PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Is Zac Gallen OK?

Episode Date: September 15, 2021

On today's episode, Derek and Jesse take a look at Zac Gallen's numbers this season since returning from injury. They also discuss if certain current core players should be expected to be a part of this team's future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome to the PHNX D-Backs podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Montia, occasionally known as your mayor of PHNX, even though that's been contested quite a bit on social media this afternoon. Thank you guys so much for joining us. Of course, this show is brought to you by the Drafking Sportsbook app. Use our code PHNX and bet just $1 on NFL this weekend. You will receive $200 in free bets instantly. Trust me, it happens instantly. It's amazing.

You'll have a fun time with some free money. It's become my wife's favorite app, and I wish I was joking about that, but I'm not. She's very excited about the money that she's won. I already have people talking about voting for me. Thank you, Derek Foster. That's part of my Derek's for Derek's campaign to be mayor of PHNX. That laugh you heard is my friend, my co-host,

the one and only thunderstick, Jesse Friedman. I knew we'd find a nickname and we did. How you doing Thunderstick? Thunderstick. Thunderstick is doing well, Derek. How are you? I'm doing fantastic. I'm doing fantastic.

Do you know why? Because once again, tank season continued last night. I'm a fan of it. You know, there's a couple of things about this podcast. Every week is Shark Week. Every day is Earth Day. And during this baseball season, every game we root for losses. It is tank season.

and I know you're not a fan of it, but the D-backs lost last night. It's tag season, baby, but they lost last night. Unfortunately for Jesse, who's still rooting for wins, but to the Dodgers by score of 5 to 1, Zach Gowan had, I guess, an un-Zat-Gallin-like night, you would consider. It's kind of weird because I think this is like what we joked about on last night's podcast.

Tyler Gilbert and Seth Beer having such amazing debuts, where do you go from here? I feel like Gallin has set a certain expectation of excellence that was not only great outings, but consistently great outings. So what are your thoughts? Are we are we jumping to conclusions too quickly just based on a four earn run outing against the Dodgers? I think it's more than a four earned run outing.

I mean, I think if we're honest with ourselves, Zach Gallen really hasn't been the same picture throughout this entire season. There have been, you know, stints here and there where it's like, yeah, yeah, this is the guy that, you know, was one of the best young pitchers in baseball the last couple of years. But I don't know, Derek, there have been, there have been moments where Zach Gallen just doesn't look like himself. He's not, he's not throwing his change up as much. That's one thing that I've noticed looking at some of the data. And the change up, if you remember from last from past years, has been one of his best pitches. The Zach Gallen change up was sort of Zach Granky-esque, right?

and we haven't seen that pitch with very much consistency of late. He's kind of turned to the curve fall, which has been effective at times. But really more than anything, I think it's just his command. There is just a lot of middle middle last night, just breaking pitches that had a lot of movement, but just kind of hung right over the middle of the plate.

And last night, the Dodgers made Zach Allen pay for that. They came out swinging, as he said in the post game. And they put up three earn runs. early on in the first inning. I think that was probably the more surprising part about it. He did settle in. I only gave up one more earn run, but it was another short outing for him. And like you said, yeah, just didn't look very comfortable and wasn't being effective with his pitches in the strike zone, was just catching too much of the plate. I think that there's been a lot of questions about whether or not Zach Gallen came back from injury too early or maybe whether

or not he should have come back from injury at all. I understand that he's been cleared by doctors and I know that might be a little drastic but you know you actually have some more information on a doctor that analyzed his situation and kind of gave his his opinion on what gallon should have done this season and regarding those two injuries the micro fracture and the and what was it a sprain right yeah this is from fan tracks hq.com some really good stuff here specifically it's all on zack gallon uh and just sort of the uh his injury course over the course of this season. Gallin, I actually had forgotten this, but if you remember, Derek, Gallen actually started the season a little bit late. He wasn't

ready for opening day. He had some sort of a small fracture in his throwing arm before the season started. That pushed him back a little bit. I think April 13th is when he, when he made his season debut. And he was pretty good. That was due to the batting, the batting cage incident, right? He did that. Right. Yeah. Oh, oh, wow. Hitting of all things. Yeah, no, hitting of all things. You're absolutely right. So, so, which is so 20, 21 diamondbacks looking back at that. Yeah. But yeah, so that's how his season started. And then he pitched for about a month. He was pretty good. He had some, some not so efficient outing, some games where he, you know, was was taken out a little bit earlier than maybe you'd normally expect for him. But by and large, he seemed like he was pretty much himself. And then one day, I think he was, he was facing his former team, the Miami Marlins and the Diamondbacks just suddenly scratched him due to a UCL sprain is what it was later called. And I don't know about you, Derek, but I started freaking out instantly. It was terrifying words, terrifying words when you start hearing that about a starting picture for sure.

Yeah, yeah. And I'm sure a lot of our listeners felt the same way. It was like, all right, here we go. You know, we didn't have a whole lot. Yeah, Dr. Andrews, forearm tightness. just all of that ugliness and uh to our chagrin or to my chagrin uh Zach Allen came back about a month or so later it really didn't take very long um and what this article that I'm referring to from a fan tracks HQ.com with the what the doctor points out here it's a doctor

who wrote this is he said that honestly if you were to take you know do an MRI on every pitcher in baseball he said about 90% of them would probably have some evidence of a UCL sprain. He said that even guys who, you know, don't need Tommy John surgery, they're fine, you know, they're doing okay, progressing through their careers. The UCL is just a very important part of the pitching motion. And the fact that you have a UCL sprain is not necessarily shocking at all. It's something that just sort of happens over time.

So he really puts this in perspective as Zach Gallen, you know, this not necessarily being something to be totally. horrified about and sure enough Gallon came back, you know, about a month and a half later and unfortunately he just hasn't quite pitched the same. Yeah. Well, let's take a look at some of those numbers really quickly.

Since his return, he's spent two stints on the aisle, but this is what it's looked like since returning on July 17th. We have 11 starts, a 2 and 9 record, 4.62 ERA with a 243 opponent batting average. So

not great, not anything that'll blow you out of the water. I think like even last night's game against the Dodgers, uh, you know, a lot of pitchers would take that against a really talented Dodgers team. But, uh, I think we just kind of expect more out of Zach Gallen at times. I mean, coming into that game, he had a 2.19 ERA and a 1.87 opponent, opponent batting average, uh, in his last, uh, his last few starts, uh, coming into it. So like, he has had stints this season where he was right back to being himself. Again, that 187 opponent batting average and the 29th, but it's just been inconsistent and we don't really know what we're going to see out of them

sometimes on given nights. I think that there's still a lot of question about bringing somebody back that means so much to this franchise in any capacity early when this is a meaningless season. Like our comment just said, I too at times am hoping and wishing and praying for the end of this season and I welcome the end of it, right? And I think at times the last thing I want to see is anybody's health being put into jeopardy or for what, you know, at this point. I like the idea of playing younger guys. I like the idea of giving some of the regular starters rest just because I also am very much in favor of if anybody has an injury. that there's no reason to play them a single game the rest of the season at this point. My initial reaction was I want Zach Allen to just get Tommy John surgery.

If he's got a UCL problem, what are we waiting for? Just let's do it. Yeah, yeah. They're obviously not competing this year. What are we waiting for? Let's get him back for next season in the years following where maybe this team can jump back into contention. Based on what I'm reading here from this doctor, it sounds like in typical me fashion. I'm not, you know, I'm not a medical. I don't necessarily know what's going on in

these realms. And so it's not shocking that maybe that was misguided to think he should just go immediately for Tommy John surgery. But I remember having the same feeling about Luke Weaver not long ago. If you remember Derek, Luke Weaver not that long ago had a UCL issue. And with him, I was feeling the same way. I'm like, why are we trying to bring this guy back? Let's just get it over with. They put him on a 60-day IL instead. Yeah. And there was no surgery. It was just rehabilitation.

And that seemed to be the course for a lot of the guys that got injured this season. Yeah, yeah. And there's not necessarily a whole lot of evidence that that sort of thing works. There are not that many pitchers that opted out of Tommy John surgery that went on to have illustrious careers without it. It's just it just has not worked well for very many guys and not that many guys have tried it. So it sounds like Luke Weaver and especially Zach Gallen, maybe their UCL injuries weren't quite to that degree where they should have just, they should have just gone for it.

Obviously, the Diamondbacks medical team knows far more than I do on these things. But that was my initial reaction. And unfortunately, the results speak from themselves. Zach Gallen has just not been the same guy. And that's not necessarily due to injury, but it's hard to, I mean, that's really the only thing that's happened since Zach Gallen started becoming a much less productive, a much less productive starting pitcher. Right.

But at the same time, too, and I feel that way. That's how I feel. And then I look at those numbers, like I said, coming into the start against the Dodgers in his last four starts entering the start against the Dodgers, 2.190.80s, a 187 batting average and a 0.97 whip with three quality starts out of the four, right? So I don't think that there's anything medically wrong with him.

But then like you said, it just, it makes me wonder. It makes me wonder constantly with this pitching staff and pitchers that have left here. Robbie Ray, who has absolutely been dominating the AL and who we're going to talk about on Thursday quite a bit, is one of those pitchers that has left here to find a kind of a ridiculous amount of success. It's still a short sample size. like he hasn't really sustained it over a long period. But with how good he's been this season, he's already reminding DeBax fans of Max Scherzer playing over there in L.A. now.

It's not a great feeling. And at times it does make you wonder, you know, when guys come back from injuries like this, are we ever going to see them be the same? And, you know, is it something that the team, the organization, the coaching staff is doing to possibly, you know, cause their lack of success when it comes to, you know, some of these pitchers.

I've looked into some of the data on Zach Gallen. I mentioned a few things earlier. He's throwing his change up less. That's one thing that's noticeable. Other than that, I mean, you will compare what Zach Gallen is doing and the general shape and movement of his pitches now compared to last year and the year before. There's not that many things that are different.

His fastball velo is a little bit lower this month compared to past months this season. It's around 92.5 is his average fastball velocity. But even in past years, he's had months with a fastball below around that. And it hasn't really seemed to cause him any issues. We know Gallin is never going to be a huge velocity dependent sort of guy anyway. So really what stands out to me the most, Derek, is he's throwing his change up less. And he's throwing his fastball more. And maybe that's just him kind of losing feel for his changeup. That does happen. We've seen that in the past with even Granky at times would heavily. lean on his slider over a stretch or heavily lean on his changeup and almost never throw a slider

for a period of time. So it happens where guys just kind of lose the feel for one pitch, start relying on another one. But that Zach Allen changeup was his bread and butter and his command of it was always so excellent that right now he's really missing that pitch. And I think once he gets that back, if he can get that back, that's probably his key to hopefully becoming the pitcher that we've seen here the last couple of years. am not going to judge pitch selection or anything like that, but all I'm going to say is I struck out 17 and MLB the show with Zach Gallen and I used a good mixture of pitches. So I think you might be on to something. What would you bet on Zach Gallen returning to form? Would you put good money on

the idea that we'll see Zach Gallen return to that? The form that we saw where he gave up three runs or less over that stretch of, what was it, 23 starts or plus, something like that? He was incredible for a while. You're right. I don't know. This season, maybe I'm not super convinced, Derek, but long term, Zach Gallen is just an incredible young pitcher. We've seen his stuff. If this is injury related, I think he's not going to pitch his whole career like this. He's going to get this resolved at some point. And if this is just stuff related, he's losing the feel for a pitch or whatnot. He's got a whole off season here to figure things out and play around. So I'm always, I'm always betting on Zach. Gallin because he's just that great of the pitcher. I just think once again of Ray and how he started changing his pitching motion and how he really, like it was almost like a loss of confidence in his ability to throw certain pitches. And I don't want to see that out of Gallin. I think Gallen is tremendously talented.

And he just seemed to know what he was doing. He once credited just kind of pitching from the other side of the mound for all of his success at a major league level and why all of a sudden he was able. able to have, you know, have, have that consistency. I would love to see him, you know, kind of make that similar adjustment to get him back on track and whatever, whatever he needs to do at this point. He is by far the pitcher that I want this team to build around for the future. And I think that's why when I hear these injury, uh, kind of ideas that are thrown around that don't, you know, obviously not injured, right? You're not, you're not doing that against

major league batting if you're injured but yeah right you know how athletes are we know how nagging injuries can be so um i would also put my money on zach gallon you know going and and being his his old self uh probably by next season i would i would like to see him kind of return to form and i expect to see him return to form but i'll tell you one thing i'm not putting money on is the debacks to win the world series next year jesse and that is no knock to this team oh you of little faith, Derek. I know. I know. I call me crazy. I just because they lose, I don't need to lose too. But I will say that you can place that bet right now on the Draft King Sportsbook app for next season. And to add to the excitement, draft Kings is going to give all customers an exclusive no-brainer

offer on NFL that you don't want to miss. Of course I took it. I absolutely took it. Right now, they're giving everyone who sign up a shot to double their money. Once again, I don't know if you had a chance to place this bet last week, but they are putting a bet out there for Arizona versus Minnesota to score just one point during this Sunday's football game. One point, Jesse, if that was a D-BACs game, I mean, I know they have to score a run

to eventually end the game, right? But, I mean, if you said it was two runs and it had to be the D-BACs, not so sure. If you're talking about a one point in a football game, I'm on board. It's free. It's easy to use. It's safe, reliable, and secure, making it easy for you to deposit and withdraw your money at your convenience. The app is super easy to use.

And I say that once again, because I have downloaded quite a few of other apps just to check things out. And I did not like them. And I'm not just saying that because obviously this show is brought to you by Drafking Sports app. I really mean it. The offer was easy to use. Just finding the things I'm looking for was super, super easy. and you can download it now. Use our code, PHNX,

and again, you'll receive $200 in free bets when you place a $1 bet on any football code or any football game. That's promo code PHNX to get those $200 in free bets instantly. Go do it now, set it up, and then get your money on Monday. That's for 21 and over only,

Arizona only. Gambling problem, call 1,800 next step, new customers only for free bet promotion. minimum $5 deposit and a $1 $1 wager required. Eligibility restrictions apply. Maximum $50 wager for no-brainer offer. One per customer.

See draftkings.com slash sportsbook for details. And again, yes, Jesse, it says the no-brainer offer because it really is a no-brainer offer. They're going to score a point. They're going to score. I don't want to go and say, I'll give you your money back if you lose, but I'm pretty sure they're going to score a point. This isn't like the pick I made for the Dodgers.

and the Padres who scored way more runs than I thought they were going to. But, you know, alas. Another thing we just want to remind you about here at PHNX, we're trying to make it fun to be a sports fan here in the Valley, and there's no better way to do that than becoming a member at go phnx.com. You can check out all of our content there. And being a member, not only gets you access to our written content, but it gets you exclusive members-only deals on our merchandise every single week.

If you haven't seen that, you've got to go check out our shirts. I love our shirts. We have so many shirts, they won't give me the shirts. I ask for the shirts. I come in here, I say, can I get a free shirt? They say, sign up for an annual membership and you'll get your free shirt. So I did that and I got my code. So check it out over at phnxlokker.com.

That's where all of our shirts are at. I mean, there's some killer designs. And we're going to have plenty of new designs coming all the time. So make sure to check that out. You'll also get access to our members only Discord, where you can get away from the BS on social media and just talk sports, you know, with me and Jesse here, your favorite PHNX members, everybody here at the PHNX family.

If you love what we're doing over here and want to help support us on this journey, become a member of the family today. And you'll either get a free t-shirt for your annual membership or your first month for 50 cents, just depending on which membership you choose. So we thank you again for tuning in live right now. We thank you again for becoming part of this family. You know, we just want to do sports different. and the one thing that we're going to do it from is the perspective of a fan.

Sometimes it's fun to root for a guy and celebrate his accomplishments and achievements. And that's what we're going to do in this next segment. And then in the following segment, we're going to ask if we should even keep that same guy around anymore. That's how fast we're going to switch gears. But next up, we're going to talk about Nick Ahmed setting the club record for most games at shortstop. He has now played 771 games. this season has a 986 fielding percentage, which is sixth in all major leagues among short stops dating back to April 27. And I want Jesse to tell you why he doesn't like that stat.

I'm on it, Derek. I'm ready. Yeah. So fielding percentage, not going to lie, folks, sort of a crappy fielding stat. No offense, Derek. No, it is. It truly is. To break it down, it's what, it's errors against what?

How many balls have been hit at him? Yeah, yeah, it's literally, it only keeps track of mistakes. And we all know there, you know, sometimes when a short stop, like really messes up, but somehow they don't get charged with an error. And sometimes when I play like a really tough hop and you do get charged with an air. And, and you're only going to have, you know, like six, seven, eight errors. You know, you're not going to have that many over the course of a season. So those subjective decisions make a really big difference over the long haul.

My favorite stats, here you're, here you go, Derek. You're getting another, another favorite stat. I have a couple of them for the fielding side of things. And it's actually really interesting to look at these stats for Nick Ahmed. One of them is defensive runs saved, which is a pretty common one. I'm guessing a lot of our listeners have probably heard of that. It is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. It attempts to roughly keep track with a whole bunch of, you know, obviously the way this is calculated is a whole lot more complicated than it sounds.

But essentially, it's trying to give you a rough number for how many runs would have been scored if a replacement level defender would have been there as opposed to Nick Ahmed. So Nick Ahmed this season has four defensive runs saved, which is honestly not quite on par with his career norms. That is 14th among short stops right now. So sort of middle of the road. But still reasonably above average. I would say that's a pretty good number.

The other one, Derek, is out above average, which is from baseball savant. that's sort of a stat casty sort of thing. And outs above average. Get this, Derek. Nick Ahmed doesn't only lead short stops. He leads every position player in baseball with 18, with 18 in that particular statistic. So I don't know how he leads the league and outs above average and somehow also is sort of

middle of the road and defensive run saved. That's just kind of the nature of fielding metrics. They're not great, to be honest. I told you. I told you stats are stupid. I told you. I tell you this all the time. They contradict each other. You always find a stat that contradicts another stat. But yeah, no, you're right. And it's interesting that he can be middle of the pack like that and then still lead the league somehow. I think at times I've seen

Nick Ahmed so much that it, again, it's kind of like what I was saying about Gallin's consistency. You come to expect that out of them because they had such a long stretch of being just this reliable, you know, pitcher, for instance, in Gallant's case every five days. Same thing with Ahmed. You almost forget how good he is at shortstop when he plays out there and has played out there 771 games for this franchise. It just becomes a point of, you know, I think Ahmed has always had that, well, yeah, but, you know, maybe if he can get his offense numbers up a little more, you know, his defense is

there, but this or that, right? And I mean, he's not alone. The Diamondbacks have three players right now that, to be honest, have seemingly been fan favorites at times. Guys, people love guys that seem like they are maybe the core of the current team or a part of the core. But now we kind of have to question whether or not those guys are really going to stick around any longer or be a part of the future of this team. Those guys are Nick Ahmed, David Peralta. and Christian Walker, three guys who, when you look at this right here and you look at this stat, three guys that have eerily similar numbers when you look at their batting average,

you know, the slugging percentage for Peralta is a little bit there, but, you know, 222, 232, 263, like Peralta is bringing in a little bit better numbers, but not much. And these guys are really, you know, like, yes, Ctele-Marté is arguably the best offensive player on this team, but these guys are now, you know, the current now of this team, you would look at those guys and say, do we continue to build around those batting averages and those performances? I know that they've all experienced injuries. I know they've all had, you know, they've all had bad seasons at times, slumps, things like that. But I just don't know if those guys any longer would be considered something I would build around or really even worry

about keeping as a major part of this team? They're definitely not great players, Derek. I think that's the sad reality. You said it, not me. I was trying to be nice about it. Yeah, they're just not very good. I'll start with Nick Ahmed. Nick Ahmed, we mentioned in some respect,

still one of the better, if not the best, apparently according to one metric, defensive players in the game. But Nick Ahmed is just very limited offensively. not only are the overall numbers, like you mentioned, quite poor, but if you look at Nick Ahmed splits, it gets honestly even uglier. Nick Ahmed against lefties is hitting 252 with a 779 OPS. Against righties, Nick Ahmed is hitting 208 with a 546 OPS.

It's borderline like having a pitcher hitting when you bat Nick Ahmed against a righty. It is, it is bad, Derek. I'm just going to tell it like it is. Ahmed against a righty honestly at this point he should probably be a platoon player if he's in there because you just you can't stomach you know a 546 OPS for an everyday player you just you just can't so I'll stop with Nick Ahmed for for right now well no and and let me let me say I think the thing with Christian Walker is Christian Walker no longer has that same I don't know future outlook for me any longer I am more excited about the guys that could potentially play at first base

aside from Christian Walker. And I want to see more Seth Beer at first base. You know what I mean? Like I want to see the younger guys. I want to see Pavin Smith play there. He has been capable in right field, but I want to see the younger guys get an opportunity there. The one thing about Pave and Smith that continues to surprise me is just how quickly

he looks like a vet, how quickly he looks very much so like these other guys that I just described, Peralta. You know, I know, and I love Peralta. That's one thing I even hate bringing his name up because he's such a great guy. He's such a great part of this team. And to be honest, all three of these guys are great guys. But Peralta is a character. He's somebody that people love and is definitely a fan favorite.

I think here in our community in Arizona with our Hispanic, you know, community being such a big part of the baseball community, I think he's very important. I love his connection and Eduardo Escobar's connection with our fans. it just it comes a time where you see him play certain you know fly balls in left field and you really start to question if we could have somebody out there better you know you start to see the fact that guys that have been in this league as long as they have had to do that the fly ball drills you know and again i will completely defend them because it is a nightmare to play the outfield at chase field i a hundred percent feel sorry for anybody that has to play center field for this

team. It's just a weird series of porches and overhangs and things stuff can bounce off of. I think that the biggest part is I just want to see this team start moving in a direction of where they're going to go and when they're going to figure things out. I know they thought this team was going to be better than it was. I know that's the reason why the Madison Bumgardner deal got done. I also know that they were trying to bring in a mix of, you know, veteran guys with a lot of championship playoff experience to rub off on the younger guys and to have them be able to learn and gain that experience from those veterans. It just hasn't worked out the way they thought it was going to. And I myself am fully committed to them moving in this direction and tank season.

I am committed to tank season. That's what we're here for, folks. We're here to convince you that losses are okay. They're even good at this point. I'm really losing this battle. aren't I, Derek. Well, I mean, I feel like I'm winning you over is I feel like what's happening, you know. I don't think you're winning you over. No, I'm bringing you over to the dark side. I want to bring our, I want to bring our listeners and our viewers, everybody watching and listening over.

And if you're watching this right now on YouTube, we want to remind you that you can never miss out on any episodes of the show by subscribing to the P-HNX-D-Backs podcast on Apple podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. and if you're hearing us on one of those apps right now, we want to remind you that you can go over and check us out on the YouTube channel and, you know, subscribe to that. Subscribe to us wherever we're at. We're new.

We're a little baby, but we're growing and we need your help to do that. We are excited to make this about us together and to not necessarily make it about us as journalists. I spent a lot of time in the press box over the last 10 seasons, and I'm ready to do just a little bit more cheering than quietly. screaming internally like I have been. I think I say that too about the success of this team. I'm excited to see them be exciting again.

I'm excited to want to watch this team do good things and have things special happen even in a season of losses like this. We talked about Seth Beer. What a debut he had. He hit a home run in a pinch hit situation. We've seen Henry Ramos, which we talked about last night, have success and just earn kind of a spot in this lineup. So it's been an exciting time to be a debacks fan.

Even with the losses, the future looks bright. Remember, Phoenix Suns once lost or like won 19 games in the season. So we'll be back, baby. I want to thank you guys all so much for joining us. And again, please make sure to follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. You can follow us everywhere at P HNX underscore sports. You can get me at Kapp underscore Kaveman, and you can get Jesse at Jesse N. Friedman.

Before we go, I just want to give a quick shout out to the loss we had today. We lost Norm McDonald, a person that was extremely important to me in my young life. I don't know if I'd be the ridiculous idiot I am at times without his influence. So we'll miss you forever, Norm. And thank you. Thank you guys so much for checking us out right here on the PHNXDbacks podcast. And remember kids, baseball is fun, but it's more fun when you bet on it.