PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Knowing your worth

Episode Date: February 17, 2022

On this episode, Jesse and Derek are discussing MLBPA making a counterproposal to the owners, Juan Soto turning down a long-term deal with the Nats, and the D-backs ZiPS projections for 2022. 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 another edition of the PHNX D-BACs podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Montia, occasionally known as your mayor of PHNX. And I'm joined by my vice mayor, my friend, my co-host, the one and only, Thunderstick, Jesse Friedman. Lots going on in the baseball world, Derek. Is it? A lot of, there's just so much happening. Is it happening? Oh, you're being facetious.

I don't think you're being honest with me right now, but we'll see. I don't know. we have some stuff to talk about. Of course, this show is brought to you by the fine folks at the Draft King Sportsbook app. Go download the Draft King Sportsbook app right now, who pets, and get down on some NBA action. It's too good to pass up. And Draft King Sportsbook is an official sports betting partner of the NBA. And new customers right now can bet just $1 on any team and get $150 in free bets if they win.

And that's instantly. It's that simple. And I'll tell you, the son's always a good bet. Last night, we laughed. We laughed about the over under being said at 13 and a half assists for Chris Paul of the Phoenix Sons. And of course, after taking the under, he got 14. Never bet against Chris Paul there.

Never, never, never bet against Chris Paul and never bet. Guys named Derek shouldn't bet on national Derek was wrong day. Of course, that's what that day was that's come and gone. We don't need to discuss it anymore. But obviously, it was a thorough day. The wrongness was just from beginning to end. Shout out to our friend Josh Hunt, though, for his amazing collage of images of me

that will most likely be used until the end of time. Long after I'm dead, those images will still be used to express feelings about maybe things I said or feelings that you have in the future. But of course, what we need to talk about is the here and now. Baseball still not happening. baseball minicamp apparently is going on for the minor leaguers. I was going to be out there this week,

but they changed the media availability until next week. It appears, though, that they're still starting it. And it kind of makes sense because right now, everything is kind of all over the place for these guys. So as much as we have no idea what's going on, the teams, the players, they don't know what's going on either. They have no idea when this lockout is going to end, when things are going to change.

They didn't even know what they were going to be calling this upcoming mini camp. You know, it's it's minor league mini camp training or something like that. Like it has all sorts of unnecessary words in it. So you could tell it was thrown together last minute. But they needed to label it something in order for it to, you know, for them to have a way to at least have the non-roster guys, which includes apparently non-raster invitees cannot. go to this camp.

Like you have to be just non-roster period, which I don't know if that's working out because I don't know who's out there and who's not out there right now. That's really, that's really strange. I know that Dan Strayley, when he signed, he said on his podcast that he thought he would be able to report even as a non-roster invitee

that he wouldn't be affected in any way. He would show up to Salt River Fields. He probably knows better. than I do, right? But we do know that they can't work out if they are, they can't even work out. They can't do anything. Everything that they have to do if they are part of the

40 man roster in any way is completely independent. So I think someone tweeted that to us and I actually confirmed it after our show. But yeah, we cannot, yeah, those guys are out doing their own thing, but the minor league guys are in camp and at least

some baseball is happening, right? I mean, that's better than nothing. I would say so. I would take some baseball over no baseball. I don't know about you, but. So like I wonder, are, is like Lovolo and staff able to be out there?

Like, no, they're part of this. No, just because it's weird, right? I mean, I know, like, I don't know what is and what isn't. Like, when I've talked to people that work for MLB in some roundabout way, they've told us that they aren't able to, you know, like appear on interviews or anything until this entire situation is over. So, I mean, it feels like you can't talk to anybody. But the DeVax Media Department did confirm for me that when we go out there, we'll be able to talk to the minor league guys.

So it'll be great to at least talk some baseball and get their thoughts on some things, even if it's just, you know, their excitement about at least being able to be there at the facility training. Yeah, I mean, this is, this is what February is supposed to be. Right. I mean, February is supposed to be the time when all of the players, Derek, not just, you know, the minor league guys show up, but all of the players are supposed to be reporting this week. And of course, that is that is not going to be the case. But, but yeah, it is difficult to figure out exactly what is and isn't allowed. And you also know there's a difference between the rules as they've been laid out and what is actually happening in practice, right? Like, I think, I think technically the rules that are set out are that, you know, major league players can't have. any contact right now with team employees, right? So, like, their coaches and whatnot. Like, that's the official rule. But, like, does that really mean that, you know, a player who's had Tori Lavello's phone number for six years,

like can't send him a text message all of a sudden? Right. There's a reasonable limit to what that, what those kinds of rules actually accomplish. And that makes it really hard to figure out exactly what is and isn't happening right now. It makes me wonder if the players are organizing something together as a group. even though they can't do it with the team. And, yeah, having some guidance and some tutelage, perhaps,

from the coaching staff on what they could be doing in order to at least be productive during this time off and preparing themselves for the season without over-preparing, just kind of doing the stuff that they would normally be doing if they were in camp this time of the year, even if they're going to have to repeat these actions when they do eventually get to camp. It's just important for these guys to get ready for the season.

It's a marathon, not a sprint, and they have to train for it as such, right? So they can't. That's the weird thing about baseball in general. And I was going to ask you this. Isn't this always historically known as camp and then spring training is the actual games that are played? Or is camp technically part of spring training?

I only ask because I've seen so many headlines that I feel are a bit misleading when they're telling, you know, people who don't really understand what's going on, that spring training was supposed to start this week. So there are so many people. that are coming up and asking me or tweeting to me about like the games actually being this week where we would still we still have another 10 days before the Arizona Diamondbacks would have their first game of spring training against the Colorado Rockies.

Sure. In one sense, it's probably semantics because that game on February 26 against the Colorado Rockies is also not going to happen. But, but yeah, that's a good question. I don't know the official answer to that. The way that I've always thought of spring training is certainly just that, you know, it's kind of all lumped together. You report to spring training and you play games in spring training and it's kind of all just one big event that happens in February and March. So I think those headlines could make sense, but I think you're right that when most people think of spring training, they think of the games, right? Like when we say spring training, that's what people are thinking about. So I'm sure there are many people that are being misled by those headlines

thinking that the schedule was actually going to have games happening this week when that, of course, is not the case. Right. Well, here is where we are at on the lockout. We had no news until about three or four hours ago from recording this. We're recording this on Wednesday night. This show is going to be a Thursday show. Obviously, you're listening to this on Thursday. And today on Thursday, Sorry to confuse you there with that whole semantics. But on Thursday, the Players Union does have their sixth negotiating session in these 78 days of the MLB lockout with the Major League Baseball owners. The meeting is set to start around 1 p.m. Eastern time tomorrow in New York. And it is the players offering up their counterproposal.

Now, it will be interesting to see if what we what we see from the players is them taking more, you know, steps forward towards, you know, the owner's side and maybe how big those steps are, maybe how much they're conceding. I felt like this whole time that was going to be the end result as we were going to see the players concede on many of the issues they're bringing up. but it's going to be interesting to see what this new proposal has and where they, where they stand, see how far apart they still stand. It's going to be pretty far, Derek. I'm going to make a bold prediction. It's going to be pretty far. Yeah, I mean, I think the players will probably concede on a couple of items.

And, you know, the numbers will get a little bit closer, but I don't think we're going to make a whole lot of, a whole lot of progress. And, of course, that's not really the, the fall. of the players. I think we we've all talked at length about how that falls primarily on the owners, we think, for why that's the situation. But yeah, I don't think the players are going to come out and concede a whole bunch of things on Friday and North should they, right? I mean, that's, that's sort of just this situation and where we're out with this whole thing is the owners. They're the ones who probably need to take the bigger step here in getting this whole thing done. What the players are

asking is really not unreasonable. And the owners, it's really on them to, to concede on that front, at least, probably more so than it's on the players, regardless of what Jim Bowden writes over the athletic. I know there was a very interesting piece that he wrote that came out on Wednesday that drove all sorts of interesting traction on Twitter. People were up in arms about it. And rightfully so, right? Jim Bowden was a majorly general manager himself.

We talked about him wanting to trade Cotel Marte, you know, about a week ago anyway. So are we really surprised to see something like this come out of Jim Bowden's mouth? No, I believe Jim Bowden was wrapped up in scandals in his time in Major League Baseball, right? Or at least towards the end, there was a little bit there about, you know, shelling out money and actually kind of maybe stealing a little bit of money. money there from minor league or players in the Caribbean. But that's a whole other thing. I'm not going to even get wrapped up in the web. I was, I was unaware of that. Oh, yeah. Don't even get me started on why Jim Bowden is no longer a GM of the league and why he resigned from the nationals. But interestingly enough, he was also the youngest GM in MLB history at one point. I'm not sure. I don't think that

still stands, but he was at one point. So, I mean, I guess he has. a perspective here and being a GM and being in the position that he's been for the majority of the years, he's shown a track record to not care about the players, right? Which is the problem here. It truly is the problem. I was on the Phoenix sports podcast today. And the one point I tried my hardest to get across is you're not only killing the game from a fan perspective, which I think everybody can agree on that it's making it harder and harder to like this game as a fan with all this stuff going on. But what you're really doing is you're killing this game from the talent that we could be having in this league that as a young person, uh, shouldn't absolutely should not choose

to play baseball. And that sucks, right? Because there's a lot of people that love playing baseball. They love baseball. But realistically, when you look at the career path of a young person playing baseball in the minor leagues versus what you could have playing any other sports, including hockey, including hockey. And I'm not knocking hockey, but again, we discussed how even the minor league system in hockey compensates its players much better

than the minor league system in baseball. Right. And I mean, I get everything that everybody could say. You know, I bring up the housing and it really kind of makes sense as to why they're trying to save money everywhere else that they can because they need to now afford housing. Really what they want at the end of the day,

is they want to find a way to save all the money they're going to spend on housing by stealing it away from other places so that it's a wash. And realistically, that ain't going to happen. Housing is going to be expensive. I don't know if you've checked the housing market unless you're sticking your entire minor league system and some sort of rundown hotel that you buy or some shit like that, it's going to cost you some money and it's not going to be a wash, right? So really, that's what's happening here.

Baseball is trying to maintain a certain level as a business. and businesses do this. If they have to take on a cost now due to some reason or another, they'll try to reduce costs elsewhere so that they can even out that cost now that they have to pay additionally. But what we're talking about is your players, which is the backbone of your entire game, of this entire thing, right? So it's just, it's crazy to me to not want to invest.

more in your young players. It's crazy to me not to not want to take care of them. It's crazy that it's like across the board. Like, okay, you know, some teams might have a shitty farm system because they don't take care of their players, but others do where they're like driving nice cars and eating caviar and all. Nope, ain't happening. They're all making between $12,000 and $15,000 a year.

And most of them need to have side jobs in order for them to afford living a reasonable life, even as a professional athlete. I do think that you're, I think that is mostly the case. But I did see it. I'm trying to remember who this was. I think it was from Mark Appell, who is a high-end draft pick from a number of years ago. He was a pitcher who was in the minors for a long time. He put out a Twitter thread recently, kind of similar to Matt Tabor's.

We talked about that the other day. Matt Tabor, of course, being a prospect in the Diamondbacks organization. But Mark kind of along the same line. was just tweeting about his experience as a minor leaguer. And he did say at the beginning of his thread that there are teams out there that really do care about this and are really trying very hard to make, you know, living situations for their minor leaguers better. That said, I think you're probably knocking it out of the park that, you know, the execution

of that is probably more in question. But I do know that there are some, like, it's not like every single organization and base. is, you know, an equal offender when it comes to this. I think there are probably a few that do care and have probably done maybe okay in this department. It's just something that we need to see a lot more of. Yeah. No, and that's good to hear.

It's encouraging because otherwise it's, it's just one of those things that I can't, that I keep coming back to, right? Like, because I love baseball, but I also loved all sports when I was a kid. Basketball to me was king because basketball was the game I could play. You know, I was a young man and I was, my parents were getting divorced. There wasn't a lot of money to go around. You know, you can't. I had a friend that played hockey and I've talked about it on this show, but hockey is a crazy

expensive sport to play. It's just the equipment alone, ice time, anything, if you want to actually play ice hockey, it's very expensive. And I think that goes no matter where you live. I think it's more accessible in parts of the, you know, North Midwest and things like that, Minnesota and whatnot. Still, I imagine it's much, much more expensive than buying a $20, you know, Wilson basketball and some, and having some sneakers and, you know, basketball is just so easy, man. It is just so easily.

And baseball in some ways, the equipment isn't expensive, but it's like, you got to get nine players, like in order to actually have a viable team. And then you're like, nine other players or the other team. It's very hard. I used to get, like, I bought, you know, a thing of balls because I was playing baseball when I was. young and i went you know out i'd go out and you know do the tossing it up and trying to hit it kind of thing at least to get some practice when i didn't have anybody but you're right like if you don't have another person like i'd have a couple of friends that played baseball but i didn't have a lot of friends that even had interest in baseball basketball was king again because here in phoenix we had a team

we had somebody that we watched on tv and had heroes we looked up to we had inspiration so it was like you know, going out and doing, doing the KJ to Barclay thing with your friends and all of that, like that. That was what I remember doing with my friends, but I don't remember many of my friends having much interest in baseball. You know, again,

we didn't have it really here locally aside from spring training. So I just don't think the interest was there, right? Now things are different. But again, I just can't imagine, even if you have a choice of what to play, even if you played all these sports in high school, that, like,

you start growing up and you start looking at things and going I don't know you know I mean I was I was heavily discouraged from going into journalism by my parents by people I knew like oh yeah everyone is pretty much yeah you know and it's like thank God that I pursued it and I even though I had some rough patches even though I didn't do it the conventional way that I found a way to still be here you know and that was the thing was journalism to me writing, doing a lot of things that I did early on, it kind of came naturally. So it was something I enjoyed doing. I was just told, you know, there's not money in it and that there's a lot of people that want to do it. So it's a job market that's, you know, kind of oversaturated. It's still something

I pursued. Even when I got a job doing something completely different, I still had my side hustle, right? And that was still always somehow connected to journalism. I can understand a lot of people, hearing that minor league players have to have two jobs and they might say like well one of those jobs is playing baseball so right and i get that right it's just it's a sad existence considering that most of these kids are drafted out of high school they're kind of made to make a decision whether they want to go be part of this team or do they want to go off to college maybe have a fallback plan maybe major in something else that they have an interest in so that they can maybe get a degree besides just relying on baseball. But so many athletes, you know, their ultimate goal is to be drafted and

go to a professional organization. It would be so hard as a young man to turn that down unless you had that solid like desire to go to Vanderbilt or a big school that was a baseball school. Even here locally, ASU has been a great baseball school. Willie Bloomquist is the coach. So it's like, I could understand people wanting to go over there as well, you know, locally. But at the same time, how hard is it as a high school player to turn down the fact that you just got drafted by the Tampa Bay Rays or, you know, the Yankees or something like that. And now that's your your path until you quickly realize how it's not all it's cracked up to be. It really is a problem that baseball faces, right? And baseball faces a lot of problems.

Let's be real here. So many. Where do we start? Yeah, where do we start? But, but yeah, no, that is. is that is arguably the biggest one that baseball faces is how do we get young people interested in this game interested in, you know, pursuing this game with the same kind of enthusiasm that we see young people pursuing the other major sports here in America. And it's hard for baseball

to to line up with that. I do think that in some respects, it's really kind of weird because like the number of big time paying major league baseball jobs is, actually pretty similar with the number of big time paying jobs in the NBA or I guess the NFL maybe less so. Obviously, there's just so many NFL players because of how big all of the teams are. But think about it, I mean, you've got 30 teams and you've got 26 players on the active roster all making, obviously, that's one of the major points of contention right now is what is the minimum salary going to be in baseball. But they're all making at least about 5 or 600K per year, which is pretty significant, right?

And I think if you compare that with the NBA, the number of like big time paying jobs, you know, for every LeBron James in the NBA, there's, you know, a Fernando Tatis who just signed, you know, a nearly $400 million contract. So there is some connecting points. It's just the path to get there that is so messy, like you're talking about.

In the NBA, you kind of either make it or you don't out of college. you're either going to get drafted and be a star or you're not and you're probably not. You're just going to find out a lot sooner. Or there's the there's the there's the D league. I don't know if they still have the D league, right? But they still have had like the G. I think it's called the G league now. Yeah, the sons don't have a G league team.

They somehow, somehow you're not like required. Yeah. Yeah, it used to be up in Prescott Valley. But in the NBA, you're you're not required to have a G league team. It's kind of weird how the how the rules work. But we, I mean, it was always. pretty rare for a D-League or now G-League player to make a significant contribution to an NBA team. Sure.

So that would be- That would kind of be considered the same kind of pool that everybody else that isn't like top prospects would be in. Right. A lot of those guys in baseball. So, and that, I guess that's kind of the thought process probably with MLB is how many people do we employ that we kind of. that we kind of know are never going to make the majors. And it's a lot, right? Yeah.

But the flip side of it is that they don't, you know, they don't want to miss. They don't want to miss that one diamond in the rough that they might miss because they thought he wasn't going to be good enough. And then he develops into a major league ball player, right? So I don't know. I think that the owners, there's some things that, you. if you if if you really take the Disney villain aspect out of it like business wise yeah it makes sense right and again it's really about caring about the people right there's there's times though where industries have to go through this and they have to reduce down and not be as big and

I think that's what we might be seeing with baseball is is the the ramifications of having to take care of the minor league players is that there's going to be less of them that's yeah it's going to be really interesting to see what happens. Obviously, we've heard about Major League Baseball wanting to continue to shrink the size of minor league baseball. It's already shrunk significantly over the last few years, but that process seems to be something that they want to continue and we'll see if the players are willing to allow that to happen. I was listening to my friend Megaran's new album Live 95 today, and it is by far I've just realized

like it's one thing I get he's my friend so I'm always gonna be on the hype train for him that's what I do we do love Megarin around but he wrote the Mailbag Monday song that's right I mean what more what greater accomplishment could a musician right we also we've also been blasting the mega the mailbag Monday song way too loud

and I apologize for that so we will be dialing it back some but it was it's just it's a beautiful album and it just is like this love letter to So when we're, even when we're talking about, you know, like being kids and stuff, there's such as this wonderful description in so many of his songs about like, you know, being kids playing basketball, what basketball meant to us as a kid and such. And, you know, I know baseball means that much to some people.

And that's the reason why some of them fall in love with it and want to do it forever. You know, like I said, basketball was my thing. But, you know, football, hockey, baseball, we all, we all have our thing. A lot of kids are lucky enough to be athletic enough. to play multiple sports. Basketball was the only thing I really had success with, and it's mostly because I'm kind of an immovable object at times, especially when I was a heavy kid in junior high and high school.

But that's a whole other story for a whole other time. I will say that regardless of what the sport is that you love, I get falling in love with it and wanting to do it. And I think that's where we're at with baseball, but I just don't think baseball any longer is an alluring option for a young athlete who, who's deciding on what sport they're going to play. And I think we're going to continue to see that.

But I will tell you what's an alluring option is, of course, using our code of PHNX over at the Draft King's Sportsbook. We talked about basketball. Go listen to Megarans album Live 95 while making bets on the Draft King's Sportsbook. Of course, new customers right now. There's a deal too good to pass up. They want me to say that I'm talking about the between the legs, 360 windmill good, kind of good.

But I'm talking about the like you're on fire, taking it spinning a ridiculous amount of times while the ball has flame shooting out of it and slamming it in your opponent's face in a two-on-two basketball game on NBA jam. That's how good this deal is. New customers can bet just $1 on any team and get $150 in free bets if your team wins. It's that simple. Existing customers can get in on the action with same game parlayes, combine multiple bets from the same game for a bigger payout. Of course, the more legs you add, the more money you can win, as Jesse and I discussed, never doubt CP3. I did that.

And of course, that's why I lost. But luckily, Draft Kings has, you got to keep your eye out for all the great promotions that Draft King Sportsbook has because they had a $10-free same game parlay last night, which is what I got in on during the Sun's game. So even though I lost, I got a $10 free bet back. What more can you ask for, right? Risk-free. I went big.

That's why I added all those legs. because I wanted to win more money. And of course, you can do that. If you lose, you get the $10 free bet, then you go crazy again with the $10 free bet. No matter what you're betting, you got to remember that Draft Kings is safe, secure, and reliable. Best of all, you can deposit and withdraw your cash whenever you want.

It's, it's, their review system is almost instantaneous. But download the Draft King Sportsbook app. Now use our promo code of PHNX. Bet just $1 on any NBA team and get $150 in free bets if they win. That's promo code PHNX. at the Draft King's Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of the NBA. 21 and over only,

Arizona only, gambling problem, dial 1,800 next step, new customers only, minimum $5 deposit, eligibility restrictions apply, see draftkings.com slash sportsbook for details. And I'll tell you who has plenty, or at least who's going, to have plenty of money,

Jesse, to bet on the Draft King's sports book or wherever he wants to do with his money. To Juan Soto, who we are finding out today, declined a pretty big deal right before the lockout happened. 13 years, $350 million. 13 years. Can you imagine any job? Can you imagine P.HNX locking us in for 13 years, Jesse?

I can't. I'd go nuts. They'd fire me in year one because I'd lose my mind. I wouldn't be showing up to meetings. I'd never wear pants. I mean, I'd be fired immediately. That's the way we go. 13 years.

I couldn't imagine having a job. guaranteed work for 13 years, no matter how good or bad you're performing. What's crazy is it's hard to blame Juan Soto for turning this deal down. 13 years, 350 million. It's less than 30 million a year, right? 30 million a year would have been 390. This is $40 million below that. So about $3 million per year below that.

So we're looking at around $27 million per year. And Juan Soto, I mean, I don't know if there's a more valuable asset in the game right now. He is just so good and has been so good from pretty much the moment that he came in this league that he can ask for pretty much whatever he wants. And good on the nationals for, you know, coming out and giving him a serious offer. Like that's definitely not an insulting offer by any stretch of the imagination. But on the open market, Juan Soto probably does a little bit better than that.

And so it kind of makes sense. He's going to wait this out. and see, you know, see how things turn out for him. Again, Jeff Passon, our friend over at ESPN, giving us some great information, is suggesting that Juan Soto could end up being the first $500 million contract in American professional team sports. He'll be 26 years old. There's already a $43 million a year player in his former teammate, Max Scherzer.

And if he stays healthy and productive, it's very realistic. He also adds in that even though people, I'm guessing, Jeff Passon has people are ruining Jeff Passon. They're starting to break him during this lockout because he's had to, he's had to set a lot of things straight for people that don't quite understand. He reminds everybody that football contracts are not guaranteed and baseball contracts are. Patrick Mahomes is $503 million deal. Might as well be a bunch of one-year contracts that add up to $503 million.

NFL and NBA deals don't compare, basically, is what he's saying here. by the way, Jeff also had to drag someone apparently for kind of putting down Juan Soto for turning down this deal, right? And again, I get why people do this because to those of us that are normal, regular human beings that don't have some superb talent in a sport or something that would pay us this ridiculous amount of money, we can't even understand why someone would turn down $350 million. Right. That doesn't even compute, right? But like you said, Jesse, you broke it down. He knows his worth.

He knows his market value. And they're really trying to lock him into that big amount of money at 13 years because it's 13 years. They get to keep him basically forever. But the majority of his career, he will retire a national, just like Ryan Zimmerman just did, right? I mean, he last year, Derek, he walked 145. times and only struck out 93. Like that is completely unheard of. And I mean, he just turned 23 years old after the season ended.

Like, he's insane. I mean, he is, he is not only, you know, going to hit free agency at the ridiculously young age of 26, but he's also quite possibly the best position player in the game or one of the top three position players in the game. If you hit free agency that young and you're that. good. There's no reason to take 27 million a year. We all know the best players in this game make more than that. And there's really no reason that he shouldn't try for that. He also happens to be represented by the one and only Scott Boris, which basically means he's not allowed to accept

a contract extension with his current team. So not surprised at all to hear about this. Yeah. So it looks like people are trying their best to kind of drag Juan Soto for not taking, you know, like breaking, this one guy broke it down to it being $166,000 a game, $41.5,000. Sure. Yeah, people are going to do that breakdown. And it is insane. It is insane. But, I mean, he's worth what the market says he's worth, right?

And you can't fault him for trying to take less. than that. I, you know, honestly, trying to get more than that is what I'm trying to say. Here, here's where that discussion comes into my mind just in regards to, uh, do you want to make money and not care about winning? Like, I get how much championships mean to these guys. I get how much they all want their respective championship world series, Super Bowl,

whatever but really at the end of the day if you made all the money you possibly could but never won a championship didn't you still win isn't that the point i mean i get it i get the aspect especially like maybe later in your career when you've already made a boatload of money maybe wanting to latch onto a team that you can contribute to and you could also win the championship or whatever but really i mean that's a ring and some notoriety and you know history a bit but i mean money right like i'm I don't know. There's something about some players that take less than what they could have to join some, like, super team that wouldn't have been able to afford them otherwise.

That just makes me feel like you literally got played by the idea of a trophy that you all share and some rings that you could have easily bought yourself a nicer one of with all that extra money you would have made going elsewhere. I don't know. I mean, I think that's where maybe integrity comes into play, which I have absolutely none of obviously. Maybe that's where, you know, you're just wanting to have a legacy or something comes into play. I don't know. I just think at the end of the day that every single player should be trying to get absolutely as much money and that should be the name of the game for them.

These guys, baseball players luckily have a longer career, but sports tomorrow isn't promised. Next season isn't promised. Nothing is promised for these guys. And you never know when your abilities are going to start to diminish or just be gone altogether due to injuries or whatever. So get that money, man. Get that money. I don't know. That's all I can say. That's my, that's my best advice.

And you do, I do understand that people are having a hard time empathizing, though, with a guy who just turned down $350 million. Sure. No, I totally don't. I can't empathize with him at all. I'm just saying he's making the smart move, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Get more than I understand him turning it down. I understand him wanting to field offers at least before this because it's not like, it's not like that offer is going to go down. Now people know what the baseline is for him and know that that's unacceptable. So they know they're going to have to offer him less years, you know, more per year, that kind of thing, or just more money all together. But like Passon said, there's a good chance he could be the first half a million or half a billion dollar. Yeah, you're going to have to add a few zeros there, Derek.

Yeah, sorry. Sorry, half a million. You know, anyway, you can read more thoughts like this and get all of our ideas by coming over to go PHNX.com and becoming a member. I want to give a shout out to our pals over at the Phoenix Rising podcast. They've been doing a great job as our new show here. Some great content that you can read over there on The Rising. It makes me jealous. I wish we had a team to cover coaches to talk to, athletes to interview.

We have none of that over here. But soon, soon, we'll be out there at minor league camp, but definitely check out what the rising are doing because there's guys are doing an outstanding job. Also, everybody over at go-PhNX.com. So sign up to become a member. If you aren't a member already, you can get the annual membership,

which will get you one of our free, amazing, soft, incredible, well-fitting t-shirts over at p.nx locker.com. And if you're not interested in the annual membership, sign up to get a month-to-month membership. Your first month will be just 50 cents. You can cancel after that if you'd like to and you're not interested, but hopefully you'll be.

Hopefully you'll enjoy the content and you'll stick around. You know, we're, we've, we've been in the middle of some stuff, some news we broke, you know, Craig Morgan constantly breaks our website with all of his news, especially on this new, very small coyotes arena that they'll be sharing with ASU. So make sure to not miss any of the great content over at our website. And also get in on our members-only Discord where Jesse and I are always soliciting ideas from you for our show so we don't have to work as hard. Tell us what you want us to talk about,

and we'd be happy to do so over at our members-only Discord. And also, don't forget, if you sign up to become a member, you'll get members-only discounts over at the PHNX Locker.com. That way you can maybe pile on with your free t-shirt, get yourself some sticker packs, some wonderful shirts. Brand new, again, Phoenix Rising shirt just dropped. They just shipped them out. They look really, really great.

So make sure to check out that content. Also, brand new Phoenix Sun shirt with the, the point god on it are our lord and savior chris paul cp3 so don't miss any of that stuff over at p hnx locker dot com jesse we got some projections finally coming out for the two thousand and twenty two two season which at least gives me some hope um we have uh i don't know what you called these over at fan graphs yeah these are the these are the zips projections yeah this is this is dan zimborski's thing which we've we've already enjoyed dan zan Yeah, the neural network has really, we've had a lot of fun with that in previous shows.

But yeah, Zips projections. This is a projection system that he built, which is exactly what it sounds like. It spits out numbers about how Diamondbacks players are going to perform in 2022. You have to take these numbers with a grain of salt. There's a lot of names here that you won't recognize that Zips has playing like basically the entire season. So, you know, Renee Martinez is 81 games. Cam Corseys, 87, Stone Garrett playing 114. I don't think.

Are these creative players? No, these are real human beings, right? Yeah, no, these are not from the neural network. These are real players. But, but yeah, Zips is, is able to say it takes some liberties in terms of how many games each of these guys will play. But what you want to look for is, you know, the names that we, that we recognize. So off the bat, Catele-Marté, Derek, we've got a 290 batting average, 348 on base,

485 stugging percentage. That's an OPS at 833. 17 homers, 3.4 wins above replacement. Yeah, sort of. 17 home runs, 61 RBI. I mean, I guess like. It's 130 games, 130 games. And I feel like this is based a bit off of his production last year,

which he was, you know, injured and then, you know, injured in them back and then injured again. and back. So I just don't know because again, as we all know, Katel Marte hits 320. We all know that. That's what he does. Yeah. He hits 320. 319, 322, whatever. It doesn't matter in the ballpark of 320. 290. I don't like that. That's way, it's way too off for me, Jesse. It is. I am with you. I think that is probably a low balling him a little bit. Other names that stick out here, Dalton Varshow's projection is very, very close to what he did last year. So for some reason, Zips is basically projecting Dalton Bar Show to stay the same guy.

251, 319, 433 slash line. That's a 753 OPS, 1.8 wins above replacement over 112 games. So, yeah, very, very similar numbers to what we saw last year. I also think they're probably a little bit too low on him. I'm surprised here to see a couple of names on this list so high as far as production production goes. They have Buddy Kennedy starting or playing in 105 games. Yeah. Adding 261, which is awesome.

Love me some Buddy Kennedy with a 769 OPS. So we'd love to see that. Just don't know how likely that is. They also have Josh Van Meter having a 1.1 war. And I just, I don't know where, I don't know how. I don't know how. Give me, how many defensive runs saved did he had? That's what I want to know.

But yeah, it is heavily dependent on what position he. plays because I don't think he's a third baseman. And of course, Zips is trying to deal with the fact that the Diamondbacks don't really have a major league third baseman on the boss currently. It's plugging in these guys from the minor league system wherever it can as far as trying to figure out who if this team did not pick up another single free agent at this point, who would they, right? Who would play and how often would they play?

But like you pointed out before we got on air, they have Perdomo playing 100. and two games and Nick Ahmed playing 137 games. How? Where? Why? I mean, I guess he could, you know, he could come in late for him or whatever, or pinch, pinch run or whatever a bunch maybe. I don't know, but that doesn't seem.

Yeah. Yeah. You can't really read too far into how many games everyone's playing. Jordan Looplo, 770 OPS. That's actually the, that's the second best on the team behind Citele, from these numbers, which is interesting. I assume they, you know, it projects him to play 90 games.

Zips is probably projecting that he will be sort of a platoon player like he was in Tampa, where he faces lefties a lot but doesn't really face righties. So that would kind of make sense that his projection would be a little bit better if, if he's uses a platoon player, which he probably will be. I mean, Jordan Looplo historically has not played well, has not hit well against same-handed pitching.

so that's not a totally outrageous thing to predict for him. On the pitching side, I don't like what I see, Jesse. Don't like it one bit. It's all pretty bad, yeah. I mean, there's not much to get excited about here. They have an entire pitching staff from what I see. I see Mitchell Stumpo is the only pitcher with a sub four ERA. Oh, wait, Mark Melanson, sorry.

You know how I can't say his name. Mark Malancet. He has what? 360 yeah 360 yeah yeah five dude this is not this doesn't look good like and I'm not I'm not even saying they're off here but wow there is a lot of four point something eras on this list they even have Zach Gallin they have Zach Gallin at 405 four point oh five yeah at a one one point eight war season over 25 starts that would be and he wasn't that great last year I mean we do have to be fair and say that is roughly what Zach Allen was a year ago

I think we're all expecting him to turn things around. 430 was his ERA last year, 1.5 war and 23 starts. So that is basically what he was last year. But I think we all expect him to improve here this season. But projections can't take, projections can't go up without something to show them that they're going to go up, right? At this point, these are projections because there's no additional information about these guys or what they're going to do this season.

And it's also based on what they did last year heavily. And last year was the worst season for this team historically. Probably a really bad season for a lot of guys on this team as well, if not their worst season, probably one of their worst, if not, you know, at least a very bad season for them. So I get these projections not being great. And I don't imagine we're going to see good projections. I don't imagine we're going to see a lot of people pick them to win more than 70 games, you know. No.

And none of that surprises me. but the beautiful part about this at the end of the day is none of it really matters until they get out there and start playing baseball, right? Right. This team could very well be a completely different team than what we've seen over the last year, over the last two years, to be honest, or a year and a half, however you want to look at 2020. I just think that there's a definite possibility with a few, you know, a few call-ups. maybe a free agent or two. I don't even think that, like I said, I threw all the money at the problem

of fixing the Diamondbacks and all it took for me to be satisfied was picking up three free agents, right? That's not a lot in the grand scheme of things. They cost a lot. Those guys I chose would cost a lot, but it's just, you know, it just goes to show you that realistically they are

three good, very good players away from turning around. I know that sounds crazy. But just imagine, I'm just saying, you're right, Derek. Just imagine, just imagine a couple of the guys start performing at a level that we know that they're capable of. And I'm not talking about Cotel Marte talking about like the pitchers, that gallon, maybe Madison Bumgartner kind of has a renaissance where he can return to form. Like there's things that could happen where all of a sudden this team shifts dramatically in the opposite direction without really needing this gigantic rebuild. Like, yeah, it's going to require some bodies. It's going to require some people to step up.

And yeah, it's going to probably require both guys from the minor league system. And, you know, honestly, as much as they probably don't want to do it, you know, some free agent moves. I don't, I still don't think the Diamondbacks are going to try to win next season, but I don't think they're going to try to lose. I don't think they're going to have to. Let's hope not. I just, I don't think that we'll, I don't think we'll see the front office make those moves that try to make the team a big winner. But I still don't think that that doesn't mean we won't see a vast improvement with this team. It just doesn't matter because they were so bad last year that even a vast improvement still might not even get you to 500.

Yeah. That's where we are. And where we are is we're going to hear later today. And on our live show tonight on Thursday, we will discuss what we hear back from the owner's meetings. And with the players counterproposal, maybe this is the one. Is it Thursday? Is it just, is it today?

Is it later today? It is later today. Oh, wow. I misspoke earlier. It's, it is, okay, so we should have news on the live show then.

We should have news on the live show. News is a generous term for what we'll probably have. Well said. But we'll update you with whatever we hear, whatever we can find out. And hopefully it's good news. Hopefully we're moving slowly but surely in the direction of spring training not being canceled and the season not being impacted.

But we will be here tonight with that information. We thank you guys for. joining us for this show. Obviously, you can follow us on Twitter. I'm at Kpa underscore Caveman with a K. Jesse is at Jesse and Friedman. I say obviously because we don't mind if you follow us. In fact, we'd quite enjoy that if you did. We'd also enjoyed if you followed our show at PHNX underscore D-Backs. If you haven't done so already, once we get to 2000 followers, we're doing another shirt giveaway. So make sure you hop on that as well. Be one of the ones. Get down on free shirts. But none of that matters because what really matters is all

Rhodes Lee to at PHNX underscore Sports. And that is on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Make sure you're following us there. Make sure you jump over to YouTube and follow us on a PHNX Sports YouTube channel. Sign up for notifications. That way you don't miss any of the content coming out from the PHNX team. Also, if you're listening to us on your favorite audio podcasting app, subscribe if you haven't done so already.

And please, we implore you to leave us a five-star review. We thank you guys, again, so much for listening to the show. On behalf of Jesse and myself, we appreciate your time. And remember, kids. Baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun when we can play baseball.