PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Is Statcast Data Ruining Major League Baseball? | PHNX D-backs Podcast

Episode Date: May 17, 2024

Statcast is sharing more information with the public than ever, but is too much data bad for baseball? We also take a look ahead at the Diamondbacks series with the Detroit Tigers and head down to the farm for updates from the minor league system. Has Deyvison De Los Santos become the D-backs top prospect?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/Factor Mealkits: Use code PHNXDBACKS50 to get 50% OFF your first Factor box and free wellness shots for life with any active subscription at https://factormeals.com/phnxdbacks50Desert 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!OGeez!: OGeez! is not your average cannabis-infused gummy. Head over to https://www.ogeezbrands.com to find where you can purchase. Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. Four Peaks: Follow on social @fourpeaksbrew & @fourpeakspub! Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. 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.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.

Free Scotty Sheffler. Welcome in to another edition of the PHNXT Backs podcast right here on PHNX. Happy Friday to you all and a big ski to our regulars. Welcome in. Of course, I am your mayor of this joint, occasionally known as Derek Montia. This guy's your vice mayor. Occasionally known as your Thunderstick,

always known as Jesse Friedman. And the Arizona Diamondbacks have a big series here with the Detroit Tigers, Chase Field over at the ball starting tonight. We are bringing you a. to show day where we are here doing a pregame show. We're going to take a look at this Tigers team before the series starts. And then we will be back tonight for a postgame show. This guy will be at Chase Field.

I don't know where I'll be. And I'm not disclosing my location. But Jesse, first, got to admit, got to admit. I know baseball games during the regular season really don't matter that much. But that taken five out of six from the Reds looks pretty good after what they did to the Los Angeles Dodgers yesterday. That's true. Yeah, what was it, four stolen bases for L.A. Dela Cruz in one game, I believe, I saw. You're doing that against Gabby.

He's up to 30 on the season now, which is absolutely outrageous. He's going to steal 100 bases. He probably. I think he's on pace to steal like 110 at this point, which is, yeah, again, ridiculous. But, yeah, D-Baxter. They're on a nice little run here, Derek. Five out of six against the Reds certainly helped. They did, of course, lose that series against the Orioles. But they played pretty well in that series at times. It was a series. very much in and very much could have won if they'd been able to come through in a couple more key spots and we'll see what we have in store this weekend against the Detroit Tigers team

that has struggled quite a bit of late. Let's take a look at what both of these teams have in store for each other with the probabilities for this series starting tonight at 640 at Chase Field. Ryan Nelson going up against Scooball who's been very, very, very good. Terrick Scoobel for the Tigers. All of their starting pitching honestly has been very good. which has been a nice surprise for them, but Scoobel's been fairly outstanding. Terrick Scoobel is, yeah, as you can see there, 5 and 0 with a 2.02 ERA.

He very well might be the best left-handed starting pitcher at baseball. He very well could start the All-Star game that wouldn't shock me. He could win the Cy Young that wouldn't shock me. He is that good. If people don't know who Terrick Scuba is, I guess you'll find out tonight. It's going to be, D-backs are going to have their hands full with him on the mound for sure. On the flip side, Ryan Nelson, he hasn't pitched particularly well since returning from injury.

I think he's given up 16 hits, I want to say, in his two outings, he's gotten knocked around a little bit. But this Detroit Tigers offense, Derek, is very much struggling right now. But yeah, one other note on Scoobel that I have to give real fast. One of my older siblings faced Terrick Scoobble in high school. believe we're not. How did that matchup end? Yeah, not great. I don't remember exactly the like at bat by at bat outcomes.

But I do remember that they didn't particularly enjoy the days where Terrick Scouble is on the mound. Terrick Scuba went to Kingman Academy, which is of course in Kingman, Arizona. So I don't believe he was born in Arizona, but he did grow up in Arizona. Of course, Kingman is sort of out in the middle of nowhere, sort of on the way to Las Vegas, I guess. But yeah, so I have seen when I was watching my my brother's baseball games, I have seen Terrick Scoobel pitch before when he was in high school. I wish I remembered more, but I just remember that, yeah, his team absolutely dreaded when he was on the mound because he was pretty good back then. And I guess they can feel vindicated now, Derek, now that he's like possibly the best starting pitcher in all of baseball. Yes. It's like being a son's fan watching what the wolves did to the next.

Nuggets last night. You're like, ah, yeah, all right. Yeah. At least they're doing that, right? But yeah, no, for sure. I'm surprised you don't have more of a scouting report for us there from your time watching him. But let's take a look here back at that pitching probable matchup because the Diamondbacks do have their two-headed monster of Zach Gown and Jordan Montgomery going in the series. I almost think, Jesse, at this point, with the way that things are stacking up for this team, that I might, I might want to see Jordan Montgomery move to maybe the three spots. So maybe the Diamondbacks could get him in like the upcoming series with the Dodgers, for instance, instead of necessarily having their two best go in every series, like the way it's kind of stacked up now.

But there is an advantage there, obviously, right? They need to win games. And this series is much more winnable than the three-game series against the Dodgers they have coming up. Yeah, that's going to be a tough one. You're not going to have Zach Gown or Jordan Montgomery pitching in that three-game set against the Dodgers. So it makes this weekend feel maybe a little more important. and you have Gallen going, you have Montgomery. Sure.

You'd like to at least take two out of three against. Again, a Tigers team that hasn't really played all that well lately. They come in 21 and 22. They are under 500 now for the first time this season. They got off to a really good start, but it have slipped quite a bit lately. And one other starting pitcher that stands out about for the Tigers in this series is Jack Flaherty, who we'll see against Zach Gallen on Saturday. This is not the Jack Flaherty from last season from the last couple of years.

who is just really struggling to find his way. We saw the Orioles acquire him at the trade deadline last year, and it did not go well for him. I think he had an ERA around six down the stretch. But this season, he's been way better. He has a 388 ERA, as you saw. But his underlying numbers are way better than that, honestly. He has 63 strikeouts compared to six walks,

which is ridiculous through eight starts. That's bad news. That's bad news for the Diamondbacks, because they've been very impatient lately, and hopefully that's something that they can get rectified. I've noticed their approach at the plate getting better than working the count a bit more, but you can't come into a game against the guy

that's putting up those numbers and expect that much success without, you know, obviously being patient against him, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, Flaherty. I mean, DBAX are going to have their hands full here over the next couple of days. But if we go to our at-a-glance graphic, you'll see that the Detroit Tigers, their offense is not so great, Derek.

655 OPS for the season as a team. They've got a few good hitters. They've got Riley Green. They have Kerry Carpenter. But they also have Javier Baez and Colt Keith and multiple players with OPS is under 500, which is never good. So the offense here, much like the Cincinnati Reds, has very much struggled lately. This screams like a trap to me, though,

the Diamondbacks because when I look at their starting pitching being 10th best Major League Baseball and the relief pitching ERA being sixth best, I don't like that when it comes to the Diamondbacks and their struggles late in the game. Hopefully we can see maybe some of those games where they get that early

lead and are actually able to hold on to it. The lineup just dropped. The lineup just dropped? Yeah. Oh, what do we got? What do we got? So matching up. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I got you. Matching up with Derek Scoobel. Catelle, leading off. Corbyn Carole and the two

hole. Lourdes hitting third Christian Walker hitting cleanup Randall Gritchick getting the start and right field. A very rare Randall Gritchick start, it seems like recently he's not gotten many starts. Against a lefty I would expect it. Yeah, and they just haven't faced many lefties lately. Gino

Suarez, Jock Peterson getting the DH stock. Oh, that's fascinating. Over blaze Alexander. And being put there in the lineup. Yep. Gabby Moreno and Kevin Newman. Hmm. The most interesting thing to me is that Jock Peterson is starting against a lefty.

Yeah. Which I don't know if we've seen that this year. But then they've moved him down in the lineup. Right. Which makes sense because he's not he's not the force against lefties that he's. No, I get that. But again, it's like why. I mean, come on.

You're putting in someone who essentially at DH, you need to move down in the lineup. I don't. I'm not a big fan of that. But I am okay. with Jock being in there because I wouldn't be surprised. Jock has been the Diamondback's best hitter this year, period. I mean, yeah, when it comes to a...

It hasn't looked incompetent against lefties. No, he hasn't. And I'm sure that's the reason why right now. Chrissy's asking where's Pave and Smith, and that's not a question we really want an answer to. Jock against lefties this year is two for five with a Homer and a double. There you got. He has all three of the outs or strikeouts, so he does have three strikeouts. He has a walk as well.

But that's a 1771 OPS, Derek. He said, I don't know what Jesse says, two for five every night. That's a Hall of Famer. Oh, yeah. All right. Well, again, for the probable pitching matchup in the final game, we didn't talk about it, but we do have Jordan Montgomery going up against Matt Manning. Jordan Montgomery, I think much better than as 4.76 ERA indicates.

And I mean, honestly, again, I don't mean to put down the tigers. But these are the series the Diamondbacks have to win, just like the way that they got the job done against the Reds. This is a team that they, with those two guys in there and the way that the Tigers have been hitting the ball offensively, this should be a series that the Diamondbacks can win. Yeah, it definitely looks that way. On paper.

The Debacks, I mean, something we didn't touch on much in the Reds series. I think the debacks only scored 10 runs total against the Reds in those three days. They did win the series. They were able to do enough. but this is not a debax offense that has been all that prolific in the last few weeks. So again, they're going to be tested. It's not just the starting rotation of the Tigers and getting scoble tonight and then Jack Flaherty on Saturday. It's also the Tigers bullpen, which has a few familiar names, Derek.

Andrew Chafin is a member of the Detroit Tigers bullpen. Shelby Miller also is, although he is hurt right now. And also Tyler Holton is a member of the Detroit Tigers bullpen. I've heard that name quite sometime. Yeah, the D-BACS, DFA, Tyler Holton. I believe in February of last year. He pitched a few innings for them in 2022. Look pretty good, but they figured he didn't factor into their plans last season.

And Holton went on and had a 2.11 ERA out of the Tigers bullpen last year. And has continued to be pretty darn good this season. Of course. Of course he has. Of course, yes. That looks like a pretty big miss. I think that there's an interesting comment from Connor Mormon here who says, Tori has lost all faith in Blaze.

Do you feel like that's the case? I mean, I will say that if you look at Blaze's recent offensive performances, he's had some big hits, but his numbers aren't great. He just had a really hot start and really things have kind of leveled out. Yeah, yeah, they absolutely have. Blaze for the season is down to it.

seven he's down to a 751. See that magic trick happening in the corner of there? I hope nobody missed that. The hat just changed size magically. Anyway, go ahead. Blaze's OPS is down to 751, which is still solid. But yeah, he hasn't really impacted the ball a ton lately. His abats have still looked pretty decent overall.

I wouldn't say he's looked overmatched in his recent abats. No, no, not at all. But yeah, I mean, you go back to, let's see, if I go back. to April 30th, Blaze is hitting 111 with a 284 OPS in 29 plate appearances. So he's three for his last 27 at the plate. He has struggled lately. It still strikes me as a little odd that he's not, that he's not in there. Yeah.

I guess maybe the fact that Terrick Scoobal's main outpitch is a change-up, which is moving, of course, away from a right-handed hitter and in toward a left-handed hitter. I wonder if that made them feel better about Jock than about Blaze. but yeah I guess we'll I guess we'll see how it turns out tonight we will see and we will be back here like I said tonight after the game for post game show so make sure come back join us here for that of course we do thank you guys for being here now in the PHNX Sports YouTube channel you're about to see me and Jesse possibly have a fist fight on this set but that's what that's what you paid for that's what you came here for of course if you haven't subscribed to the channel make sure to do so now sign up for notifications that way you don't miss whenever our wonderful shows go live our brand new pHNX hockey show that is not to be missed. We promise you we will not take PD away from you. But while you're here,

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We did. Well, I think we ran out of time on the court, though. And, well, I had margaritas to drink and wonderful chicken. sandwiches to eat. So I also made sure to use my time wisely. These guys just played pickleball the whole time. Fools, absolute fools. I enjoyed the wonderful $6-dollar margaritas chicken pickle has to offer as well as their sandwich. It was a grilled chicken sandwich. It was pickled, or it was brined in pickle juice and then grilled with bacon and avocado. It was delightful. They have a wonderful food. It's a great place to hang out, great place to gather for a large party,

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They got 79 cents for all sizes of their polar pop. So go get yourself a gigantic beverage. I know you're thirsty. I know you're thirsty. I should have made sure to hydrate before this discussion we're about to have because I'm about to talk to Jesse about statcast. data ruining baseball. And you guys all know that's not going to go well.

But we do have all sorts of wonderful new stats this year on statcast, not just this year, recently that just dropped. All sorts of wonderful things like bat speed metrics, squared up rate, blast rate, swing length. Of course, my favorite swords. I don't even know how they're like there's a person literally deciding on what it is and what isn't a sword. And that's wonderful.

That is absolutely wonderful. I think we do have a screenshot of the D-BACs bat speed stuff. This is what some of those stats look like. And of course, I'm so glad he's on there. This information coming out, as we discussed, was like Christmas morning for young Jesse Friedman. He was very excited for this to drop. And I do not want to take any of the fun away from him. But I recently had a conversation with a former GM of the Chicago Cubs.

and I thought it was interesting to get, of course, what you would call like the old guards kind of opinion on this stuff. We already know people that have been in baseball, people that watch baseball for years and years and years like myself. We don't like new stuff. I don't like change, okay? But new information that comes out advances the game. And of course, some of the statcast data that just came out

over the last like basically 10 years has already become a huge part of baseball. Like Jesse said, when stats like this come out, the adjustments start to be made to try to, you know, of course, understand what this does for you as a hitter or as a pitcher and try your best to increase in some areas, you know, there that might help you, obviously, in whatever position you play. The interesting part about that, Jacob and Jesse, is the opinion that this information out there is too much information, right? We had a question on Mailbag Monday in regards to if there is like a downside to all of this information being made available to the public.

And I don't think you and I, I don't think either one of us really could see a downside to it. However, this conversation with the GM that I spoke to did kind of perk my interest in regards to why it would be bad. And the reason why it would be bad is because areas that they start paying attention to in baseball suddenly because, become an area that players themselves are trying to improve in and that might not necessarily always be a great thing like if you're trying to increase your spin rate sometimes that might not be good for you or your arm certain you know trying to change you know certain metrics and trying to improve them might be a thing where it involves a player changing their grip or holding the ball differently there was also a whole other discussion about baseball's in modern day baseball being much different than they used to be, right? Essentially, the opinion was the baseball was never the same when you picked it up as a pitcher.

They were always kind of different. And I don't know how that's good for your grip or for guys not getting injured. But there has been discussion about, like, you know, some of the grip that guys use, some of the increases in RPMs or certain metrics that players are trying to achieve could be the thing that's leading

to some of these injuries, to this increase, especially in pitcher injuries. But more importantly, I think it goes beyond just major league players. It goes into the younger levels of baseball where now you might have little league coaches worrying about things like bat speed and pitchers RPM of an 8 year old or a 12 year old. I really hope that they're not using this technology on like 8 year olds. That seems a little premature to be a making that kind of investment. But there are some well-funded little leagues in this country, Jesse.

You think an eight-year-old would have more bad speed than Scott McGuff? Yes, some of them, possibly. Scott McGuff, he was a position player. He hit a little bit in college, right? 66 miles an hour? 56 miles an hour. Maybe, I'm going to say, you could have some talented youngsters. I mean, we all knew those kids.

Like, you played Little League. You all knew those kids that you were like, that kid's like three years older than every other kid on this. Yeah. And again, it might be a misuse of the stats, right? Not necessarily that they're able to track that for younger players or players in high school, but the fact that that just might become an area of focus where not only the players are now working on to improve it, but the coaches are teaching the players to improve those areas.

Yeah, I mean, so I think it's pretty obvious where I stand on the question of like, is stat cast ruining baseball. The answer is yes. It's a resounding yes. The answer for me is a resounding, no. I don't know what I would do with myself. I really don't. I would have to have a different co-host problem.

Yeah, I would be, I'd be like what Craig was yesterday when he, just tuned into the P. bottles of alcohol and a grainy video. I wouldn't, yeah, I'd be stuck in my parents' basement for forever. I wouldn't know what to do with myself. But I will acknowledge at the same time that at this point, Derek, these five stats are all different things. Sweet spot rate, hard hit rate, barrel rate, square rate.

squared up rate and blast rate. Those are five different statcast metrics. What are those all mean? And I like, even, even I who am a crazy person and certainly more invested than the average baseball fan in trying to understand these things,

even I am like, is this really necessary? Like, we're going to run out of synonyms eventually. How is a sweet spot rate different than barrel rate? I thought a barrel, was hitting it on the sweet spot of the bat. I mean, is a sweet spot different than the barrel? Well, explain that one to me, can you? I should say that.

Maybe we should have discussed this before going on air. I just don't, is there a difference between those things? Like, I get some of these, right? Like, I get on. I can run through them real quick. But I get why hard hit rate, for instance, is different than barrel rate, right? It's where you hit it versus how hard you're hitting it. That's a little different.

But yeah, it does get insane that these are all different categories and not, summed up in, you know, I don't know, some sort of FIP type metric. Explain to me like I'm a kindergartner. Yeah, explain to me like I'm five. I don't know if I can do that, but I'll do my best. So sweet spot rate is actually all about launch angle. It has nothing to do with how hard you at the baseball. Sweet spot rate is what percentage of batted balls are between 8 and 32 degrees launch angle.

So it's only about launch angle, nothing else. Hard hit rate is all about exit velocity. So that's what percentage of swings are. 95 plus off the bat, right? That's the threshold, 95 miles an hour exit velocity. Barrel rate is related to both launch angle and exit velocity, but not inherently tied to either one. Barrel rate has to do with, I can't do this. I can't explain this like your five.

It just doesn't work. I know. Barrow rate is what percentage of batted balls have both an expected batting average of 500 or higher and an expected slugging percentage of 1,500 or higher. So these are just like the ideal batted balls. Like these are your extra base hits. These are your home runs. Barrow rate, I actually think, is a pretty good stat.

Maybe the best stat out of all of these. Yes. And then we just got squared up rate, which, as you saw earlier on that screenshot, Pavin Smith actually leads to Diamondbacks and squared up rate right now. It's not sorted by squared up rate, but he has the highest percentage here. And squared up rate is. is what percentage of swings result in you capturing 80% or more of the possible exit velocity that you could have had. So you're basically calculating the possible max exit velocity based on how fast you swung and how fast the pitch came in.

And if you achieve 80% of that or more, then you squared up the baseball. If you had to guess who's second in square root rate on this list, I think Jesse might know. There are some more names on this list than I guess. It is in fact, Jace Peterson. Okay. Yeah. So Pavin Smith won, Jace Peterson, too. And I, and I, I, no disrespect to those guys, but that makes me a little skeptical about how valuable the stat is, right?

And I am still very much in a place where I don't, I'm very skeptical. I don't know how important scored up rate is. And then Blas. I'll admit it. I mean, Pavens had some moments. Yeah, no, Phaven has. Yeah, he's been a winning baseball player for this team. Yeah, especially, I mean, we touched on Lordus Curiel coming through with the big double in Wednesday's game, but Pavin Smith doubled before him is the only reason the D-Bak's actually scored in that inning.

So Pavin really has had some good moments lately. But yeah, Blastrate is the last one, and that is where you square up the baseball and you also swung at 75 miles an hour or higher. So, yeah, that's all five of those. They're all different. Again, I think barrel rate is the one that I'm most comfortable with than most think is useful. Sure. Barrow rate is helpful of like kind of figuring out how sustainable power numbers are. Slugging percentage can get kind of skewed by, you know, like a little doink down the line or whatever that goes for a triple or, you know, those kinds of things. Barrow rate is is really capturing like, did you really barrel up the baseball and really drive it into the gap or over the fence or whatnot?

But yeah, there's a level of confusion here that I think. we can all acknowledge is like you don't want to get to a point with these metrics where the more casual baseball fan feels overwhelmed and intimidated at even just kind of the idea of these things and I think we're maybe getting dangerously close to that place. I don't even think it's about the fans though because as a fan you can choose what to pay attention to and what not to pay attention to. Yeah, that's a good point. I think it's more about the impact on the game itself and when I heard the kind of some of the takes

you know, from older, older baseball minds in regards to this stuff. I think part of it is that that baseball was just fine without all of this stuff. So that's one way they feel about it, even though baseball tends to be a little bit of a mystery. And this information, this data is what explains that mystery, right? It explains why a guy can be hitting the ball very hard, but not really having a lot of success. It can explain it can explain a lot about a pitcher, maybe having a great ERA, but it not really being sustainable. It's good for front offices who want to analyze this information and determine if they want to give a player a long-term contract or if the data coming back to them basically just tells them that this guy had one good season and most likely won't go on to be a great player worth a long-term contract per se. But what it's going to do is it's going to start impacting players and coaches in the way that they coach and play the game.

And that's the part where you kind of wonder if it starts ruining the game of baseball due to the fact that people become, consumed with this data. And I say that because it reminds me a little bit of a great golf commercial from back in the day where a guy was visualizing all of the advice he had been given about golf. And in turn on screen, they had him start turning into all of the things that people told him. Like, stand like you're sitting on the back of a horse and swing your golf club like it's a hose. And so next thing you know, he was on the back of a horse and he's swinging a hose and all this stuff. And sometimes we can get consumed by all of this advice.

And when you start having players start getting consumed by things like their bat speed and stuff like that, you know, they're not necessarily maybe the best version of themselves they can be. Yeah. I think often, often, I think about Paul Goldschmidt and the way that he would answer our questions in regards to baseball. And at times, he was adverse to even hearing his own stats. He didn't even want to know what he was hitting or what his slugging percentage is. He didn't even want to know how many home runs he had. You could see it in his face.

And it was because when he said the thing that he said, which was, I'm just going out there trying to hit the ball hard, that's what he wanted to do. And certain players have success because they simplify their approach instead of complicating it with all of this information. This really is good information, I think, though, to have for, you know, coaches and stuff to utilize in part, right? But it's kind of like Brent Strom's approach to it. He still has kind of an old school approach while still using this data. to analyze his pitchers and share with them. And the ones especially, I'm sure like Zach Gallen, that are probably much more into this than maybe other guys,

I'm sure he maybe goes into the stat cast stuff a little bit more or whatever. But there is just a simple human element sometimes to throwing the ball and hitting the ball with a stick. And I think that all of this can really just like far over complicate a game that doesn't at times need to be complicated. And that's the side that I think answers that maybe it is ruining baseball. But I don't think it ruins it from a fan perspective. I think baseball is a very stat-driven game when it comes to fans' enjoyment of it.

Ever since we were kids, right? We looked at the back of baseball cards and looked at those stats. And they were different stats back then. Stats we thought mattered. And then guys came along like Jesse. And we're like, oh, yeah, not batting average, that doesn't matter. Screw you and your batting average. Now we're talking about ex-woburn.

I never said batting average doesn't matter. Pitcher wins. Who cares about the 300 win-club? You idiot, we talk about spin-ray. That's just for losers. Nolan Ryan was actually bad. So with all these new numbers coming out, I, the other day, got to talk with Christian Walker

about how he feels about Battspeed. And I asked specifically about the importance of it. Like, is it actually how much stock do you put into this? He is the Diamondbacks leader in Bat speed, as you saw earlier. Here's what Christian has. had to say. He said, I don't think I know as far as the importance of bat speed is concerned. I think it's important. I think bat speed is important, but I think the battle is maxing out bat speed without losing your bat to ball skill. And this is a very delicate balance for hitters

to strike because it doesn't matter how hard you swing the bat if you don't make contact, right? Yeah. Or even if you just like catch a piece of the baseball. Like a very important part of hitting is making sure that you are actually squaring up the ball as well. And so it's this given take of like, yes, I do want to swing harder. That is going to cause my exit velocities to go up. That is going to theoretically cause me to hit more home runs than I did before. Be able to hit a faster fastball and things like that. Yeah, absolutely.

But if it comes at the cost of, you know, you just not being able to catch the ball in the barrel as much, then it might actually hurt you more than it helps you. Yeah, no. And honestly, you're right, because you can swing it as fast as you want, but as anybody plays MLB the show knows. Yeah, here we go. Another Derek MLB, the show. You can swing too early, right?

You got to want to get that perfect, perfect, perfect, right? Perfect, perfect, is what we're looking for, you know? But no, I mean, yeah, you're right. I mean, the bat speed is obviously about driving the ball and, of course, getting to those harder, harder to hit pitches from MLB, you know, pitchers. But the other side of this stat cast, because I know a lot of this. stuff with offense offenses was the discussion about like the injuries in baseball the pitchers and sure the fact that you know these I don't know like there was a lot of discussion about grips

you know causing a lot of these injuries which makes a lot of sense because if you like do this with your hand and you feel these muscles and your forearm these is that forearm tightness that's that phrase we never want to hear like you start feeling like how that's impacted by things like the way guys are maybe trying to throw the ball like some guys can naturally throw a ball you know without having problems, but when you have like all this data telling you that you should spin it faster and you should do this or that and you start attempting to do so, could be one of those mystery answers as to why we've seen this uptick in pitchers getting injured the way they have. Like, I just think it's funny because really when you think about it with when we didn't have

this information, we had dudes just going out there on a Tuesday night throwing 130 fucking pitches in a game that wasn't even a no hitter where he wasn't even, it wasn't a complete game. but he was just going out there and throwing 130 pitches and these guys weren't getting injured as often as what we're seeing now they also didn't have the careers that modern day starting pitchers tend to have right we're seeing a longer life to a lot of starting pitchers career but you know again there's some weird stuff happening there when you compare it to you know guys that used to go out there half drunk and throw 150 pitches you know i really like what pce yos she said it's we we don't care how fast you throw a ball for yeah right and like the Deback's pitching staff is kind of the epitome of that. Like the starting pitching, they don't throw, other than maybe Slade, like, Gallon touches 96 from time to time. Like, Merrill throws 92, 92, 93. You know, it's just like, who cares how hard you throw the ballroom? I think that was a sign at Nats camp this year, I believe.

It's, yeah, it's really, it's really funny. Also, Alex Schmidt, I can relate to this where he said until you get a perfect, perfect that lines out to short and you throw your controller through the TV. guilty. TVs are cheap these days. It's fine. It's not a problem. We've all been there. We've all been there.

One thing I will say as far as stat cast ruining baseball, like, again, I don't think it is. I think like if these kind of advanced metrics didn't exist, I don't think Paul Seawald would have a job right now. Like the way that the Seattle Mariners pitching apparatus took Paul Seawald from being a 30-year-old who just didn't really seem to have a future to one of the better lockdown closers in baseball. It had to do with vertical approach angle. It had to do with all these

things that were not even terms in this game 30, 40 years ago. If analytics didn't exist, where would someone like that be right now? And those stories exist not only for Seawald but for so many other guys. At the same time, I will say, there are aspects to the analytics game that

cause teams to get a little too cute with things sometimes. You know, the influx of bullpen games being one of them. Like, none of us like bullpen games. I don't think anyone likes bullpen games. They're, they're weird, you know, a big part of being a fan of a baseball team is, is the question of who is pitching that day and what kind of excitement that can bring. That's been a part of this game for so long. And losing that, I think, is a, is a big

concern of Major League Baseball. They're probably at some point going to put in some measures into the league in order to try to prevent teams from going too far down that road. They already, you know, got tired of the, oh, we're going to bring in a leftie for this. hitter and then we're going to bring in a righty for the next hitter and then we're going to bring it a lefty for the next hitter. You know, with the three batter minimum that we have in bullpens, I think that's also a good rule. So as long as those kind of measures are in place to keep teams from going too far with this

stuff and hurting the product in the process. Jesse will defend statcast data until the day he dies. And I just wanted to point that out there. Jesse gets relentlessly attacked at Diamondbacks games by other members of the media. I do. specifically ones that we've mentioned on this show before for his love of statcast data and its importance to the game.

This man doesn't blink an eye. He doesn't reconsider. He doesn't change his position. He just stays the course. He's just steadily there. Even when other members of the media are getting into fights in the press room in front of Tori, Jesse's just boom, stack cast data.

It's important. My favorite part was when one of our friends from Fox 10 walked in and immediately knew when two people were arguing that it was, she goes, is it, is this still about stackcast data? Hilarious. It was hilarious. So, stat cast data, causing fights all over the place. And, of course, making baseball better, according to Jesse Friedman. The jury is still out for me.

I don't know. But anyway, we thank you guys, of course, for being here. We thank you even more. If you are a diehard, if you are not a diehard, we implore you to join us. Come become a part of the PHNX family. Go to go phtonx.com. sign up for a membership, you get all sorts of wonderful benefits. There's some hot new cardinal shirts out there, by the way.

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When you open a free checking account online, you can get $200 in bonuses, get started by using or visiting desertfinancial.com slash 200 right now. Go save some money. All right. Well, before we get out of here, we have ourselves a little minor league roundup. Take a trip down to the farm and see how some of the Arizona Diamondbacks minor league players have been doing, the ones that we know you guys care so much about. Of course, the first name we're going to discuss is a guy who was almost not part of the Arizona Diamondback system any longer. And now is kind of making a run at potentially being the Arizona Diamondbacks top prospect.

I mean, with the way he's playing lately, it's hard not to see Davidson de los Santos's name coming up potentially sometime for the major league club because he's been outstanding. Yeah, top overall prospect might be a little bit. It might be a little bit much. Jordan Lawler, Tommy Troy, they make that path pretty, pretty tough. But Davidson, Dela Santos really has been outstanding this year in double A for the D-backs slashing 372, 423, 679. His 1102 OPS leads all of the Texas League. Second place is like 75 points below him.

He's been just unreal. And the biggest development as far as DeLosanth, Santos is concerned for me is that his strikeout rate is dropping pretty significantly. Here, at least over these last couple of weeks, his strikeout rate over the last two weeks is 13.5%. League average is around 22, 23. So that's really low. That's really good. His strikeout rate for the season is 20.8%, which is also on the lower end below the league average. And for me, that, I mean, that was kind of the biggest question with Delos Santos is would he be able to limit the swing and miss enough at the

AA level to find his way up to AAA and then ultimately find his way up to the majors and he has absolutely done that here in these last few weeks. Nicholas in the chat is I think accusing maybe Roger Bessions of not being a real person.

I'm not sure. That's a whole other sidebar we can have on the Discord, Nicholas, but I assure you, Roger is very much real. Roger is a real person. We have a picture with him and we appreciate you for being here too, Roger. We appreciate all you guys. What we really appreciate, though, is the fact that Yilbert Diaz might end up being the Diamondbacks best pitching prospect in the organization. He's been incredible in AA this year.

Yeah, Yilbert Diaz, man, 23 years old in AA. He wasn't so great as last time out, but the start before that, six innings, one hit, one run, three walks, 10 strikeouts. And then the start before that, seven innings, two hits, no runs, no walks, 11 strikeouts. Those are really big numbers in what is, again, a very, very. hitter-friendly environment down in double a. I think he might be the best pitching prospect in the organization, as you alluded to. Umin Lin is certainly up there as well. Unfortunately, Umin Lin is out right now.

But, yeah, I mean, Yilbert Diaz is a 37.2% strikeout rate, which is off the charts. And he's also, he's Rule 5 draft eligible this offseason. So, D-Box are going to have to, they're going to have to get him on the 40-mid roster I don't think there's any question about that by the end of the year. Doesn't necessarily mean we'll see him in the majors this year. Although I wouldn't rule it out because his stuff is so good. The four-seem fastball is electric. It has all kinds of ride.

He's got a couple of breaking balls that are both really effective as well. There could come a point late in the season, Derek, where the debacks are just looking for whatever bullpen help they can find. And Yover-Diaz might be the answer. We got a couple of other pitching prospects. that I know a lot of people want to know about, but Yumen Lin, he's still out based on getting hit in the dugout? Is that why he's still missing time?

Yeah, he was in concussion protocols. I think things are maybe okay on that front, but yeah, he had surgery to correct some fractures in his jaw. Holy crap. I want to say it was, I don't have it in front of me, he's six to eight weeks, something like that. But yeah, he's going to miss some time. God, that's terrible.

Yeah, what a freak, ridiculous injury, right? He's not even pitching. He's just standing in the dugout. Just in the dugout watching the game and he gets just mauled by a thousand. I don't really even know what to say about, you know, the thing. The DeVax injury luck this year, right? It's just telling you. It's like, oh, yeah, we gave you last year.

But now we're going to come and get double this year is what we're going to get for me. Christy on Mena, another guy that has been very good pitching for this organization. And of course, we got him in that trade with the White Sox. Yeah, it looks like a. a pretty good trade as it as it did at the time. Of course, he hasn't pitched in the majors yet, but Maine has a 380 ERA, a 138 whip in AAA right now. Again, just 21 years old, super young to be pitching at that level. He's allowed three earned runs or fewer in all but one start this season. Again, that's a very pitcher or a very hitter friendly environment

down in the Pacific Coast League. And I've also noticed his ground ball rate has gone up quite a bit this year. It's at 46.6% so far, which would be just a little bit above. of the major league average last year in AAA, his ground ball rate was way down at 32.3%. So certainly a good development. And if you're going to pitch on the moon down in Reno, then keeping the ball on the ground is going to do you some good. So he's just been a consistent, steady presence down there in AAA.

And still has some things to work on from what I've heard. But another guy that he's on the 40-man roster, I wouldn't be totally shocked if Christian Mayna have found his way onto the major league roster at some point. Yeah, I agree with you when it comes to that. He has definitely proven himself in a league that's very hard to pitch in to be consistent. And I think that's the biggest thing. It's hard to be consistent when guys can literally launch the ball on a pitch that would not probably be a home run in most ballparks.

But again, the Diamondbacks, I feel like at least they're in the mode of trying things. and not being too cautious with prospects, you know, coming up and giving them an opportunity. We saw Blake Walston this year. Blake Walston remains very good for the Reno Aces. We saw the other day. His line was excellent, but he has a 3.69 ERA and a 1.58 whip, 21.7% strikeout rate, 13.3% walk rate. Just improved numbers from last year. Yeah, he's been better.

Again, he's only 22 years old. So he's already pitched an entire season in AAA, but he's still pretty young to be at that level. And yeah, he has been better than he was last year, you know, a 452 ERA a year ago. His strikeout rate last year, I think, was around 15%, which was really low. And part of why we weren't so sure what to make of his season, his ERA was pretty good. But the peripherals didn't really back it up. This year, the peripherals aren't outstanding, but they're definitely better. better than they were a year ago.

Well, I know one name that a lot of fans want to hear about is Drew Jones, and it would appear someone did in fact unplug him and plug him back in. His numbers this year slashing 247, 353, 361. So much improved from what, you know, his numbers look like early on. Yeah. But more importantly, since April 17th, he's slashed 303-427, 455, walk rate going down, or walk rate going up, strikeout rate going down. We're seeing young Drew Jones start to actually, you know, kind of live up a little bit to, you know, the potential that a lot of people saw on him.

Yeah, he's been better. He's been better for sure. I wouldn't say that the full body of work is all that great. You know, you want someone with with his level of explosive raw power to be slugging a little higher than 361 in single A. Sure. His strikeout rate for the season is 37.6 percent, which is extremely extremely extreme. extremely high still. But it is still early. And based on my conversation with Sean Larkin last month, D-backs are not putting a ton of stock in his minor league stats. Like, they're thinking more

big picture of how can we get Drew Jones to a place where, you know, two, three years from now he can be, or however long from now, he can be a good major leaguer. And, you know, if it means sacrificing some results in the miners for a while and having him make some tough adjustments or whatever, I think the debops are willing to do that. It's like spring training, but all the time. And typically you don't have that out of a player because a player is fighting for their spot on the major league club. Right.

You know, they're trying to prove themselves. They are trying to do the thing. Like, a big part of that is coaching and how they accept coaching and how they incorporate coaching into their game. The guys that are able to do that, they're able to listen, they're able to take the coaching and they're able to get better. The results really necessarily don't always. matter, but it's that improvement and that ability to be coached that can show how promising

a young prospect could be. But really, with Drew Jones, it's like there's, there's almost this idea that it's not about whether or not he's going to become a major league player. It's almost like that's been decided and they just need to work on him. But you know what I mean? It's never decided. But you know what I mean? Like it's like working on things like that, like what you said sacrificing results for the fact that he can forget hitting the ball the way you're hitting it this way. This might have success, you know, at a high school level and at a single A level, but this isn't going to cut it at a major league level. So we would rather that you made those adjustments now and try to figure out how to hit the ball

against easier pitching than to make those adjustments when you get to the majors, right? We saw Jackson Holiday have a lot of hype about him. He came up and, of course, didn't have the success. And that's common. I mean, and he's still going to be a great player. He is absolutely a bust. He is absolutely a bust. We knew that going into this entire situation.

But no, jokes aside, you know, like that's the thing about it is the development is more important than how fast the guy gets here. Yes, it's neat. Jackson Holiday got called up. And as an Orioles fan, it's exciting to have that piece of the future already making his debut at a major league level. However, his development and his preparation to play there is important. And he obviously wasn't ready, right? We see Paul Skeens, meanwhile, today. go out there and absolutely fucking shove in his second game of his career at a major league level.

That dude is ready. There's no doubt about it. He was ready in game one. He just, it didn't go all his way. And game two definitely went all his way. But this is, you know, this is why, again, taking that time, especially with a guy like Drew Jones is going to be important. One adjustment or, you know, one adjustment could vastly improve his results, especially if he's able to adapt and get. comfortable with that adjustment.

So, I mean, honestly, though, hitting 303, 427, 455 over the last month from April 17th to May 17th, I'll take that. And I'll be excited about that, not so much worried about the season results. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's fair. It's still too early to, you know, call Drew Jones a bus or, you know, rule out that he could turn things around and still become every bit the player that the Diamondbacks thought he could be when they drafted him.

It just the mechanics have looked pretty rough at times. It's clear that there are some adjustments that need to be made there. We'll see if he's able to do that. It just went from seeming, seeming hopeless kind of at one point to now you're not. You shouldn't be hopeless about a guy that was able to do that over the last month, right? Now it's just a matter of how can you put it together and make that a more consistent line rather than, you know, hitting, like you said, a 361 slugging percent. for a kid that has that much power. But there are some other guys that have some big power in the organization

that we haven't talked about. And one of those names could be the potential catcher of the future for this organization. And Adrian Del Castillo, the man is hitting the cover off the ball right now. He's hitting 343-386 with a 608 slugging percentage, seven home runs, and 26 RBI. Yeah, he's been really good outside of, I guess there's a few more veteran-type hit down in AAA who have put up decent numbers. Andra Shapiro, someone the debaq signed over the offseason. He's maybe been the team's best hitter in AAA.

Yeah. But Adrian Del Castillo is still very much a prospect in a way that those guys probably aren't at this point. And he, as you said, he's knocked to cover off the ball. It's not just smoking mirrors. If you look at some of the underlying data, it's pretty impressive there too. He really is making hard contact consistently. And as I touched on in my prospect report last month,

that the debacks also are pleased with what they've seen from him behind the plate, getting better, particularly at framing. That was something that Sean Larkin pointed out. And they're looking for him to continue to make strides and game calling and blocking and all of the elements that go with being a catcher. It's not just a thing you have to learn mechanically. It's something you have to learn from a leadership standpoint and kind of how to control a game

and control big moments and whatnot. sounds like there's still maybe some strides to be made there. But yeah, at 24 years old, Adrian Del Castillo is having himself a really nice season. And Gabrielle Moreno is still probably your catch for the future, right? But it's not to say that Del Castillo couldn't come in and, you know, play a big role at some point. I think that competition brings out the best in guys. And when you know potentially there is someone coming for your job, that's another high leverage situation. you're putting yourself in and of course the diamondbacks want to see how you can perform right and i mean

especially with the way the injuries have gone this year i think there's no guarantee any any position is going to be healthy and you're going to have someone there uh all the time so you know you got to get ready for for the next i guess the next step the next incarnation of this team um but is there anybody else you wanted to talk about before we wrap up yeah maybe a couple guys to touch on um i Ivan Melendez has had a bit of an uneven year down and down in Amarillo. He really does. Had some big games lately, but he's sitting right at a 100 WRC plus. He's been basically a league average hitter down in AA this year.

Striking a lot. Yeah, 32.6%. Strike rate is still really high. That continues to be a pretty big question looming over him moving forward, whether he can eliminate swing and miss enough to continue to progress. If we go down to high A, there's a couple of players I want to highlight real quick. Spencer Geisting, a guy that D-Backs took in the 11th round back in 2022 out of college. He's just been absolutely shoving in Hillsborough.

He has a 0.79 ERA, a 0.76 whip in 34 innings. His last start, he pitched seven scoreless innings with one walk and nine strikeouts. He's really come on strong. Ben, arguably, the Diamondbacks best pitcher at any level so far this season, and at least in terms of numbers at that level. He's a lefty 6-4-200 pounds built sort of like a prototypical starter. From what I've read, it seems like a bullpen role, you know, a lefty specialist kind of a role

is maybe the most likely outcome for him moving forward. But someone to keep an eye on here in these next few years for sure. Cool it you got. Last guy is Andrew Pintar, who the Diamondbacks took, I believe also fairly early on in that 20th. 2022 draft. He's the team's number 22 prospect. According to fan graphs, he's hitting 280, 400, 488 so far in high A, six homer, 17 RBIs. He's stolen 13 bases. He was a second baseman shortstop in his time at BYU. D. BACs have been developing him as a center fielder this year. He's played exclusively center field.

So it'll be interesting to see how that pans out. He's dealt with a lot of injuries. He had a pretty major shoulder injury, I believe, in college. They required surgery. And then he also had a foot ankle injury last year that he lost a lot of time to. So this is really his first, like, full professional season that he's had. Hopefully he's able to stay healthy. And he's off to a, he's off to a pretty darn good start. Well, that's the future of the Arizona Diamondbacks. But the here and now is Ryan Nelson taking on Terrick Scoobel tonight at Chase Field. Again, get your tickets through our friends. If you want to get yourself some cheap tickets, go through game time.

Jesse and I will be out there, so make sure to keep it locked to us on Twitter. Of course, what does Ryan Nelson need to do tonight to keep up there with Scoobel? Anything? Keeping up with Terrick Scoobel is a, that's a tall task in general. But, you know, with Ryan Nelson, it all seems to revolve around the secondary stuff, right? You know the fastball is going to be there. It's a question of how well the cutter plays. Can he get some swing and miss from the cutter?

Something we haven't seen too much of lately. That's sort of the big question for him. Well, you can follow us on Twitter. I'm at cap underscore caveman with a K. Jesse is at Jesse N. Freeman. Of course, fourth, that's Jacob Franklin. Is that Jacob underscore Franklin four. Of course, our show is at PHNX underscore Dback,

but all roads do lead to at PHMX underscore sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. We thank you guys so much for stopping by. But we're not done. And make sure to come back and join us tonight for a special two-shot, double play, if you will, of this show. We will be back with our postgame show after tonight's game against Tigers. So make sure come on back to that. In the meantime, we hope you guys have a wonderful afternoon. We hope you enjoy the game.

And again, we'll see you back here later tonight. And remember, kids, baseball is fun, but it is so much more fun. When, you know, you realize statcast data isn't all that important. Thank you.