrated at the lack of the lack of action in recent weeks. But I actually want to circle back to the Diamondbacks. and their outlook heading into 2024. Do you see the Diamondbacks as being a team that can confidently sort of factor into that postseason picture? Do you feel like they really need to address this DH problem and them being a fixture in that NL playoff picture is, you know, kind of dependent on them doing that? I know there's, you know, there's still some other moves to be made with the Cubs.

I'm sure they're not done. The Phillies might be close to done. but they, you know, they're certainly a formidable team. The Marlins obviously made the playoffs last year as well. The Padres, Giants, Reds, Brewers. There's a lot of teams in the National League that are kind of in this sort of mid-middle-tier with the Diamondbacks. How do you think they stack up with all those other teams? I think they're in a pretty good position because even without making any changes at DH,

when I've done some preliminary Zips projections for standings as of a few days ago, doesn't reflect the recent Cubs moves, but it's regularly having, based on assumptions, which can differ, it's been having Arizona kind of in that 85 to 90 win tier. And that puts you solidly in the wild card race. Obviously, the errors behind any projection are massive. And I think people tend to underrate that when they say, oh, well, you said they would win 91 games. Like, no, actually, I said I was like 60% sure they'd win. between 82 and 99 games.

That's what predicting the future is like. You just have massive errors. But the team should like where they are now. I just think, you know, having a DH added to the roster, we just make them a little bit better and make more scenarios in which the Dodgers have a stumbling season and Arizona takes advantage of that, which is really what you want to see because winning the division is so much better for your postseason odds than going via the wild card yeah well we saw that last year where the diamondbacks narrowly

made it in and needed some help from some other teams in order to do so uh my last question dan is how can we get AI to correctly spell team names on jerseys when they create images how can we get that going i think the problem is it's just not the way they look at it it thinks of the letters yeah it thinks of the letters as part of an image not letters themselves as a discreet thing i think maybe at some point they could kind of integrate kind of text chat gpt ai and the image AI to try to help with that because you get some pretty funny logos sometimes you really do you really do everything else is incredible but you always know you look at the hands and you look at the words and you know what it's AI hands are actually getting better that is true hands are

getting better if you if you go back on a mig journey which is the one I really like using You go back every version previously and the hand situation gets so much gnarlier. Most of the time you get five fingers at this point, which is pretty good. I mean, it might look like a claw or have a weird bend of one of the fingers, but people are looking more and more human in AI than they used to. Well, it still terrifies me, but we appreciate you being here to make it friendly. So we thank you so much and we look forward to having you back and talking some more about all of all of these projections here as the season progresses. Well, thanks for having me, guys. Always fun, Jesse.

I know we've talked a lot before. Yeah. And hopefully next time I see you guys, I am a full head, not just a trial version. Well, you got to pay for the annual subscription in order to get Danz Korski as a full head. So we appreciate that. Thank you for stopping by. Thanks, Stan. I still don't believe that was really him.

You think we have that in the budget? Well, we'll ask all. Do we have enough to buy the full version of Dan Zimborsi? I mean, the problem is, is that you just don't pay for the annual, like, it's not a one-time fee. It's an annual subscription to be, to have Dan Zimborski, the full version. You can't go month to month. I will say, though, thank you for all of you. Thanks to Dan for being here.

Thank you to you for being here, of course, and the PHN Sports YouTube channel. If you haven't subscribed yet, make sure to do so now. Sign up for notifications. That way you don't miss when any of our wonderful shows go live. drop us a like. We appreciate you doing that. I was screaming it in the chat there a little while ago, but Gabby's here with his wonderful purple hair to tell you to drop a like. If you're listening on the audio podcasting side, make sure you subscribe there as well. Leave us a review. We always appreciate that. Those five-star reviews really help us out. If you were looking to feed yourself,

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We had a very special guest here earlier today that we had a chance to talk. to and this is some of our very first diehard only content that we will be bringing you. We will have our full exclusive interview with Diamondbacks catcher Tucker Barnhart available to you are diehards. But we did want to show a couple of clips from the interview. It was great talking with Tucker. He seemed very excited and rejuvenated to be here in the Valley. I think that was my main takeaway.

He's very excited about the opportunity to be a part of this organization. And it wasn't the trial version of Tucker Barnhart. We actually paid the fee. We actually got the full version. Well, I mean, because again, with Dan Zimborski, it's a little different. But Tucker, that's a veteran, which I called him a veteran. I should have called him a grizzled young veteran because the man not old enough to be considered a veteran. When it comes to this team, though, he would be.

And his experience for some of these 23, 24-year-old guys be very helpful. He has a relationship with a few members on this team, including new pitcher Eduardo Rodriguez, as well as hitting coach Joe Mather. But we did ask him a bit about like what kind of brought him here. and what some of the main factors were. And he discussed talking with Tori Lobolo and how much that impacted his decision to come to the valley. Yeah, I would say that, I mean, after talking with him on our Zoom call that we had,

we talked for probably an hour. And, I mean, that was the first time I had actually spoken to him. I mean, obviously competed against the Diamondbacks and Tori for a long time and have developed an appreciation and a respect, very high respect level for him and in his teams. And so I would say after the Zoom call, I mean, it was one of the, I mean, at the top of the list in terms of why I wanted to come here. It's just the passion in his voice and talking and the communication seems to be top-notch. He reminds me a lot of David Bell, who I played for in Cincinnati. And I can't say enough good things about David.

I mean, David was a guy that, that if you started to even argue a call whatsoever, you could feel him running behind you to have your back. And I don't know if Tori's that way, but in terms of those things, in terms of those things, but in just talking with him,

it seems very, they seem very aligned. And I, and I can't wait. We, he talked a bit about those connections and how important those connections are for him and especially in his career how those connections have made him a better catcher now we know we're a connected team and he's connected and it seems like there's a lot of

connecting going on jesse it's it's it also seems like a guy very much aware that i mean he talked about how you know getting dfayed by the guy was a big wake-up call for him and how like you know there is a point where you just kind of stopped stop adapting and stopped getting better as a player and he like I said he's very grateful for the opportunity to come here and try to win this backup rule behind Gabby who he had very nice things to say about it. Yeah, yeah. We'll post what he said about Gabriel Moreno. He talked about wanting to help him, help him win another gold glove.

Yeah, and right on his coattails. Yeah, that was good stuff. But yeah, this is a different kind of chapter in the career of Tucker Barnhart where he has been a steady presence at Catcher, you know, mainly for the- in Cincinnati. Yeah, mainly for the Cincinnati Reds from 2014, came up at age 23 all the way through 2021. He was there for a good while.

But now it's a little bit different for him. I think it was a one-year deal that he signed with the Tigers. And then last off season, he signed a two-year deal with the Cubs, but the Cubs decided that they had enough catching depth in house. And they DFAed him in August. He was picked up by the Los Angeles Dodgers at the end of the 2023 season, played some games in their minor league system but didn't wind up getting getting a call up. So this is different.

This is new for Tucker Barnhart. He's used to coying into spring training. And, you know, I would never say the jobs are just handed to you in spring training. Like everyone has to, you know, prove it and work for it for sure. But, yeah, this is different. Like, he is going to step in and have to prove himself alongside, you know, Jose Herrera figures to be the main competition there. Adrian Del Castillo, DBAX's catching prospect.

could factor in Ronaldo Hernandez, a guy that they signed a couple weeks ago, he could factor into that as well. So this is different for Tucker Barnhart. And I mean, I imagine mentally that that has to be difficult to go from a place where you're kind of the guy to being a backup.

So now having to like fight for a role as a backup in spring training. Not to get too much on my own story, but I just told you yesterday. Here we go again. About going to school in Puerto Rico. And I'm just saying like there is a thing about school kind of being fairly easy to me as I went through school, right? And once I left the state of Arizona and started attending school in a country where English was no longer the primary language, I obviously struggled a bit, right?

But I told you it was more than that. It's history of Spanish. There are a lot of things there. I didn't know anything about the history of the island of Puerto Rico because I grew up here knowing counties in Arizona. that's where I grew up going to school. What it was, like I wasn't, I wasn't prepared to all of a sudden experience that level of difficulty

because I'd gone into every school year, just cruising, just like no worries about if I was going to understand the material or be good in class. It was, it was a given, right? And I think that, you know,

what Dan said earlier is very true. There is just a cliff sometimes in players' careers where everything is cruising along. Every year you're the starting catcher. Every year it's kind of a no-brainer that you're going to come into camp. You're going to perform and you're going to be given that job. And yet, you know, there comes a point where suddenly that's not there any longer, you know. And I mean, it's sudden because, again, you still feel like you have a lot to offer.

And at no point did you really fall off on your physical abilities? It can be a point, though, where you don't continue to adapt enough in your career where you do become a bit obsolete. He discussed switch hitting, which I found to be fascinating. and about adapting when it came to hitting and switch hitting and not switch hitting and switch hitting again and like again a lot of that is trying to adapt so that you can continue to be at the top of your game or at least find the most success right he also had a great bit which of course we we can't wait for all the diehards to see where he talked about like some good advice given to him by j bruce which was to not necessarily just dwell on on the bad at bats you have but maybe every once in a while when you're watching film them also take a look at the good at bats you had to see what was going well for you not always dwell on the negative which is something again this guy who's talking right now can very much relate to but going back to the switch hitting thing i thought it was a very interesting you know answer that he gave and and kind of how his career has gone being a switch hitter yeah i didn't i didn't know this

about uh tucker barnhart to be honest somehow somehow this fell off my radar uh but yeah he has he has zigzagged quite a bit in terms of being a switch hitter and being a left-ended hitter he's now Now just a left-handed hitter heading into 2024. But yeah, in this interview, we asked him about that. And he kind of walked us through that whole journey that he went through. I did want to touch on the hitting side of things. And I somehow had missed this in your career that you were a switch hitter for a long period of time. In 2019, late 2019, it looks like you decided to just hit left-handed.

You went back to switch hitting for a brief time for a season. Now you're back to just hitting left-handed. You just kind of take us through that. that evolution over the years and kind of the thinking behind those decisions. Well, it's, I mean, it sounds like it's been a train wreck, but it really has. I honestly, when I was in the minor leagues in Cincinnati, I was, I was petitioning to not hit right-handed from, I mean, I got drafted in 2009. I was probably petitioned in 2011 to just become a left-handed hitter only.

Left-handed hitting, being a left-handed hitters, my, hitting left-handed, excuse me, is my natural side. So it wasn't something that that I had done professionally, obviously, just hitting left-handed. And so I think that was the hardest thing to kind of figure out, especially in the minor leagues. I mean, let's call it what it is. You're trying to keep as much or add as much value to you as a player, even now, you're trying to add as much value to you as a player as possible. And I think being very blunt, the reason, the only reason I started or I kept switch hitting was to just continue to hold that, I guess, card in my hand that, hey, he is a switch hitter. But, you know, for me, it was to getting into the actual mechanics of things,

being a natural left-handed hitter, left-handed hitting always came easier to me, and adjustments happen a lot quicker and a lot easier. And so for me, to be very good. cut and dry. I was going into off seasons with my left-handed swing making tweaks, and I was going into the off-season right-handed, like, every single year trying to like wholesale change my swing to figure something out. And at their, and at my position, I mean, especially getting older and having to rely on catching so much for me personally, like, it just was in a way weighing me down. I've gotten in clouding judgment and clouding thoughts and I was carrying, hitting over to my defense, and it just became this thing that just didn't make sense anymore. And I think the way where the game is now, I mean, a lot of matchups are played, a lot of platoon splits are played, no matter, for the most part, no matter who it is.

I mean, there are there are obvious outliers, but there are a lot of positions and a lot of players where a platoon advanced. advantages are used and it felt it feels like to me and and I know that it's right that left hand of hitting only is is what makes the most sense for me me and Damon we're getting lost in his beard there by the way it's glorious it's so well it's so luscious it's so well maintained he he immediately qualifies for the best beard well we'll definitely and we didn't get to ask Tucker in that interview about his uh his His beard maintenance? Yeah.

I mean, there's some professional grooming, I think, that goes on with that as well. Yeah. There's just a lot of work. He's putting conditioner in that thing, no doubt. It's better than my head of hair. No, dude, the thickness? Like, what is going on there?

It's luxurious. It really is. It's incredible. It's incredible. It's kind of a, it's an alpha move to come on the team and just have the best beard out of nowhere. Like that's kind of. That's such an alpha move. Yeah.

Oh, God. I'm sure that. that was a key part of the Diamondbacks wanting to recruit him, right? I mean, yeah, that's the beard and they're like, you absolutely have to have this guy. You got, you got to present a certain air of confidence and you don't have a beard like that without having a tremendous amount of confidence. Again, very excited to talk to Tucker and to see him go out there and win that opportunity to be the backup catcher. There's going to be a competition for it.

So it's not going to be easy, but I definitely think he has an advantage with some of his relationships and his experience in this league. That's kind of the one thing that Gabby doesn't have is the experience. And so I feel like, I mean, pairing a pairing Gabby with someone who's been around for a while does make some sense for sure. There's a lot of value there. So of course, to see that entire interview, make sure to sign up today to be a diehard. You can go to go phnx.com right now. Sign up, you will get your welcome package with your free t-shirt from the phnx locker.com and all sorts of other goodies, including Jesse's newsletter, all of our content, access to our members-only Discord Lound, which is the best place to be an Arizona sports fan, so much more, including discounts from our partners. and all sorts of fun stuff.

We have upcoming events and you'll get discounts on events as well, including our little son's takeover of putting world, which I'm very excited about because I was, I was dialed in. Me and Jacob were just going to put for putt. I was good, Derek. Yeah,

yeah, it's a lot of fun. I think I beat Max. But like if you would have told me I would have had so much fun at a miniature golf place that did not have windmills or giant clowns to hit the ball into, I would not have believed it in a million years. But we had a blast. And we look forward to seeing all of you guys out there.

for that event as well. Of course, if you haven't checked out, BetMGM, now is the time to do so. BetMGM is going to give you $158 in bonus bets for simply making one $5 bet. That's all you have to do. If you sign up now with our code of PHNX, download the sportsbook app on iOS or Android

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Only I could have figured that out. We're baseball guys. We don't pay attention to a lot outside of you. I mean, we get two months off and then we have to be back out at spring training. Jesse loves his football now. Oh, he's a big, big football guy. I mean, can we be honest that it's dumb, like how the NFL is insistent on keeping track of like what numbers? Like, as if it's so, we don't call it like World Series 100 and, you know.

Yeah. I mean, well, when you're when your sports been around since 1895 or whatever, or I should say, I think that's kind of cool. Yeah. What, 100. You don't like that? The 180th annual world series. The biggest problem with the Super Bowl thing is that they use Roman numerals and nobody knows how to read Roman numerals anymore. So they're just looking at it.

It's like, oh, it's, it's, uh, I X, like what? And no one, no one speaks this language, right? folks and that's yeah i do not teach when i was teaching math derrick we did not once use roman numerals or anything because nobody knows how to do that how about cursive did you use cursive that's also obsolete from what i'm hearing but anyway what's not obsolete is this offer get down on it now do not miss out on it sign up for bed mjm now and use that bonus code of ph and x place your first bet mjm sports book wager through the sportsbook mobile application for at least five dollars you will receive that one hundred and fifty eight dollars instantly an additional winnings regardless

of your wager's outcome check out the show notes for full detail and now listen to Shane talk about the disclaimer. Ontario. I went. Are you harmonizing? I went out. I went an octave up. I went up a little bit on that one.

You tried to go. I tried to go up. Those days are behind me, but I used to be a soprano at one point. Speaking of, I guess, the past and the future a little bit, the Arizona Diamondbacks have finally released some game times for both spring training and regular season, which is exciting. We also know when we will be playing some of these national games on Fox. Also exciting.

But opening day is set for Thursday, March. 28th at 7.10 p.m. at home against the Colorado Rockies. Very considerate of them to avoid a WrestleMania weekend on my behalf. I appreciate doing that. Yeah. They messed that up last year. But they consulted in advance and made sure. Of course.

The Colorado Rockies, I mean, I guess that's a pretty positive outcome for the Diamondbacks. With how brutal their start to the 2023 season was. Yeah, it was Dodgers, Dodgers, Dodgers, Dodgers, Dodgers. Four game. Yeah, four game with the Dodgers. and then a few games with the Padres, and then back to the Dodgers at home. That was a really rough way to start the season,

a much softer landing in 2020-24 with the Rockies. Although the D-Backs have a three-game series with the Yankees immediately after that series with the Rockies. The New York Yankees coming to Arizona. I wish Sean DePos was here to just unleash for the next four minutes on what he would call a poverty franchise in the New York Yankees. But one thing I am actually excited about is the diamond. had a very, very rough start when they started their season overseas in Australia.

It was a bad season for them. This is true. This year, the MLB season starts on March 20th and 21st with both the Padres and the Dodgers playing each other in Seoul Korea. I don't hate that one bit. Go get that jet lag. Go get, go ruin your season by opening it up overseas. I mean, they have a pretty decent amount of time between that and the rest of the games, right?

I mean, it's a full week out in advance. Wasn't the Australia trip? like exhibition games for the Diamondbacks. It wasn't actually regular season games or anything. It was wasn't it? No, I think those were Oh, were there? Those were real games. I know we played an Australian team when we were over there. So I looked like a practice or like an exhibition or whatever. But yeah, no, I mean, any

anything that starts their season off bad, I'm fine with. Spring training also starts against the Colorado Rockies, which makes sense considering we share the same facility. That is on February 23rd, which is only 43 days from now. Jesse on that day I will be on a cruise ship. That seems like very poor planning on your part. It really does. But again, the baseball season is 11 months long, I believe.

It's not 11 months long. It might as well be. The playoffs weren't that long, Derek. Tori never got to take down his Christmas decorations. I guarantee you those are still up right now. But like we said, the national TV schedule was also announced for Fox. And there are some big Diamondbacks games on there as well. They're going to be covered on Fox.

here's a look at that schedule. Yeah, yeah, you've got a couple diamondbacks showings here on this graphic. These are just the games that are happening toward the beginning of the season. I believe the D-BACs have seven. Yeah, first month of the game. Yeah, seven games on either Fox or FS1

that are scheduled as of right now throughout the season, which is a pretty decent number. You'd certainly expect the debacks to get a little bit more love from the national networks after being in the World Series and all. And it seems like that is indeed the case. But yeah, you have a showdown, here between the diamondbacks and the giants on FS1 happening in April, as well as the

Diamondbacks and the Mariners on FS1 a little bit later in the month. So those are those are the first two to kind of have in your head. Well, we are going to actually be continuing this exact conversation over on our brand new audio only podcast that we are going to be recording once a week. This is going to be dropped on the audio podcast feed. So we hope you guys enjoy that and I hope you down there. We are going to be going through the whole 2024 schedule. That's right. and picking out all of the kind of interesting series and yeah, just kind of taking a look at the whole thing

and figuring out what stands out to us. I'm also going to make some wild claims about what Jesse is doing since there won't be a camera to back up whether or not he is indeed standing on the desk doing the chicken dance. So make sure to stay tuned just with that. I can't. I mean, again, they're going to get to see a side of Jesse

that they don't normally get to see. Am I right, Damon? 100%. They're not going to get to see anything. That's the point. I will make sure to visually describe everything, just like reactionary YouTube bloggers do, which is, I think, their only job. But anyway, make sure to check that out. We'll be dropping the first one tomorrow on Saturday.

Or what is today? Today's Thursday. We'll be dropping it on Friday, a little early for you. Maybe we'll drop it on Friday a little early for you. But those will be coming on the weekends going forward. So make sure to check that out. In the meantime, you can follow us on Twitter. I'm at cap underscore Kate Mann with a K.

This absolute maniac next to me is at Jesse and Friedman. Damon, he is the people's producer behind the Mac. He is also known as Damon Dog on Twitter. I don't know if you're aware of that. You can find him at Damon, DAWG. We are also Damon's dogs. Bark, Bark. Dan Zimborski, also one of Damon's dogs.

Dan Zimborski is indeed. And you can follow him on Twitter at D Zimborski. That's right. And you can follow Fangraphs or go to Fangraphs.com. You can also pronounce it F-WR or F-R. Dan gave me the blessing to call it that. He didn't really do not. think he did that that's fine i mean i'll just again we don't even know if that was the real dan jesse that

that easily could have been a chat gpt prompted if anyone could have found away right they saw what they did with my voice that anyone could have found a way to come up with something to like yeah that very well could have been not actual day like i think dan never has to attend a zoo meeting ever he can just pre-program like some thoughts and then go take a nap that would have really come in useful in in college right all those all those zoom glasses that I did during the COVID years that would have been fantastic well we appreciate you guys stopping by of course again our shows at phnx underscore debacks but all roads do lead to at phnx underscore sports on Twitter Instagram and Facebook I'll see you tomorrow this man is going to go freezes butt off in Portland but I will be joined by ESPO who told me he's going to hold our arbitration hearing tomorrow for my career here at pHNX I don't like that one bit but I hope that you're still here when I come back to it but I hope I hope I I'm still here too. I still have years left on my contract, Jesse. That's absurd.

Do you have a lawyer representing you? That's what you were supposed to be here for. Anyway, we appreciate you guys stopping by. We thank you for your time. See you tomorrow. This guy won't, but I'll see you tomorrow. And remember, kids, baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun. When you know for in fact that it was the real Dan Zimborski.