PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Is The Diamondbacks Payroll In PRECARIOUS Position For 2025?

Starting point is 00:00:00 it. Ski to you all. Thank you for the advice on our microphones. And welcome in to another edition of the PHNX D-BACs podcast. My name is Derek Montia, occasionally known as the mayor of PHNX. And those of you that wanted ESPO in charge, this is what you get. You get microphones not working. So I hope you're happy with who you voted for.

Starting point is 00:00:18 This man next to me is a turncoat. He's also your thunder stick. It's the one and only Jesse Friedman. And yeah, welcome in to another edition of the PHNXDBACs podcast. We're not the ones with. financial trouble despite what just happened. But the Diamondbacks might be with some of their spending from last season impacting what they might be able to do this offseason, of course.

Starting point is 00:00:39 But we are always presented by our friends at Bet365. So make sure to go download the Bet365 app and use that code of PHNX365. When you sign up, choose your offer and find out why it is never ordinary at Bet365. Of course, before we get on to the Arizona Diamondbacks and all of their payroll problems that they might have this offseason, we do have to talk a little. little MLB postseason because once again, things are crazy. The Mets and the Phillies seems to be insane. San Diego and L.A. are going to fight each other before this whole thing is over.

Starting point is 00:01:13 This is where things currently stand for the postseason. The Dodgers could be eliminated. Is it today, Jesse? They have a game today. They have game four today. The Mets could eliminate the Phillies today after they won game three of their series. Jesse, did the Diamondbacks break Aaronnola last year last postseason? Like, did they break him as a postseason pitcher when they faced him?

Starting point is 00:01:37 Yeah, I think that's the only logical explanation, right? If you have back-to-back poor postseason outings, it naturally means that whatever team beat you the first time, they broke you. You'll never have a successful post-season outing ever again. It's just, it's just them's the rules. No, Aaron Noah was not particularly great yesterday, five innings, four run. really a game that the Mets dominated from start to finish. Yeah. The Phillies did not score in that game until they were already down.

Starting point is 00:02:08 I think it was 6-0 at that point. So, yeah, impressive showing from the Mets. They just continue to do the thing. As we said yesterday, the fact that they were the six-seed in the National League, it feels like they're just naturally destined for the World Series because that's how things have gone every year since the sixth seed was introduced a couple years back. It's a nightmare, Jesse.

Starting point is 00:02:31 I mean, it really is a nightmare when you talk about what is happening right now, especially with the National League and ever since they've implemented that rule. And again, you were a person and that was a proponent of the layoff not being a bad thing. It shouldn't be a bad thing in theory. I have said I agree with that in theory. It's just not how baseball works. For some reason, the team that comes off of playing 162 games, including a double header on an extra day after the season ends,

Starting point is 00:03:00 goes out, has to play a wildcard series, and then immediately jumps into the next series, almost never having a day off. In fact, playing some, the most, like, I guess, critical baseball games in a very short span. And yet that's the team that's on a role and can't be stopped. I just think that there is going to inevitably be a point where changes are going to have to be made to the playoffs,

Starting point is 00:03:24 to the structure of it, to not basically get, the teams that are the lower seeds such an advantage here going into this, you know, into this round. Yeah, I, I don't understand why this continues to happen. Frankly, I've been very vocal in the past about how I, I think it's loser talk to talk about, you know, like, oh, you'd rather, you'd rather keep playing games as opposed to having a week off where you can rest and, and make sure that guys are as healthy as they can possibly be.

Starting point is 00:03:55 I just don't really buy a whole lot into the argument of, you know, baseball players. Like you'd rather keep playing games and risk losing a three game series than just have all that time off and automatically advance the next round. But yeah, I mean, if this keeps happening, I don't know if three years is enough of a sample to convince me. But if this keeps happening for much longer, then, you know, maybe we do get to a point where Major League Baseball tries to make some sort of change here. We have all of these people in the comments saying, yes, loser talk. Chris the grouch says no excuses. No excuses. That's lizard talk.

Starting point is 00:04:31 Having time off is good. Ina Jackson says, yep, totally loser talk. Except for the fact, Jesse, that since this got put into place in 2022, NL teams that have to buy have gone five and 16, five and 16. And they haven't won a series. You had the Phillies, you had the Diamondbacks, who was before the Phillies? Was there, or was the Phillies in 2022, right?

Starting point is 00:05:00 And then the Diamondbacks and now, most likely the Mets are going to just grimace all over the place over everybody. Yeah, and it's not, it's not just those games, right? It's also, you know, the games where you have the two seed playing the, the winner of the other wild card games. So, yeah, it is, it is really crazy that we haven't seen a National League team with a managed to win one of these series yet. And there is still time, right?

Starting point is 00:05:28 The Phillies could pull off a comeback here. The Dodgers still could do the same. But the Padres are going for the kill shot tonight. They're going back to Dylan Cease on short rest, which is a bold move, not something that I think the Diamondbacks would do in that, in that position. The debacks don't seem to do the short rest thing all that much.

Starting point is 00:05:47 But yeah, maybe it works. And the Padres would certainly like to get this done at home if they can. Well, after how contentious game two was there at Dodger Stadium, right? We have this game now yesterday, which the Padres kind of blew things open with a huge second inning scoring those six runs. It felt like it was over at that point. And the Dodgers come right back with a grand slam of their own by Teoska Hernandez to make it a six five game. And then I believe I saw a stat and I could be wrong about this. But Dodgers after the grand slam went like one for 28 after that or 26 something crazy like that.

Starting point is 00:06:26 They only got one hit basically the rest of the game the whole entire time. And I don't know, but I think that this is, it seems over for the Dodgers. And I know that might be a bit early like you said. Both of these teams, the Phillies and the Dodgers could make a comeback. But the Padres just seem to just be in the Dodgers head. You know, it's, it, everything kind of fell apart there in game two. And I feel like from that point. the Padres just kind of have this mental advantage over the Dodgers right now.

Starting point is 00:06:57 Yeah, I mean, yesterday was, and I know a lot of people are talking about this after the game, it felt like the big brother, little brother narrative kind of flipped a little bit, right? Yeah. It felt like the Padres were the juggernaut and the Dodgers were the team that kind of in over their heads in this situation. It's like when the older brother is much older than the younger brother and eventually, age catches up with that older brother. He's now like 28 and the younger brother is like 18.

Starting point is 00:07:27 And now he's the one dunking on the older brother when they play one on one in the driveway, right? Like that's kind of what that was a bit. That they dunked on the Dodgers in that game for sure. That swing by Fernando Tatis was really something. That's really where the kind of big brother, little brother thing really hit home for me when, when, I mean,

Starting point is 00:07:45 Petco Park, the atmosphere there is just incredible. Incredible for these games. Which no surprise there. I mean, the Padres, like, I covered some games in that ballpark during the regular season, and that place was loud in the regular season. The Padres averaged over 41,000 fans per game. And San Diego is not, you know, it's not the smallest metro area in the big leagues by any means, but it's certainly not the biggest either. You know, it's definitely smaller than the diamond back. But they've robbed San Diego of their sports, right?

Starting point is 00:08:17 And the people of San Diego are are a great. It's a great sports town, believe it or not. They just, they haven't had a lot of luck with that. I mean, and now they're kind of down to the Padres being their, their team. Like that is that city's team now at this point. So I mean, I can kind of understand the way they've embraced it and supported them so much. I mean, we've kind of said that about the Diamondback. Sometimes it's a problem with support just due to the fact that, you know, there's so much.

Starting point is 00:08:47 interest in different sports in the valley here, you know? And it's like now we know what it is to lose one of our beloved sports teams and like San Diego got whittled down to just having their baseball team left, you know? So, but I mean, yeah, the vibes for them are great. The vibes for the Mets are great. Sean and I was great for the Mets. I mean, uh, the Mets just dominated that whole game over the Phillies and it didn't look like that is even close either. So yeah, I don't know. I, I, I wouldn't be surprised if the. Phillies forced to game five and sent the series back to back to Philly. But Ranger Suarez against Jose Cantana, I mean, that's your that's your pitching matchup for game four tonight. And Jose

Starting point is 00:09:27 Katana just like doesn't give up runs anymore. Yeah. I don't think he allowed a single earned run in the month of September. He was outstanding in his postseason start against the Brewers, a really big reason that the Mets were, were able to come back and win that game. And on the other side, Ranger Suarez, he was so good at the beginning of the season for the Phillies, but he was not good at all down the stretch after coming back from an injury. I think he had an ERA for five at that point to finish the regular season. So on paper, you kind of like the, you kind of like the Mets. So at least that's kind of how it lines up for me.

Starting point is 00:10:01 Jose Cantana has been really, really good lately. Well, there was an idea from Travis Souchick about possibly changing the playoffs a little bit. Yeah, yeah. This is going back to the whole buy situation. This wouldn't change the buy situation, but it would give the higher seed in these wild card games a little bit more of an advantage. So I thought this was interesting. Travis suggested in the wild card series you could make it so that the lower seed has to win twice in order to advance to the division series, whereas the top seed just has to win once. So it would give, it would give teams a little bit more, a little bit more of an advantage going into the division series.

Starting point is 00:10:47 Vision series. And, you know, I think the idea with going from the one game playoff to a three game series was to try to take away from the randomness a little bit, make it more of a true, a true baseball series. But you could, yeah, you could do this and you could make it so that there is a literal advantage for the higher seed in terms of just how many games that they have to win to move on. So in this, in this scenario, the brewers would have moved on instead of the Mets because they would have tied that series in the second game, right? Right. So interesting. I don't know. I still like it being a three-game series that feels it felt right to go to that move

Starting point is 00:11:23 after the one-game wild card, considering that nothing in baseball is ever determined really by one baseball game, unless you're talking about the Arizona Diamondback season. Zing. But most of the time, you know, we do series. We do two-game series. We do three-game series. So regardless of, you know, how things go, it felt right to move to this four-year-old. format and I've enjoyed this format. I've liked it. I've liked having the extra teams. I've just thought that, you know, it doesn't feel great for the higher seeds and this season might be further confirmation that that layoff is not good for those teams that have that buy. But I'm with Jesse. I understand the concept here of like, you know, having time off should be good, especially after 162 game season. And like, I talk to players throughout the year and they enjoy the limited,

Starting point is 00:12:17 time off they have when they can like the all-star break and such so it doesn't really feel like you know time off is a bad thing for those players as far as like getting over some aches and pains and just getting off their feet for a couple of days i mean they still have like a uh you know a game that they play there like a scrimmage game and and things like that but it's still not the same as as actually playing against a major league baseball team so i i do not doubt that major league uh baseball will try to alter their format if this season goes that way once again. If the Mets, I don't know. I don't know.

Starting point is 00:12:52 If the Mets and the Padres advance, which it's looking a bit likely, I would not be surprised to see some sort of change going forward. Yeah, I mean, in the American League, we don't know how this is going to end either, right? Right. Tigers, we're up right now when we walked away.

Starting point is 00:13:08 Yeah, yeah, the Tigers could very well beat the Guardians in that series and the Royals could beat the Yankees. If you had all four of these division series games going to, or all four of the series going to the team that didn't have the buy, yeah, I do wonder if Major League Baseball would at least take a look at it. I guess one advantage of the idea we just talked about is that, you know, if you only needed one game for some of those wild card series to end, then maybe you could start the division series games a little bit earlier. Absolutely. At most, you'd need two days, right? So that would give you an opportunity to to lessen the amount of layoff for the teams that do have the buy. I don't know if one day or two days makes a huge difference there.

Starting point is 00:13:53 But yeah, I still think it's loser talk, Derek. I still think that any team that is like, no, we don't, we don't want the buy. We want the randomness of a three game series rather than just getting a free pass into the next round. I still do not. Yeah, I don't understand that line of thinking. I mean, I know you think you have the experience because you almost worked 162 games in a row this season, but you're still not a baseball player. I have to remind you of that. I have to remind him of that at least once a week.

Starting point is 00:14:25 But, I mean, it's, again, it definitely might sound like loser talk because, you know, it is what it is. But baseball is just so weird and random. And that's why, again, it doesn't, it just, all of this doesn't feel like it is cohesive yet. right like the 162 game season had a point at one time you know and it does it but like you said there's no way baseball is going to be like hey let's play less baseball game and make less fun you know i mean like that's not going to happen right so uh and r a says why i feel bad for a team that spent uh a billion dollars yeah we're not i don't think we're feeling bad for them we're just saying in general like it's inevitable if this format continues to go the way it's going that they're

Starting point is 00:15:11 going to have to change it because it doesn't feel like any team that wins and gets that by really has an advantage anymore. But from from the diamond backs. Yeah. Well, I was just going to say for the diamond from the diamond back's perspective, I think the you know, as much as you're, you're probably, you know, singing and dancing if the Dodgers are eliminated tonight, the flip side is that next year it almost feels like you're going to have two Dodgers esk teams in your division. Right. This, this Padres team is not going away. They're not really going to look any different next year. They're going to bring back basically this the same team, maybe make some improvements in addition to that. I guess Jerksson Profar, I think he's a free agent. So that would be one, one potential piece that they could lose. But Jackson Merrill is going to be there for a long time. Tatis is he signed basically. Until the end of time. You Darvish is going to be there until he's, you know, in a nursing home, basically. Oh, yeah.

Starting point is 00:16:13 Zander Bogart signed a 25-year deal. Yeah, yeah. Zander Bogarts will be using a walker by the time his contract expires. So, yeah, it's a really, really good team. And for the debacks going into next year, like, I think that's going to be the narrative going into the season is that it's not just the big bad Dodgers. It is that you have two juggernaut, you know, top. five potential teams in your division going into the season.

Starting point is 00:16:40 That's the downside, I guess, of what's happening with the Padres right now. Yeah, for sure. I think we had a comment there from Jackson, scrolling up a little bit. Jackson, Doren, said, Derek, I will see you. First day of pitchers and catchers against Salt River Fields. So that sounds a little bit like a threat with the devil emojis coming after. He says, I guess I didn't have enough Dback swag this year to get them in the dance.

Starting point is 00:17:05 Promise I'll have some more. February. We need 36 pieces of flare, Jackson is what we need. We need to wear 36 pieces of flare to pitchers and catchers reporting in order for the Diamondbacks to make it into the postseason next year. But again, we don't want this to be altered because like, unfortunately, like you said, this is, you know, the wild card and having the three spots might be the Diamondbacks only feasible route into the playoffs for the foreseeable future, right? So again, this is a team that is kind of okay with that role, I feel like. And I also think that this is a team that could still compete next year.

Starting point is 00:17:43 But how are they going to get better if they're already strapped for cash? We are going to talk about that on the other side of this break. Make sure you don't go anywhere. But as we've talked about, it's this time of the year, right? It's fall. We almost have some holidays coming up. Halloween. I still haven't put up my Halloween decorations.

Starting point is 00:18:05 I'm furious about that. I'm a big Halloween guy. usually have the blowups up already, but I've been busy. Of course, if you've been busy like I've been, it's hard to get things done around your house. Got to look to Empire today in order for you to make some of those changes, including putting in some new flooring anywhere in your home that you're looking to change things up. Empire Today is the best place to get new flooring. So, of course, they have copycats, but Empire Today can't be beat on quality, service,

Starting point is 00:18:30 and most importantly, speed, especially if you have some guests coming to your home this holiday season, whether it's Thanksgiving, Christmas, anytime this holiday season. season. They won't promise the lowest prices because anyone who does is putting flooring in your home, they wouldn't put it in theirs. But they are giving you a quality product along with the fact that they service their own warranty. If an issue does arise, you can call Empire. They service all warranties themselves. You won't have to track down a manufacturer's phone number or get someone else to take care of that. Schedule free in-home estimate today. All listeners can receive a $350 discount when they use promo code P-HNX. Restrictions apply. See Empire Today.com slash pHMX for details. And I know it's this time of the year. Kevin came up to me today. The Tigers game had already started because these baseball games started early. And he said, can I, can I live bet this game? And I laughed and said, ha ha, my guy, don't make me go into an ad read in real life.

Starting point is 00:19:23 But pull up that Bet365 app right now. They do offer the widest range of games of markets available for a live in-game betting, which is exactly what you need to do sometimes with these crazy MLB postseason games. So right now new customers can sign up and choose between two offers. when they open an account of Bet365, use that promo code of PHNX365 to sign up, deposit $10 and choose either between a bet and get offer where you place a $5 bet or more

Starting point is 00:19:47 and get $150 in free bets or a first bet safety net offer where you can place up to $1,000 bet, and if you're qualifying bet loses, you receive a matched refund in bonus bets. Download the Bet365 app and use that code of PHNX365 when you sign up,

Starting point is 00:20:01 choose your offer and find out why it is never ordinary. Bet 365 must be 21 or over and physically located in Arizona. or someone you know has a gambling problem and wants help call 1800 next step text next step to 533342 or visit problem gambling.az.gov we've got people in the chat offering debucks to help with the diamondbacks payrolls i'm so glad people are still on board with debuts for those of you that don't remember that that's a bit from a while back where we demanded that maybe we could have some like diamond backs like currency at chase field where you change your money over much like dcats do debugs not exist anymore i don't think they

Starting point is 00:20:38 exist anymore but it was again it's a big it's it's we're just trying to you know like maybe when you pay for things to the concession stand with debucks you get a discount i don't know yeah you wanted a you wanted a situation where like diamond back's concession stands did not accept american at u.s dollars it's like its own sovereign nation they have their own currency much like disneyland used to before america came in and broke it up uh and you know now you have to use once again united states dollars at disneyland but The line for exchange, for exchanging cash is just. The exchange rate was terrible.

Starting point is 00:21:13 It was terrible. But that's how you have to run an MLV franchise sometimes. But speaking of finances and the Diamondbacks, things don't look good for 2025. And we only say that because this team went out and spent a heck of a lot of money last year. Now, that is kind of taking into account the poor performances that we saw from some of those players that they did spend that money on. But it leaves the Diamondbacks in a precarious situation this offseason. They went out and they spent like they were one of the top grossing teams in baseball this past off season. In fact, they had the highest payroll in franchise history this past season.

Starting point is 00:21:49 Yeah, they did. And they drew widespread praise because of it, right? And rightfully so. The Diamondbacks were kind of the model last year around, I guess, would have been about a month from now last year because their season was far from over at this point. But yeah, a lot of a lot of people were. praising the diamond backs for going out there and reinvesting that money into the team, right? When you have a deep postseason run, you get a pretty nice check at the end of it, both the players and the team itself.

Starting point is 00:22:20 And the diamondbacks took advantage of that. And that's something Ken Kendrick has constantly said. And we have talked about Ken Kendrick kind of speaking his mind at times. So it does get to a point where he does say things that become controversial at times that you do feel like he's kind of telling the truth. And I think I've heard Ken say more than anything in my time covering this team that they do take the money they receive and reinvest it back into the team. They get they get criticized for being, you know, stingy and not actually doing that.

Starting point is 00:22:51 And we have no way to prove it considering that MLB teams don't have to open up their books and show losses or gains as far as finances are concerned. We do know, though, that, you know, again, he's talked about this several times in the past. And like Jesse said, that was the best example of doing so, right? The fact that you knew that they got this big windfall. He talked about the team receiving this windfall due to the postseason run and that they did turn around and invested back in this team. Now, some of those pieces worked out absolutely outstanding, right? Like some of the things they did this past off season were genius like the Jack Peterson,

Starting point is 00:23:25 Randall Gritchick, platoon at DH. But now they're in a position where they might not be able to bring those guys or potentially any of their free agents back in 2020. Yeah, so we did some work crunching the numbers and taking a deep dive on where their payroll stands right now. Here's a look at the current situation. So this is basically where the diamond back stand under a few assumptions. One assumption is that A. Oh, Hennio Suarez's option gets picked up, which I think we all feel pretty confident about. Fairly confident.

Starting point is 00:23:58 Another assumption is that Merrill Kelly's option gets picked up, which I think we all feel pretty comfortable with. And then this also includes just the buyouts for Jock Peterson, for Randall Gritchick, and for Scott McGuff. Those are guys who have mutual options that we do not expect to return next season, but the Diamondbacks are still obligated to pay. I think for Jock, it's $3 million. I think it's $500,000 for Grishik, something like that. So those numbers are factored in here.

Starting point is 00:24:26 And the Diamondbacks, as you see here, Derek, are at $149 million. They are at $149 million. $1, simply letting Jock Peterson walk, letting Randall Grishik walk, you know, not resigning Christian Walker. They're already at $150 million. We have the arbitration numbers built in here. So there's $28 million for that. Some guys like Zach Gallen are going to get fairly significant raises in arbitration. The pre-arb number that you see here of $8.5 million.

Starting point is 00:24:55 That's just the Diamondbacks filling out the roster with, you know, pre-arbitration players. They would need 11 of them, I think it is. as things stand right now. And then the other category that's $5 million, that includes injury replacements, as well as some of the extra money that you pay guys on the 40-man roster who are down in the minor leagues. Those guys get a little bit of a bump.

Starting point is 00:25:17 So yeah, it's $150 million. The Diamondbacks last year, or I guess this past season finished up just over 170. So you're talking about a little bit over $20 million gap between where they ended the 2024 season, and what they basically already have on the books for 2025. Now, some things that that includes is Jordan Montgomery's option, which is a player option that we know. That's the other assumption.

Starting point is 00:25:44 That he's going to opt in. I mean, that's an assumption, but it feels like a pretty good assumption, much like you said about Gino. The variables, there aren't a lot. There are not a lot of variables here when it comes to the payroll. You pretty much have two options, which you feel like the Diamondbacks are going to be committed to. the Gino option based on the fact of how good Spora has played at third base and Jordan Montgomery based on it being a player option. And he is most likely going to accept that since he cannot make more money elsewhere and would be foolish not to considering the season that he had. He can still make that money next year.

Starting point is 00:26:19 And he has all of the reasons in the world to have a better season next year. It's personal for him. It might be a little bit of an FU to the organization. But still he'd be pitching well for them at the same time, which would be an odd kind of, you know, dichotomy existing there. But I think that, you know, again, the outside of that, you have what, like the Madison Bumgardner contract falling off, which they're finally no longer paying Mad Bum. And then you have guys that have built in pay raises into their contracts, which is going to increase

Starting point is 00:26:56 the cost of essentially the roster that was here next year without changing. changing it in any way right and that that's a big reason i mean 150 probably feels like kind of a daunting number right it's like well we were at 170 including mad bum's deal and christian walker and and you know jock peterson and some of these guys that are falling off the books but yeah at the same time edwardo rodriguez made 14 million in 2024 he's going to make 20 million in 2025 lordus garriel 10 million in 2024 his deal goes up to 14 million in 2025 uh corbin carroll has a bit of a bump in his extension, just a couple million dollars there.

Starting point is 00:27:34 Cotel Marte, also a pretty big raise there. He made 13.6 million in 2024. And I believe we'll make around 19.6 million in 2025. He has an escalator in his deal based on where he finishes an MVP voting. If Cate finishes top three in MVP voting, this is according to Cots contracts, then he gets a 3 million.

Starting point is 00:28:00 million dollar raise in the in the subsequent season so that would bring 16.6 million up to 19.6 million so that's what we have factored in if he finishes four through seven I think he gets a two million dollar raise so at that point it would be it would be 18.6 either way I mean Catell is definitely going to finish in the top seven in MVP voting this year so there's going to be some sort of raise yeah it's either going to be the two million or the three million for sure yeah Ken Kendrick on his recent appearance on Burns and Gambo, he said a lot of things. He did. Yes, he said a lot of things. I respect Ken. And that's only because I do think that at times, you know, he really does feel like he has this team's best interest at heart.

Starting point is 00:28:48 But, you know, again, it's like this past off season, I don't think you can put on ownership. I know a lot of people put on coaching. They put it on Tori. some people have agreed with the pitching coach move about firing the pitching coaches based on how bad the pitching staff was. Some people don't agree with that move. But I mean, I think at the end of the day, you could even, you know, blame Mike Hazen a little bit for the moves not working out, even though that would be crazy to me. But the one person you really can't blame is Kendrick for the fact that they did put this money up. And as Kendrick admitted, he was the one that pushed for Jordan Montgomery. So he was out here fighting for them to get the board.

Starting point is 00:29:27 clients, you know, like he was out there fighting for this team to not only spend, but to spend money on the most expensive players available on the open market. And unfortunately for this team, that did not work out for them. But on his recent appearance, Kendrick said the following. He said, are we going to be in a position to financially compete yet again next year? Ken Kendrick said, I think the answer is basically, yes, we are. I think that we have a core of players that will be returning that will leave us in a position that will allow us to be very, very competitive yet again next year, and it won't be inexpensive to do that. Yeah, and he also talked about attendance and the fact that the Diamondbacks did see a pretty

Starting point is 00:30:07 significant uptick in attendance this year. So that kind of helps cushion the blow of not getting that economic windfall that they had last year from the postseason. You know, it was 24. They averaged just over 24,000 fans per home game last season this year. That was up just under, 29,000. So it's about a 380,000 increase over the course of the entire season. I don't really have a great understanding of how much revenue you bring in like per person that comes in the door. If you do like just some rough back of the napkin math, if you just say it's $50, you get $50 of additional revenue per person, that would work out to about $20 million of extra revenue from the uptick is probably fair even with people that have the the past that was very inexpensive to attend

Starting point is 00:31:00 baseball games right which i'm i'm wondering if they're going to do again and i'm wondering how much that impacts this but that's true that's a good point yeah you're not getting you're not getting fifty dollars per uh per person uh out of the group that had the the summer pass yeah sure but you're still getting you're still getting thousands of dollars from people that set in the letter seats down below or in the sweets or whatever right so yeah there's there's there's there's a lot of increase there that isn't necessarily just those people. But taking those people into account, even if they just spent the $300 on the pass,

Starting point is 00:31:31 they're not going to every game. So you're not necessarily factoring in that, okay, they're only spending $2, $3 per game or whatever. But even if they are. Yeah. You have the fact that they're still paying for parking. They're still paying for concessions.

Starting point is 00:31:45 A lot of times they're buying stuff in the team shop or whatever. So like there is more money spent. Sometimes just giving away free tickets is better than having your stadium. empty, right? Because those people, especially with free tickets, are going to, if I get free tickets to event and I'm taking my daughter, I'm like, yeah, you're getting a shirt or whatever, like, because we got free tickets, you know, like, I'm just, I'm that much, it's more, I'm that much more likely to buy things at the concession stand or buy things from, you know, the, whatever, where, you know, the team shop or whatever. But I mean, still, they, it feels like overall

Starting point is 00:32:18 that the diamondbacks are on an upward trajectory as far as their fan base growing, interest in the team growing. And I think that that if they can once again put out a competitive team next year, that's not going to slow down. I think they should see increases in that going into next year. But who knows? I mean, it really depends on the performance of the team. And I think that really, you know, they went from a team that a lot of people didn't go out to see to being ranked 18th in home attendance this past season, which is pretty good overall, right? Yeah, yeah. That's not that's not bad at all. The diamondbacks made substantial gains. in that regard for sure.

Starting point is 00:32:54 And that is, that is going to help them. But Ken did not, he didn't really give specifics on whether the team would be able to maintain the payroll that they had this year. Understandably so. I will say that last year, right as the season ended,

Starting point is 00:33:09 the original estimates we were getting for their payroll wound up being very, very low. I looked back today and looked at some notes from a show we did in late November of last year. and we were estimating 130 to 140 million. I think there was a report that went out that the diamondbacks were targeting 130 to 140 million for their payroll. And it wound up being over 170, right? So.

Starting point is 00:33:35 But a lot of that was like the last minute addition of George Montgomery's contract. Yeah, exactly. It's not like they overshot it a ton before that, which it sounds like was sort of Ken's idea to push the envelope in that way. But yeah, I mean, what we're left with here is a Diamondbacks team that forget trying to improve the roster that they had this year. It's going to be hard to even bring back the roster. Like, I don't think it's even possible. With the way that the numbers look right now, the Diamondbacks, I mean, say what you will about how much money, how much money they could spend or what they really can afford versus what they're willing to spend. The Diamondbacks are almost assuredly not going to spend the money it would take to bring back Christian Wynne's.

Starting point is 00:34:19 and bring back Jock Peterson and bring back Randall Gritchick, all of those guys. I mean, it would push them into probably close to the $200 million range just to sort of retain the team that they had this year. They're going to have to be a little bit creative, I think. You know, we talked about trying to trade Jordan Montgomery. Maybe if you can save a little bit of money there, that's more enticing than what we might have initially realized. They're going to be in a bit of a tricky spot. They just have a lot of players that were really valuable that are that are going to be pretty expensive to bring back.

Starting point is 00:34:56 Yeah, well, I think that a priority here would still be to spend on Christian Walker, but that would be probably the majority of the money of the Diamondbacks have to spend. It would be on Christian Walker, bringing him back on a multi-year deal and, you know, somewhere in the neighborhood of $20 million. But if you do that, that is literally putting you right back, probably exceeding last year's payroll already just by bringing Christian Walker back. Yeah, I think, I think adding Walker and then going into next season with the expectation of maybe adding some more at the trade deadline, which is something that the debacks have

Starting point is 00:35:29 often done, like that would increase your payroll a little bit. Yeah, simply resigning Christian Walker would probably bring the diamond backs right back to the low $170 million range that they were in this past year. And that's not including like adding to the bullpen or figuratively. out some DH situation beyond, you know, Pavin Smith, right? Like this team has other other holes that I think they want to fill this offseason. So it's not to say that bringing Christian Walker back would be impossible, but at least on paper with what we're seeing right now, it looks like that would be like the biggest thing that

Starting point is 00:36:07 they could do this offseason, maybe by a pretty wide margin. Well, of course, you got to get out and watch those games next year. And I mean, you know, you got to keep spending on this team if you want those team to keep spending. Maybe, maybe Ken will bring it up to, you know, we were surprised last year. Maybe he is willing to increase it after the Diamondbacks didn't make the postseason. But I don't know where you're at on that. Like that's not really my baseline assumption. I could see them keeping it somewhere close to where it was.

Starting point is 00:36:39 Yeah. Because of the increase in attendance that we talked about. But it's a little hard for me to imagine them going into the, you know, 180, 190 range. The debacks already were, you know, far and away above any spending they'd done in the past with where they were this season. Ryan went to 75 games and he bought beer at every single one of them. So he did his part for sure.

Starting point is 00:37:02 Tanner Van Newkirk says, are we cooked? We might be cooked, Tanner. I don't know. I mean, like the good thing about this team and we're going to talk here in a moment about Arizona Fall League is that they have some exciting prospects still in the pipeline that could come up and make their impact on this team. And I think that's how the downbacks are going to have to be built next season. It's going to be young guys coming up and hopefully filling some of the gaps that they need

Starting point is 00:37:28 to address as far as like what they would do in free agency or whatever. Maybe an Adrian Del Castillo would make a good DH with the way he was swinging the back bad at one point. Jesse says not so much. We'll see. I think that's a pretty big gamble at this point. Yeah. I mean, well, he struck out kind of a lot.

Starting point is 00:37:44 Speaking as a guy that's had to band-aid his fantasy football team all year, just got his first win of the season. Sometimes you've got to do what you got to do to win some baseball games. All right. But we'll talk about some Arizona Fall League and such here in a minute. I do appreciate you guys being here in the PHNX Sports YouTube channel. If you haven't subscribed to the channel yet, make sure to do so now. Sign up for notifications.

Starting point is 00:38:04 That way you don't miss whenever our wonderful shows on this network go live. Of course, hit that like button and do all that stuff, you know. And if you're listening on the audio podcasting site, subscribe. Also hit that like button. There's not as many people in here as there used to be at times. So we feel lonely. Make sure to drop a like. If you're listening on the audio podcasting side,

Starting point is 00:38:24 make sure you leave us a review. We always appreciate that feedback. And those five-star reviews mean the world to us. Also, sign up for our wonderful daily newsletter, the PHNX Daily. You can get that over at go phtonx.com slash newsletter. And our guy, Patrick, is killing it with the newsletter already out of the gate. So we appreciate him.

Starting point is 00:38:42 We appreciate you guys so much. And like I said, on the other side of this break, we're going to talk a little bit more about Arizona Fall League. Jesse went out and had his first experience on Arizona Fall League game this season last night. So we will have more in regards to that on the other side of this break. If you want to go out and see some sporting events like Arizona Fall League and so much more baseball next year, football, basketball, all that. Make sure to save money with game time. You can save up to 60% off by buying last minute tickets for sports and so many other events, including concerts and shows. Game Time also has a new feature.

Starting point is 00:39:16 called GameTime Picks that makes getting tickets for your favorite live events even easier. It filters out the fluff to show you only the incredible deals on great seats so you don't have to waste time searching through thousands of tickets. So check out GameTime Picks now. Check out all the values that you can get at GameTime, including they're all in pricing, which will allow you to see exactly what your ticket is going to cost with fees. So there's no surprises at checkout. Take the guesswork out of buying tickets with GameTime.

Starting point is 00:39:41 Download the GameTime app, create an account, and use code P.H.N.X for $20 off your first purchase. Terms and apply, again, create an account and redeem code PHMX for $20 off. Download game time today. Jesse, what time is it? It's game time. There we go. I'm not a guy. I nailed that the other day. When Damon did that. It's flawless. You're flawless with that. Speaking of flawless, we are proud to sponsor or have Sanderson Ford as our flawless official vehicle partner. Sanderson Ford is a proud partner of the Arizona Diamondbacks. And they are giving you big payoffs like 0% financing on the new 2024. Escape, Edge Explorer, and Expeditions.

Starting point is 00:40:18 Make sure to check out their 65-acre facility, which makes them the biggest lord Ford dealership in the nation. Also, check out that diner that they got over there. It's an amazing value and some amazing food. Right now, get down on the deals on the 2024 Ford Broncosport for 5.9% APR for 66 months, plus $2,000 cash back must be financed through Ford Motor Credit OAC. Also, help them celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month with a, Diad de los Muerto's inspired trunk or treat at Sanderson Ford,

Starting point is 00:40:49 see dealership for details. That's on October 19th between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. So bring the kiddos. Have a great time. And eat at the Starliner diner. It's a great place to have done. Well, this fall is upon us, and we've completely moved on from the playoffs.

Starting point is 00:41:04 Forget playoff baseball. We don't care about that anymore. We're on the fall league. And Jesse was out there at Salt River Rafters. Fall League opener last night. The Rafters did lose by a score nine to eight. And this might sound familiar, but after they fell behind five to nothing, they stormed back

Starting point is 00:41:21 with a seven run third inning to make it seven to five, but then inevitably lost the baseball game. What did you see out there that you like, Jesse? Yeah. Gino Groover was not in the lineup, but Tommy Troy led off and played second base for the Salt River Rafters. We also saw D-Backs pitching prospect Dylan Ray as the starting pitcher for the rafters in this game.

Starting point is 00:41:43 So it was cool seeing both of those guys out there. Dylan Ray, not great. Not a great outing from him. An inning in two thirds, three hits, two runs, one walk, zero strikeouts. He threw 40 pitches. It was kind of laboring out there a little bit. He threw a whole bunch of different pitches. Four seam change up, sinker, curveball, slider, cutter.

Starting point is 00:42:06 He only generated three whiffs. There wasn't a ton of swing and miss there. Two of them came on fastballs. his four seamer average 94.2 miles an hour. And we saw it top out around 96. So decent Velo. He has a pretty deep arsenal of pitches, as I just mentioned. But his command was not particularly sharp in this game.

Starting point is 00:42:29 And yeah, the opposing team looked fairly comfortable in the box against him. He just made kind of a lot of location mistakes. Hard to judge maybe. you know it's maybe you're a little amped up for your first fally game it's it's just one outing for sure so i haven't gotten to see dylan ray pitch a ton i'm going to reserve judgment certainly you know not not evaluate him just based on one game but he's a bum already he's a bum jessie i i do think that there's been some reasonable doubt as there is with any pitching prospect for a while about whether he would be able to stick as a starter in the big leagues and what i saw

Starting point is 00:43:10 yesterday did not exactly it was not exactly encouraging in that regard I think he has a good chance to make the majors at some point but yeah he's going to he's going to have to look a little bit sharper than than he did yesterday to make it as a starter in the in the majors he did miss two months with an elbow injury and he did pitch for a m rillo for all season so I mean again sometimes it's the I mean the fall league is about being up against the best of the best of the best best as far as minor league players in many situations it doesn't doesn't necessarily mean that it's not like an all-star situation but a lot of times the prospects that really are you know trying you're trying to get eyes on and you're trying to get some of that evaluation against some of the top competition that

Starting point is 00:43:57 you can find is is up here so like again it's it's not always going to go well and i don't i just don't know if like and i brought this up the other day if if not having success in the fall league is detrimental to you. Like obviously if you can if you can show out in this kind of league that's it's a good thing. You're gonna you know get some eyes on you from the organization and and maybe even from other teams and such right. But for the most part like yeah if you're if you're not doing great it doesn't it's

Starting point is 00:44:25 not a huge indicator that you're you know washed already. No. Yeah. Absolutely not. And I do think you know like a starter with a fastball in the in the 94 to 95 range. We did get to see some of the movement numbers as well. He had some pretty good riding life on the four seamer. You know me.

Starting point is 00:44:46 I love to talk about induced vertical brake. Don't even get him started on induced vertical break. And he topped out at 19 inches, which is, which is, which is pretty impressive. Pretty good. 19 inches. I think he average probably like 16 or 17, which is, which is also good. That would be in like a like a Zach Gowan range. So in terms of the life on his fastball, the numbers there looked, looked pretty good.

Starting point is 00:45:08 didn't have great numbers last year 5.22 ERA and Amarillo so I mean yeah you got to adjust for Amarillo it's not exactly a pitcher's ballpark there but still it's you know again his numbers weren't great meanwhile Tommy Troy he at least got one one hit yeah yeah yeah Tommy Troy his day did not start out particularly well he was O for his first four and then in the ninth inning as the rafters were trying to mount to come back they felt just a little bit short but the ninth inning with a guy on first and nobody out, Troy kind of put his team in in position to come back at the very least. He stroked a double to straightaway center field.

Starting point is 00:45:49 It was 106 off the bat. It went 405 feet. It was the farthest batted ball of the game. So, yeah, he, you know, certainly showed what he could do in that at bat. And I had some other decent at bats as well. He did have a line out at one point, which was a fairly well hit ball. A couple of fly balls that he got well. underneath but yeah it'll be interesting to see what he looks like defensively as well i had to leave

Starting point is 00:46:14 the game a little bit early so i only saw a couple of plays out there uh the debacks have made the decision to it to move him from shortstop to first game first game couldn't even couldn't even i had to pick up my brother at the airport all right derrick i'm a i'm a good i'm a good sibling i'm a good uh allegedly that's like i have to get your brother's side of things in order for me to believe that but um you did have proof though that tommy troy uh is offensive What we know he's going to be and that's mooky bets. Yeah, Troy is in fact going to be the next moogie bets, right? Yeah, our evidence for this is very, very sturdy for sure.

Starting point is 00:46:49 We could see bat read or bat speed readings from the the stat cast data for this game. Oh, I bet you'd love that. Yeah, yeah, it's kind of fun. I didn't know that they were going to give us the bat speed data for minor leaguers as well. And they do. And his numbers were below average, actually. Which is not alarming to me. You know, you see a lot of guys who are very good hitters, and yet they don't, they're not like near the leaderboard on bat speed.

Starting point is 00:47:18 You just mentioned Moogie Betts, who is one of them. Basically, Tommy Troy's average bat speed yesterday was the same as Moogie Betts. It was also the same as some very average, probably very below average hitters in the major. So, yeah, you can go with the Moogie Betts comp and run with that one if you want. But yeah, it's a short, compact swing. I'm not really surprised to see the bat speed numbers, you know, not jumping off the page there. You know, it's not alarmingly low. You know, it's much higher than Luis Arise or, you know, some of the more contact-oriented hitters

Starting point is 00:47:52 in the majors to be higher than Gabriel Moreno on the debacks, higher than Jake McCarthy. I think right around maybe pretty close to Gabriel Moreno, probably, just like a little bit higher than that. So it's only five swings. Generally, bat speed doesn't vary a whole, whole whole lot. But yeah, it was interesting to be able to see those kinds of numbers for the first time.

Starting point is 00:48:16 What was the vibes like on the first night out there at Salt River Fields? Where was it was it was just packed? Was it? It was filled to the brim. Derek, it was hard to find parking. Actually, I think it was like kind of hard to find parking.

Starting point is 00:48:30 But only because they only use like the home plate. Oh, yeah. They don't have you parking in the grass. Yeah. That's basically where everyone parked. So yeah, it was, it was great. Highly, highly recommend, as we've been saying, the last couple of days.

Starting point is 00:48:45 Kristen Phoenix did alert me that they have increased the prices, just a wee bit. I think it is now $13 as opposed to $10, but still $13 to get into a baseball game with a whole bunch of future big leaguers. Versus how much for spring training? Yeah, $65 plus? Spring training is, if that's what we're comparing to, then the Fall League is a complete steal. So. Well, and I've said this before. I know I kind of, I've addressed this, but Fall League is to me what spring training used to be.

Starting point is 00:49:18 Right. And I mean, it's, it's just, it was, spring training was never as popular as it is now. It was never just such a hangout. Like, don't get me wrong. There were still games you went to on the weekends and such that would sell out or be packed or whatever. But when you went to a day game during the middle of the week to spring training, if you were a lucky enough to have your parents take you out of school to go to a day game. It was like five bucks and there was maybe a hundred people in that place.

Starting point is 00:49:43 And I mean, still sometimes when you go to spring training games, they're still kind of like that during the middle of the spring training season. They're not always like Saw River Fields was not always filled to the brin for the debacks this year. And what I've heard from people that used to go often was that it used to be cheaper to go during the week. So it was more of a place to go, especially for people that are retired or other people that don't work during the day to go like hang out during the day, but it's not cost effective any longer. And again, another complaint from one of my friends that's an older gentleman was that they

Starting point is 00:50:15 don't let him bring his sandwiches in anymore. So he has to pay for food there. Food is like specifically at Salt River Fields. Food is pretty expensive. I'm, you know, usually willing every now and then to splurge and buy some ballpark food, but I'm covering a game. I don't think I've ever done that at Salt River Fields. Jesse and Jesse and I were getting Uber Eats deals for sure.

Starting point is 00:50:37 Yeah, yeah. We were ordering food. We were having food unsuccessfully brought to, uh, to salt river fields and I had to go walk a very far distance to go pick it up. Yeah, they struggled. I might as well just have gone to walk and picked it up from the store myself. But I still know how Mr. A. Z brings in like barbecue from Little Miss and stuff into Chase

Starting point is 00:50:55 field. And I bet, I bet he brings in food to spring training. I need to learn his secrets. I guess Chase Field, they just don't, they just don't seem to be as concerned. about that kind of thing. It's because your steak doesn't include metal, Jesse. So you just put in your pocket and walk right through the metal detector. Can you do that at Salt River?

Starting point is 00:51:13 Maybe, maybe. Maybe my friend was just being too honest about this sandwich. He was trying to smuggle in. I don't know. But again, get out to see some Arizona Fall League games. They're a blast. And there's plenty of young players for you to check out.

Starting point is 00:51:25 Even if you're not going to a Salt River Rafters game, there's teams all across the valley. Some really top-nodge prospects. Yeah. So go check it out. And again, yeah, look. into them. I mean, it's, it's kind of fun sometimes to see before you go to a game if it's just two random teams, you know, which teams are represented because each, each fall league team is a combination of major league baseball teams. So you can check out who, you know, who's represented,

Starting point is 00:51:49 which teams are and what the top prospects are. So you have somebody to watch. But baseball is still fun, even though we're not in the postseason. It's just not, it's not as fun. But remember, this is baseball Nirvana. We live in a place where baseball almost never stop. So go watch some Arizona a fall league and speaking of which we are going to have stephen carry on the show tomorrow i saw you got you got a chance to see stephen yesterday yeah stephen is is uh broadcasting some fall league games uh of course stephen for those who who might not know is the voice of your double a amarillo sod poodle so you probably heard uh his voice behind some of the the big moments for several debacks prospects over the course of the year uh so yeah stephen will be in studio

Starting point is 00:52:29 tomorrow and uh we're going to talk some prospects we're going to talk some uh some post season maybe we're going to talk sure there will be some food conversations who's the more handsome Carrie twin obviously Stefan but we'll talk about all that tomorrow so make sure to join us then until then you can follow us all on Twitter

Starting point is 00:52:48 I'm at Kapp underscore caveman with a K this maniac next to me is at Jesse N. Friedman Kevin is on the ones and twos today you can follow him at Kev Tom Wrights and again you're going to have to figure out how that's spelled I'm not going to do it for you our show is at PHNX underscore D

Starting point is 00:53:04 but all roads do lead to at PHNX underscore sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Again, we thank you guys so much for your time today. We appreciate you stopping by. We will see you tomorrow with another 1 PM show. And until then, make sure you have yourself a wonderful evening. And remember, kids, baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun when you have money to spend on your baseball team.

PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Is The Diamondbacks Payroll In PRECARIOUS Position For 2025?

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.