PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Lars Nootbaar’s pepper grinder celebration is taking Japan and the World by storm in the WBC

Episode Date: March 10, 2023

We are joined by Senior Editor for RotoWire and the host of RotoWire Fantasy Sports Today on Sirius XM, Jeff Erickson, to talk about who he likes on the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2023 and how difficult it can be to predict which prospects will be the next fantasy superstars. We are also discussing Lars Nootbaar’s pepper grinder celly being the talk of the World Baseball Classic and what exactly the Sod Poodles are up to in Amarillo with their new alternate team name.BUY D-BACKS TICKETS HERE: https://gametime.hnyj8s.net/c/3442941/1410622/10874 SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports PHNX: Our next PHNX Tee Party at Dobson Ranch is LIVE! Join us on Friday, March 24th for a night of golf, food, drinks, contests, prizes, and more. Come hang with the PHNX crew, fellow Suns’ fans and Diehards as we watch KD, Booker, and the Suns battle in the final stretch of the season as they take on De'Aaron Fox, Domantas Sabonis, and the Sacramento Kings.Checkout the PHNX Tee Party at Dobson Ranch Eventbrite to reserve your spot today. And Diehards, check Discord for your exclusive discount link!Circle K: Text code “PHNX” to 31310 to win a $500 gas card! Limit one entry per person—limit of one entry per phone number. The offer is valid for Arizona residents only. Must be able to verify the place of residence. This contest is administered at the discretion of the Grand Canyon Division of Circle K Stores. Circle K Store Inc. is a part of Alimentation Couche-Tard. You must be 18 years of age or older to win. For questions about this contest or our stores, text ”CARE” to 31310.Rotowire: Get your free trial and unlock all the best fantasy sports news and analysis at https://rotowire.com/phnxOGeez!: Learn more about OGeez! at https://ogeezbrands.com//. Must be 21 years or older to purchase.Four Peaks: Drink, eat, find, and experience Four Peaks at https://www.fourpeaks.com/.  Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. Bad Birdie: Use code “PHNXBB15” for 15% off your next order https://glnk.io/7qnq/phnx-sportsMor Furniture: Save big on the best furniture in the Valley when you head to https://morfurniture.com!Roman: Go to https://ro.co/PHNX today to get 20% off your entire first order. DraftKings: Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app now (https://bit.ly/3Jl1dMX), use promo code PHNX and make your first deposit of FIVE DOLLARS and get TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS in BONUS BETS INSTANTLY! Gambling Problem? Call 877-8-HOPENY/text HOPENY (467369) (NY), If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, crisis counseling and referral services can be accessed by calling 1-800-GAMBLER (1-800-426-2537) (CO/IL/IN/LA/MD/MI/NJ/OH/PA/TN/WV/WY), 1-800-NEXT STEP (AZ), 1-800-522-4700 (KS/NH), 888-789-7777/visit ccpg.org (CT), 1-800-BETS OFF (IA), visit OPGR.org (OR), or 1-888-532-3500 (VA).21+ (18+ NH/WY). Physically present in AZ/CO/CT/IL/IN/IA/KS/LA(select parishes)/MD/MI /NJ/ NY/OH/PA/TN/VA/WV/WY only. VOID IN ONT. Eligibility restrictions apply. When you shop through links in the description, we may earn affiliate commissions. Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Well, hello and welcome in to another edition of the P HNX D-Backs podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Montia, occasionally a sad boy when that song doesn't finish out. Because the baseline is fire once we get to that part. This guy over here doesn't care much about my music choices, but he does care about baseball a whole lot. He's the vice mayor and the thunder stick, Jesse Friedman. I care a lot about fantasy baseball. I know you do. I know you care about fantasy baseball quite a bit, and we are very excited to be joined by an authority on fantasy baseball today.

But, of course, we want to let you guys know this show is brought to you by the fine folks at the Draft King Sportsbook app. America's top-rated sportsbook app. Yeah, and like I said, we are very excited. We know baseball is booming right now. Things are good right now. There's a lot of talk about all the changes with the rules as well as the World Baseball Classic, and we haven't even gotten to opening day yet. So it's a fun time.

and we are joined by the senior editor for Rotowire and the host of Rotowire Fantasy Sports Today on Sirius XM, the one and only Jeff Erickson. Jeff, thank you so much for joining us, man. We appreciate it. Derek, Jesse, awesome to talk to you guys. Excited to talk some Diamondbacks, one of the fun teams out there. Yeah, that's what we think.

And we're always wondering what other people's thoughts on the Diamondbacks are, if those, you know, if what we are hearing and what we, how we kind of feel is resonating with the rest of the baseball world. But yeah, I wanted to start things off with your thoughts on this team and how exciting they're going to be in 2020. Well, finally, we have a positive narrative. We've got all these prospects that are up. We've got Corbyn Carroll, who is like the helium guy in fantasy drafts right now. You've got three outfielders and Carol Thomas and Jake McCarthy that can just go down and kid it.

I mean, they can catch everything. You look at the sprint speeds on these three guys. You go to baseball savant. It's always a fun place to tool around a little bit there. You just see. You love it. Oh, wow. Look at that. Look at Carol.

Oh, look at, you know, Thomas is right there. It's amazing. Carol flies, and yet Thomas is the center fielder. And it's just because it covers so much ground. They've got all these prospects on the way to, looking at Jordan Lawler eventually, these three pitching prospects that it might make the team this year, may have to wait a little bit. But there's a turning right now here.

And it's a good turning narrative. Compare that with the giants who, I think, a little bit getting older and not so exciting. They might pass them this year. I guess Jesse is really, again, to me doing this because he says there's better players out there. But I want to take Corby and Carroll in the first round. Am I crazy for wanting to take Corby and Carol in the first round? Perhaps.

Perhaps. Average draft position right now is about 58. I use the data from the NFBC. It's the National Fantasy Baseball Championship. It's a series of committed drafters, different types of formats of drafts. But they have this thing called the main event, a $200,000 grand prize for the overall winner, along with you can win your individual leagues. a high stakes players, they really get into it, which means the data that you get from it, the average draft position means a lot.

So he's rising, though. He used to be in the 70s and 80s. Now he's going in the 50s. That speed and just the tease of power, I think, is really something that is something we're all intrigued in. He and Jordan Walker, the Cardinals, that's two guys that are rising the most right now. Jeff, I'm curious is, can you just kind of help us put into perspective how crazy it is being drafted that high? I mean, Corbyn Carroll has played all of about a month in the district. I imagine that's something you don't necessarily see very often for a guy who's not really seen that much big league time yet.

No, but I think the savvy drafters are getting more aggressive with the very top prospects. I mean, we've known all along. You see him coming up in the minor leagues. There's so many good prospectors out there, including our very own James Anderson, who has a great job with ranking the prospects. We've seen him. He's always high in the prospect list. He's high in dynasty rankings right now. If you play in a league that's in a dynasty league, you know, you know he's coming.

It's like Julio Rodriguez last year. When they went, when word got out that Julio had made the roster, oh, it was just Helium City there. Same with like Tatis when he made the team out of spring training. And sometimes we don't draft them early enough. Tatis was going around pick 100 in his rookie year. You'll never get that sort of bargain again. I think there's a fear of missing out when you get an exciting player like that. How do you temper expectations when you're predicting these young guys?

I mean, like you said, a lot of the analysts, especially like with what we've seen with Corbyn Carroll, a lot of the analysts, for the most part, seem to, agree that he's around the number one or number two prospect in baseball right now. Right. But from a fantasy perspective, how do you kind of factor that in considering that with baseball, so many young players don't kind of pan out to be what we think they're going to be? This is a Jared Kellnick comment here, definitely. You want to compare guys there. And the thing is you got to look at like a couple things like plate discipline.

Swinging strike rate is something that you want to pay attention to. Does he chase? Carol held his own upon his call. It was nice that we got to see, get him a little bit of taste last year. So he's not kind of a fish out of water to start the year this year. You saw Witt and Julio Rodriguez struggle a lot last year, especially, I mean, in the first month of the season, in the case of Julio Rodriguez, he was getting squeezed big time by home plate umpires. But there's an adjustment period for sure.

And that's something you got to watch for. And I think there's a demarcation point where you run out of those guys that we know our five-gat category producers. And those are the tried and true guys. Okay, we're done with those. Let's take some upside here. especially if I don't have any speed. If I get Freddie Freeman earlier,

if I get, although Freeman's not necessarily the best example because he's still 12 bases last year. But a power hitter that doesn't run early on. You want to pair them with that speed option. Or you go with a couple starting pitches earlier. You need to get your steals because you don't want to get stuck trying to find steals late with guys that only run.

You want to get the hitters that can run and do something else. And that's why Carol's so attractive. You almost sound like a manager when I hear you talk. because and the reason why I say that is because of the things you guys pay attention to that that isn't the box score, that isn't the stats. We've talked about how some stats are fluky or why they're not the best stats to rely on. But the stuff that you talk about really is the same things that like Tori Lavello mentions when he's talking about what he's looking for from these young guys in spring training. He's not necessarily looking for the batting average to be great, but it's the contact, it's the power. There's other things that like maybe fans and other people don't necessarily pick up on when it comes to successful.

success they're having at the plate or in the field. Well, then you know, we have more information our fingertips than we've ever had before. You know, you look at what MLB, you go to the film room on MLB.com. You can search for any highlight there, like the Carroll Triple that we saw earlier this year. We had ground level.

I was like, pump that into my veins, you know? And then like baseball savant, all the telling stats. It's not just, oh, he hits the ball real hard. No, we know what the exit velocity is. We know the poll percentage. We know everything now. It's just a matter of synthesizing all that data and making it something useful. That's still a skill.

But we have so much more at our fingertips. It's amazing. Yeah. It sounds like, I mean, this year in particular, Jeff, is going to be, there's a lot of unknown, I guess, more so than other years with all of the rule changes and the shift restrictions. I don't know if anyone has a great feel of how that's going to maybe batting averages take up a little bit for left-handed hitters.

It's a little bit hard to say for sure. how difficult is that coming into this season, kind of predicting what some of those factors will look like? Oh, it's really tough, without a doubt. I mean, at least we saw it at the minor league level. We saw AAA play under these rules last year. So we can see, for instance, in 2021, AAA teams average 0.7 stolen bases per game in 2020 is all the way to 0.93. Now, is that going to translate directly in the majors? Probably not because pitchers are better at holding runners on at the major league level.

Catchers have quicker pop times. And they'll pay attention to that and they'll find ways to do that. and they'll find ways to beat that a little bit more. It's always the law of unintended consequences. We always find that these teams adapt somehow, but we will see more stolen bases. We'll probably see better averages, especially from lefties, as you pointed out, Jesse.

You know, guys like Corey Seeger are really going to benefit from that because he got shifted a lot. He's going to do a lot better off of that. Stolen bases, you brought that up as far as a factor. And I know we went through this meeting with Major League Baseball to kind of go over the rules, the changes, everything that they were doing. And the one thing that they kind of presented was that the rest of the stats weren't really impacted as much as we might think that they would be impacted by the new rules, especially the shift being banned and, you know, of course, the disengagement's by pitchers.

So, I mean, do you think that we're going to see a big uptick in stolen bases or do you think it's just going to kind of be something that levels out and like a little bit closer to what we've seen in the past perhaps? I think it'll be an uptick, but not as much as people think. I think it'll probably be like 10% instead of 20, like it was in the minors, because of the reasons we cited, you know, and all that. And it's just major league teams are still very wary of giving away and out on the base pass. All you have to do is watch the WBC last night and see Korea lose Australia on the final player of the game on an attempted stolen base. And we'd like to call those two plans, you know, running, you know, Ryan Therio was the guy

that was the inspiration out, out on the base pass. You want to avoid that. And so unless the team run, and unless the player runs at like 75% success rate, they're not going to let them run that much. So, but now they're trying to maybe encourage it because they need more action in the game. We need it. You can see it's become a little stagnant.

And that's why we have the pitch clock too. I understand it. I kind of fought against the dying light about the pitch clock, but I lost that battle. So so be it. But I do think, though, that there's a couple situations where this is really going to matter a little bit more often. I do think that you're going to see a little bit more where the batting averages are going to go up.

We needed a better improvement in batting average. League-wide batting average last year was 2.43. It was the lowest since 1968 when they were, and they had to lower the mound after that. That's crazy. I guess from a fantasy perspective, is any of this enough to impact your strategy when drafting for fantasy baseball? Does the steals, I mean, is it enough for you to like take a guy that might, end up with more steals now because that stolen bases are a bit more likely, or is that not really impacting your strategy?

It might change my targets. It might, like, for instance, typically in a 15-team mixed league, you needed about 120 stolen bases to finish third in your league. And I like to average, you know, every credit. Say if you're playing a categorical league, five-by-five league, you want to finish third in every category to win your league. That took about 120 stolen bases. Now it's about 135 or so.

Maybe a little bit more, a little bit less. But and it's not precise, obviously, you know, we're talking about projections or just are just a range of outcome anyhow. We can't get that sort of precision. But I want to be a little bit more aware that I do need some speed. The thing is, like, power is still the one thing I'm worried about. We saw a big drop in power last year. A lot of that was the baseball. I mean, you guys, Arizona is one of the toughest parks to hit home runs, which people don't realize.

Because when, you know, the ballpark first came out, it was Cores Jr. And then they brought in the humidore and everything changed. And it's now a tougher place to hit home runs. Yeah. And that's wild too because I still remember when they brought it in. They wanted us as journalists to not even acknowledge the Humidor's existence, right? And I think the funny part about that is it has had a huge impact on playing at Chase Field. So, I mean, it's something that you can't not acknowledge its existence.

But, you know, it is something that we've seen happen. Like you said, we've seen the hitter-friendly confines of Chase Field kind of change. change. And they've tried different combinations, too, especially now with the roof being inoperable to open during the game while fans are in there. They try to have like the panels and the outfield at least open to maybe get some air in there or some wind or something. But it's definitely a big airplane hangar still and nothing's changed when it comes to that. I did want to ask you this, though. You obviously have been doing this for a long time. You're one of the co-founders of Roto Wire. Jesse and I were going over the website. And there is just an

incredible abundance of of information, including almost up-to-date hourly weather reports for games and everything like that. Like you guys have everything covered over there. And I just like how, how has it changed for you from your time starting this website to now? Like you said, with so much an abundance of information available to you, it feels like things, like it's a completely different game from possibly when you guys started the website. And it's so many different ways to play the game now, too. It was before. It was just, we had our auction league. We had our A-only league, or in-o-only league, sometimes a mixed league. The national contest didn't exist. DFS didn't exist. We couldn't bet on sports. I mean, now all that, there's, there's so many different ways to parse it. And it's not

just baseball, basketball, hockey, golf, cricket, believe it or not. We have, you know, it's a worldwide NASCAR and all that in there. Oh, yeah. If you can play a fantasy game of it, we'll cover it. We there's three of us that started at it. And now we have over 50 full-time employees. We have a number of like 100 to 200 part timers, depending on what time of season it is and all that. And it's great. I mean, it's great. I was able to kind of cobble together a living after doing what I love. I was studying for the bar exam, actually, when we launched the company.

And so I like to joke I'm a recovering attorney. I've never practiced a whole time. I love it. Jeff, last thing for me, other than Corbyn Carroll, we all know about Corbyn Carol. Who are the fantasy baseball darlings of the Arizona Diamondbacks, would you say? Well, obviously, Zach Gellon, after the year he had last year, he stayed healthy finally, cut down his walk rate, got a little lucky on balls and played. But guess what? When you have vacuums in the outfield, that helps a little bit there.

So that helps. Christian Walker had an amazing second half. Can he keep that going? I'm curious to see what Josh Rojas, how much playing time he gets now that they have Evan Longoria at third base. Shortstop is something they need to still kind of fix. I think Nick Ahmed is a great defender, but he doesn't get it done at the plate. And of course they had the big, big trade over the offseason there. And I'm a big fan of Gabriel Moreno.

I think he's going to be a guy that can hit someday. But it hurt probably to trade away, you know, one of the best bats in that lineup. So we'll see what happens there. But there's a lot of excitement there. You know, Jordan Lawler's coming up someday to fill that shortstop gap. We'll see in Dynasty Leagues, he's the next guy that people are kind of focusing on is the next guy that's coming up too. So lots of fun young players on that team. We'll see if they can fill out those pitching spots.

when those young guys are ready to go. Wanted to get your thoughts on the World Baseball Classic. Obviously, with it going on, this is a very fun time of the year for baseball. But what are your thoughts on what it does for the game and just kind of increasing people's interest in the sport, especially going on during this time of the year when it's spring training and players have a lot going on, but it feels like kind of a fun way to kick off the season. You know, I love the World Baseball Classic. there's no good time to host it. That's the real problem.

Exactly. Yeah, that's exactly what we were just discussing is when would it, when would be a good time for it? I mean, the middle of the summer, but in the baseball doesn't want to stop their schedule. And all the players that aren't playing that that's going to affect those guys too. But, you know, that would be ideal because you can't do it after the season. There's so many accumulated injuries. You don't want all that workload. I mean, I come out to your guys' neck of the woods for the Arizona Fall League every year. And the big problem then is always getting pitching prospects. Yeah. No one wants to expose their best pitchers. Same thing kind of holds true with the. the WBC, look at Team USA. And the starting pitchers that are on that team, solid pitchers, Adam Wainwright, Miles, Michaelis,

they're not, they're not like studs, like the lineups, you know. And that's the one thing that's a problem. Plus, it's such a crowded sports calendar for the viewer. I mean, look at today, right now we had conference tournament games. We had the TPC, we have spring training. We have all sorts of good stuff. Plus, the regular season, the NHL and NBA, it's a very crowded calendar trying to get that attention,

capture everything, you know, the casual viewer, good luck. Yeah, I think that's the thing is my friends that are baseball fans, they couldn't wait for this to start. But I don't have a lot of those. And the other, you know, my other friends, they just, they're not extremely interested in it because right now they're totally locked into what the suns have going on and other things here in the valley. And they don't even know about it in many cases. You get a blank air like what? Yeah, we've been trying our best to be like, it's like a damn all star game. But there's like 10 all star teams instead of two.

You got to check it out, you know. Not to mention the fun stories like the. Czech Republic team that's comprised of like teachers and plumbers and attorneys, former attorney yourself. Right. So, but, Hey, man,

we appreciate you so much. Thank you so much for stopping by. We look forward to chatting with you more. As, as time goes on, we, we love talking about fantasy baseball. And of course,

it's going to be interesting to see how this Arizona Diamondbacks team comes along, considering I feel like my perspective as a fantasy player would be, I'd still want to wait to see what these guys are going to do or if they're going to be able to do it consistently, but like you said, it might be too late by that point. Anytime. Yeah, absolutely. Anytime, guys. This is a blast. Hey, man. Thank you so much. Thanks, Jack. Take care. And by the way, our friend Jeff is given all of our listeners for a limited time.

They are offering a two-day trial to our listeners over at Rotowire. So just go to rotowire.com slash P-HNX to register. There's no commitments. They are so confident that you're going to love their abundance of information that they have over there, that you will want to invest in a subscription plan. They don't even ask you for a credit card up front. So just take a peek behind the paywall. Check out all of the information line. Jesse and I couldn't believe the amount of information that they had available.

It's pretty insane. Yeah. I mean, their website has like 27 tabs at the top, I'm pretty sure. And like all of them have so much information. I think the big, I think and honestly like, yeah, this goes for fantasy sports, of course, daily fantasy sports, all of that. But even maybe for if you need assistance with your gambling predictions, because I'll tell you. Absolutely. The amount of information they have, it really does change the amount of information you have available to you in order to make a wise and educated decision on any baseball game or any fantasy situation.

So make sure to check out their website. Again, that's rotawire.com slash PhNX to register. No commitments at all. And when the trial is done, you can decide if a rotowire package is right for you. We thank you guys for being here today in the PHNX Sports YouTube channel. We always thank you for being here. If you haven't done so already, make sure to see. subscribe to the channel, sign up for notifications, that way you don't miss when any of our shows

go live. Leave us a thumbs up. It's, it's my favorite. I always say it's Jesse's favorite thing, but I'm just projecting. It's just me saying it's my favorite thing when really, or Jesse's favorite thing. It's my favorite thing. I love instant gratification. I know you guys do too, but also make sure if you're subscribing to us here, you're also subscribing to us on your favorite audio podcast. Leave us a review. That way we know how you like the show. And maybe you'll stop if you haven't done so already, grab yourself a PHNX diehard membership. You get it over at goPhNX.com and we'll give you access to wonderful array of benefits. Get a hat like this hat that I'm wearing or a shirt from the PHNX Locker.com for absolutely

free. And then you'll get 20% off all future purchases at the PHNX Locker.com. We have amazing shirts. We have a bunch of sunshirt. We have all sorts of great stuff. So make sure to check out Slim Valley Reaper, Midrange Assassins, all that stuff we have over at the PHNX Locker.com. also you get members only merchandise members only access to discounts with our partners member only events

and and the members only discord lounge which is the best place to be an arizona sports fan you also get access to jesse's full count newsletter as well as the newsletters from gerald howard and uh Craig morgan i don't know if you've heard of that guy but uh he's a pill he's a pill uh well make sure to sign up for that and like i said those of you that are already done so we thank you guys so much for doing so you guys are the best Uh, we have some updates from Salt River Fields. Actually, we don't because there was no game today. There was nothing today.

It was a day off for the Arizona Diamondbacks, a well-deserved. It was weird. Yeah. It was weird. It was weird. It was weird. It was not what to do with himself. Yeah.

It's, I mean, it's, spring training is, is, is nonstop, right? I mean, some, some days you have two games instead of one. And yeah, going back to mid-February. I'm just used to being at Salt River Fields, like basically every day. Yeah. Today, today they told me that if I showed up, there wouldn't, there wouldn't, There wouldn't be anyone there. No media allowed is what they had to tell them, which I think you can understand.

You guys are smart people. You can put it together why they had to say that. They actually had to put a picture of Jesse up at the front gate to make sure don't let this man in. It was kind of absurd. But while Jesse was sleeping and resting and getting ready to go over to Solverfield to get kicked out, I was awake watching World Baseball Classic Games at like 5 o'clock in the morning. Is that when? Is that when it was?

That's when they were. This was Japan, China. Japan and China as well as Italy versus Cuba. And they were opposite style games, I would say. The Italy versus Cuba game was incredible. Very close, went to 10 innings and actually had a little connection to the Arizona Diamondbacks, in fact. Our very own Dominic Fletcher had what you could consider to be the go-ahead game-winning

run or game-winning double that scored an RBI and put Italy ahead for good in the 10th inning. they still play by old school baseball rules, which means no pitch clock. This game lasted three hours and 46 minutes, I believe. Is that correct? I believe so. Yeah, way too long. I don't like it. I heard that. I was like, nope, we don't do that anymore. The best argument for the pitch clock really is watching some of these WBC games go to almost four hours.

It's like, yeah, this is what baseball was like not that long ago. Yeah, but it was a close game. It was tied at two after nine and went to extra innings. And not only did Dominic Fletcher get in on the win, But so did his brother who plays for the Los Angeles Angels. Yeah, but Dominic and David Fletcher, both starring in the lineup for Team Italy. David Fletcher was hitting sixth in the lineup. Dominic was hitting fourth, which is interesting.

Dominic Fletcher, you know, certainly a respectable prospect. I wouldn't say that his power has ever been his calling card necessarily. No, that's very true. But, you know, that clean up nonetheless. And Mitchell Stumpo finished this game for. team Italy and ultimately sealed a 6-3 victory over team Cuba. So it was a very fun, very fun baseball game all the way around. And again, we have your reasons. If you check out our YouTube channel, we'll have a video up about all the reasons why you should watch the World Baseball

Classic. But there is no greater reason than the way that Lars Newbar's Pepper Grinders celebration has completely taken over the world. It is all over the place. I love it. Lars New Bar and Shohey Otani absolutely dominated. today in today's game versus China and Japan Japan wins 8 to 1 New Bar went 2 for 4 with 2 runs scored and 2 walks

Otani as the DH and pitcher by the way he went 2 for 4 himself with 2 RBI 2 walks and he also pitched pretty damn well as well Jesse going four innings

no runs no run scored 5 strikeouts yeah pretty damn good I watched this game and I couldn't help but think we vastly underestimated Team Japan. Team Japan's pretty good, man. I mean, there's a reason I was looking at the odds on the drafting sports book app earlier. Team Japan is right up there with Team USA and the Dominican Republic as far as who's going to win this whole thing. Team China, not so much. I believe they were plus 50,000 if I'm not, if I'm not mistaken.

So the level of competition wasn't necessarily equal in that Japan-China game today. But, yeah, I mean, Shohei Otani did, you know, show Hey Otani things. Team China had 16 walks, I believe, in this game. So Team Japan just kind of had to, you know, stand up there and walk themselves around the bases in order to score all those runs. But an 8 to 1 victory, certainly not unexpected, but still a lot of fun to see Shohei Otani shine in that moment. It's just the fact that this guy does it all. And honestly, like Jeff was saying earlier, right, team. USA's big problem is it's not to say they don't have solid pitchers, you know, playing for them.

But they definitely don't have that marquee name. And Shohei Otani is absolutely that. And he delivered. And honestly, I don't know how often he's going to pitch or how long he's going to go in these games. But I feel like Otani has a great chance to potentially be the MVP of this entire tournament. I mean, if Team Japan wins, I mean, how can you doubt it? But I mean, he's probably going to DH. he's probably going to play every game, right?

I mean, I can't imagine you wouldn't have him be a part of the lineup. I'm sure he'll have days off just due to the fact that they can't, they can't really run some of these MLB players ragged when they still have a 162 game season ahead of them, right? That's fair. Yeah, I mean, I don't, I don't think you're necessarily playing a game every day. So, so I think. But, well, at least of the case here in the United States,

some of these teams are playing two games in one day as far as the time frame goes here, even though that's not actually what's happening. It's one day over there and then it's the next day. But like there's teams that are playing at like 6 o'clock in the morning our time. And then they're also playing at like 10 o'clock hard time, right? It's a long day at the office. I guess they get to sleep in between. They have that whole nighttime thing that happens over there.

But again, there's just a lot of excitement around this tournament and a lot of excitement here in Phoenix. Considering this is one of the few places that you get to go watch this tournament live. And it's, it's, it's fairly big. I mean, we, Team Mexico versus Team USA is sold out. And you're not going to see that, that building filled like that any other time until we get. Don't you say that there. I was just until we get closer to the end of the season and we're almost in the playoffs. And then when we're in the playoffs.

That's what I was going to say. You don't think they're going to sell out the home opener against the Dodgers. I don't know. I'm not saying we won't because people love that. Right? People love the beginning of the season. Last year, I don't recall them getting, I think it was 35,000. Maybe it was about three quarters. I was on the street getting kissed by a stranger, so I wouldn't know those numbers.

I was after the game. Yeah, but that's where I was for the most of the game, too. Like we were brought, you remember you were in a small circle. I was in the screen. We kept you in the cage the whole time. But go watch the World Baseball Classic. We give you more reasons on our video on YouTube. But of course, we just want to remind you now that this is the next two weeks.

is going to be a blast and uh we know there's a lot going on i mean jeff hit the nail on the head with that it's not an ideal time of the year to have it there's there's just all sorts of things that cause people to kind of miss out on this tournament so i do you feel about this uh laris nuke bar pepper grinder thing i love it it's taken though i love it i love it i loved it in st louis i love it now. I love the fact that every time people experience it, it kind of catches on and catches fire, right? Well, it certainly appears to have caught on

with some of the Japanese media. Yes, yes, it has. And some of the Little League teams inside of Japan. Let's just talk about Lars DuBarre general, because much like our very own Alex Thomas that we had on the show yesterday, Lars is doing this in honor of his mother,

who's Japanese. He's also doing it. He's also joining a team where he does not speak the language. at all. So there was a wonderful video where they showed the Japanese manager speaking to the team in Japanese and then the camera pans over to Lars and I believe he says I have no idea what he said, which is just amazing, right?

So I mean, does that mean Alec Thomas needs an interpreter? Well, here's the thing. How the turn tables. How the turn tables. I think Alex Thomas, if I'm being honest, probably speaks more Spanish than he lets on. At least he understands it. If you grew up

like I did in a household where your parents spoke Spanish, you learn to pick up on certain keywords. See, my parents are Puerto Rico. I don't know that about Alec Thomas. I don't know that. I don't know if they spoke Spanish there. I don't think so. My parents spoke Spanish in my household, right? So it's like even though they didn't deliberately teach me

Spanish, because if they did, then they couldn't use it as a secret language to talk right in front of me. Right. But like, I would hear them say a bunch of words in Spanish and then I would hear like Derek and then I would hear like, uh, pedo esto a bike. And then I'd be like, oh no,

What did I do? I'm not, I went somewhere on my bike or I'm in trouble, right? You pick out keywords, you learn how to interpret as best as you can. But anyway, best of luck to all the players playing on teams where they do not speak the language of their manager

or their fellow teammates. So that's pretty awesome. Thomas did say, though, that there were a few guys like that on the team. Yeah, I don't think he's alone. Yeah, I'm sure he's.

And I'm sure that's kind of a thing on pretty much all these things. Yeah, for sure. They all have their few players who don't speak the language. are just kind of confused. Yeah. Well,

hey, you know, luckily they'll probably have people to help them out. And those are the true MVP is the ones who take the time to just help translate or help out their teammates

in any way that they can. But of course, we need you guys to help out Jesse in any way you can because as you know, he's furnishing his townhouse. That's what he's calling it these days. And he...

Allegedly. Allegedly. Allegedly, I don't even know. I haven't seen this fucking townhouse, so I don't even know if it exists. But if you have any... ideas on how he can furnish his townhouse or make it look more adorable. Make sure to tweet him

and make sure to send him pictures from MoreFurniture.com. Be like, you know, I know his parents are doing this. I know people like, just do little screenshots and send it to him and be like, I think this would look lovely in your for a, you know, that kind of thing, right? So make sure to give Jesse all the help he can get and grab yourself some furniture while you're at it. Go to MoreFurniture.com. Sign up to get their white glove delivery service if you're having your furniture delivered. That way you don't have to move it yourself. They'll put it wherever it goes. Save big on the best furniture in the valley when you head to more furniture.com. Big shout out to our friends from FourPeaks who are always keeping me hydrated here on the show.

You should check out their wonderful variety of beers wherever you get your beers. They're a local company. It's fun to support local companies. But more importantly, it's fun to drink beer and watch baseball games. So grab Four Peaks while you're watching the World Baseball Classic. Check out the Four Peaks calendar over at FourPeaks.com slash events for all your beer week entertainment and grab your tickets for four weeks amazing spring beer dinner at Four Peaks.com slash events. Must be 21 years or older to enjoy and enjoy responsibly. A six-course meal.

All sorts of delicious food paired with all sorts of delicious beers. And more than that, you also have, if you're here for spring training, their brewery tours that you can take. They got their spring training tours all throughout March. So make sure to take them up on that. Like I've been telling you guys, there's ghosts. So, I mean, what more do you need to know other than there's ghosts? You got to stick around.

You got to go to the tour. You got to see the ghosts. And maybe you can offer the ghosts some OGs. I don't know. I'm not sure how ghosts feel about that. People are set in their ways. They're antiquated. They don't understand that edibles are something that's widely accepted, especially ghosts.

I mean, these ghosts could be from the 1800. They're going to be like Jesse. We talked today about sticking an OGs and Jesse sandwich, but we're going to do that at the right time. It's official. I'm utterly terrified. Yeah, yeah, he doesn't ever feel comfortable in this office now, period. But OGs now has their new strawberries and cream happy balance companies. They're alive and they're on the shelves.

We don't even know if he would notice if we slipped in one of those because it's all about a happy balance between CBD and T.HC. It allows you to enjoy some of the effects of THC without all of the, like, I guess, euphoric feeling that people might feel from taking edibles. So make sure to check them out. And as always, you can find them at your local dispensate. by checking out OGsbrands.com must be 21 years or over to enjoy. I'm going to tell you guys this. We, we, we,

we love the Amarillo Sad Poodles. We love the Hillsborough hops. We love, of course, the Reno Aces. Maybe, maybe too much. Maybe we love the Reno Aces too much.

But we try not to, like, say we love one of these teams more than the others, right? We like, you know, because obviously, it's like picking your favorite child. You can't do that.

AAA, A, double A, like, yeah, it would be easy to rank them on importance. Obviously, Reno would be the favorite, right? It's the oldest child. It's the one that has the most responsibilities. We make him mow the lawn, but we pay him $20 a week to do it. You get that kind of thing. But, Jesse, I can't lie.

Much like a child that draws something really good or maybe is better than their siblings at something. The Amarillo sod poodles might have stolen my heart. Because they introduced yesterday, quite possibly the greatest alternate minor league team in the history of minor league baseball. Ladies and gentlemen, please allow us to introduce you to the calf fries. You're going to have to explain to people what this is. I am absolutely going to explain. Do you guys know what calf fries are?

What are calf fries, you ask? Do you know what Rocky Mountain Oysters are? It's fried bulls balls, ladies and gentlemen, it's fried bulls balls. And now that I've told you that calf fries are fried bulls balls, Bulls testicles to be a little bit more PC, I guess, but you get what I'm saying. Bulls balls. The Bulls balls is so much fun to say.

That, now that I've told you that, this primary logo from the calf fries is going to make a little bit more sense. Look at that guy. It's awful. It's terrible. What is happening here? Is that, oh, man. I think when our friend, Stefan and Chris Carey showed us this,

believe I said it looks like his rear end is in the oil. And Chris said, think again, what other part do you see here in the oil? And that would lead you to understand why the cow is so upset in this next image. This is their other primary logo, folks. I swear to God, I did not Photoshop this. I did not make this. This is not a Derek Montia original. this is in fact an actual major league baseball logo now minor league minor league did i say professional

did i say major league i didn't mean to say but i'm i guess i'm i'm wishing i'm trying to get it there do you think major league baseball could bring something like this absolutely not i don't think so no i think it's something a minor league team gets away with i don't think a major league teams get away with this but i don't even feel like you i don't even feel like this is the next step i don't feel like, like, I feel like the calf fries ran because teams like the tacos and the, and the iron pigs as the bacon walked, right? Like, you first had to get teams alternating their name to something weird. And then you had to get people to accept that like we do with the Fresno tacos and, and the Leahy Iron Pigs slash the Leahy bacon or whatever they call. It's a

little weird. They're fighting bacon at times. They have all sorts of different names. So it's like an alternate team name. It's like an alternate team name. We're going to get this six teams or six games per year. Six games per year. So there's still the Amarillo Sock Poodles. They are still the Amarillo sodpools. They're not permanently changing their name. This is just six wonderful games per year.

We're going to be the cat fries. Can we put the one up again that we were just showing, Damon? Because like really, like what is going on here? Just to explain it, just to put it in the words, is you've taken this cow's balls and fried them. And that is the exact expression that a cow would have. have after that situation. Do you know this from experience there?

The same way the cows look at you when you tip them over. They're just, they're angry and they don't like that you did it. But I don't know. I could be wrong about this. This one might be the most egregious logo. But I think that their alternate logo is quite possibly the most egregious. So that is a frying pan with actual calf fries, frying away in the pan, making the CF logo for the calf rice in a Texas shape frying pan.

Yeah. I just, I love this so goddamn much. I can't even put it into words how much I love this. I want every piece of merchandise, Jesse. I want every hat. I want every t-shirts. Is this like a little bit.

It's not overly graphic in any, in any sense. I mean, that F is very questionable. If you reposition that F in a different angle, I don't fucking know about that F, bro. but I don't know I'm fine with this I am 100% by this I didn't even notice that I didn't even notice that they made the letter C and F at the beginning oh come on it's cat fries it's right there in front of you here's the thing the rules to everything everything we've experienced baseball like baseball needs an injection of all of this right like it needs it needs I didn't even mean to say injection yeah anyway but it needs this it needs it needs it needs it needs it needs it needs it needs it It needs fun.

It needs silliness. Like people of all the sports, I feel like baseball is the one that people take far too seriously. Whether it's logos, jerseys, the rules, everything. Like, it just needs to be a game again. And it needs to be a bit more fun. And I think that we're heading in that right direction with all of this kind of stuff. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, I think the fact that it's that it's minor league baseball, right? And minor league baseball has been cut down significantly in recent years. There's a lot of teams that did exist. It no longer exists. unfortunately. But teams still have a lot of minor league teams, right? Like the Diamondbacks have the Reno Aces, the Amarillo, Sodpoodle, slash now, sort of calf rise, the Hillsborough hops, the Vicilia Rahide, right?

And then they have all their rookie league teams as well. So that's a lot of different teams. And it's a lot of different brands that every single organization has to maintain. And you want to have some fun with it. Like you don't want to have five super generic team names and logos. and stuff, right? And I think that's something that people have always enjoyed

about minor league baseball. That's how absurd. I mean, the sod poodles was already pretty good. Oh, man. That was already pretty fun. People love that name. They love the logo.

They love everything about it. And I think this just adds to it. I think that they're doing a great job in Amarillo of marketing this team, right? And we've heard a lot of things about minor league teams and especially the way that they did the city that they're in embraces it. You know, we think of them as being just whatever,

like a place for young players to develop or for players that are rehabbing to go play baseball for a little while. But these franchises, they mean a lot to the cities they are in. And I think that's being demonstrated by the other piece of information we have, which is the Hillsborough Hopps are building a new stadium that is expected to be ready for the 2025 season. We have a picture of that stadium and it looks pretty damn beautiful, Jesse. Yeah.

Looks a bit like Salt River Fields a little bit. A little bit. But I think more than anything, the Hills. Billsboro hops again they are a team I believe they're high A they are now high A And they have they have been a team when you talk about the way that they have marketed their team The team name the way that fans embrace the team like when I am wearing my hops hat I get more compliments on that bad boy than anything most people actually like most people that talked to me about it know who the hops are

But then there's that occasional person who's just like hey, I don't know what your hat is but that fucking hat is awesome Yeah, it's a cool hat. It's a cool logo. It's cool idea And I mean, obviously, you know, it's it's kind of like a smart, classy way to call your team like the beers. You know what I mean? Like everybody knows beer and baseball go together hand in hand. God damn it. That's right. That's why I do this on every episode.

But I mean, it's just a really clever way to make your team. You know, their mascots, barley. There's just a lot about the way that that particular city has embraced the Hillsborough hops. And honestly, like baseball has embraced Hillsborough hops. So many people know that team exists. And they're very, they're not, you know, a AAA team. They're not a team that, you know, usually gets a lot of talk about what they're doing or how they're performing.

But it's mostly the marketing and the great job that they've done of building that thing that they're building in Oregon. Yeah, it's, it's very, so like geographically, I look this up, Ron Tonkin Field, which is where the Hillsborough Hopps currently play and have played for their entire existence, I believe, is, is like directly adjacent to where this new. facility is being built. So they're not getting rid of Ron Tonkin Field. I did hear that apparently the hops were originally planning to renovate Ron Tonkin Field, try to modernize it a little bit, try to increase the level of the facility a little bit, given that they were formerly a low A team. Now they're a high A team. So I guess there's some increased expectations, some increased requirements that come along with that. But they ultimately decided it was more cost effective to just build a new thing. So Ron Tonkin Field still exists.

It will be operated by the city of Hillsborough. And then we now have this new facility that is also being built. And yeah, it looks very nice. And we are excited for our friends down in Hillsborough that we'll get to enjoy it here within a couple of years. And they also had a pretty, I mean, we've talked about this with like the Coyote's new stadium and potentially the Arizona Diamondbacks moving. But the funding for this project per the Hillsborough Hopps press release will be paid for predominantly. through private financing secured by the hops with a smaller portion of the funding coming from the city through the transient lodging tax, which puts a tax on like hotels and other facilities that people coming into town, especially with like people do travel to go watch the hops. I have a friend that lives in Idaho that actually goes to watch the hops.

So like there are there there there is, you know, the idea here that this renovated or this new stadium, which looks beautiful will bring in people. and that will help pay for the stadium, you know, in itself. It makes a lot of sense and it doesn't tax the people of the city that might not, you know, be into baseball or whatever. And I mean, the way that they're creatively funding some of these stadiums makes me feel very positive about the possibility of that happening, even though I'm still, I still don't know what I want for the Diamondbacks. I still don't know if I want a new stadium or what.

We're very close to this current one. So I don't know about having to drive far to go to the other one. That's fair. Although if they put it in Scottsdale, that would be pretty great for me. Oh, God. He's so selfish. But yeah, I mean, it is an interesting little comparison, right? The way that they're funding this project in Hillsborough, it seems like it's mostly private funding,

but there is a tax being put in place to help pay for it as well. Could something like that happen in Arizona for the Diamondbacks to fund their next ballpark? I don't think you're going to build a new Major League ballpark for $120 million, which is, the estimated upper bound of what this will ultimately cost in Hillsborough. Probably going to be about 10 times that, maybe. You're looking at more like a billion dollars than 120 million. But there's a lot of other revenue drivers that come along with that. And that's a big thing for this project in Hillsborough, too, is this won't just be where the hops play. They're going to have all sorts of concerts and all sorts of community gatherings and whatnot at the facility as well. Ryan says in

Scottsdale and we post game at the PHNX bar in the area. I like, I kind of like that. Here we go. I kind of like that. Should look up how Todd Coutin says, should look about Bush Stadium got his name. I'm not talking about stadiums. The stadiums being named after beers. I'm just talking about an entire organization and franchise

being named after an ingredient and a beer. But I'm all for the beers being a name as well, by the way. But I'm also all for a lot of things, including more of Lars New Bar's Pepper Grinder celebration. So for my draft king's pick of the week, I am sticking with Team Japan as they take on South Korea.

And I am taking them to cover the spread, even though that looks like a pretty safe bet according to drafting sportsbook. I was going to say, I think you're pretty safe there. Minus one and a half or minus 190 value. I am also Jesse going to take another bet. And this is one you're going to be a fan of. I'm taking the Czech Republic over China.

Oh, let's go. And I'm taking the run line of one and a half. So I'm taking that the Czech Republic is going to win by two. Those carpenters, those attorneys, those fucking blacksmiths, they're going to get out there. They're going to do work. And I can't wait to watch the Czech Republic. I'm pretty sure the Czech Republic. I want to say they're plus 40,000 to win the whole thing on the draft on the drafting sportsbook app.

Whereas I think China was plus I don't know if I'm taking that. I don't know if I'm taking that. You're not taking them plus 40,000. Imagine how much money you could win though, Derek. Right now, Ryan says WC bet on pitch counts. don't even be started on pitch counts. But right now, yeah,

right now it's a pretty close race between the Dominican Republic, USA, and Japan. Dominican Republic is the favorite at plus 225, USA right behind them at plus 250, and then Japan at plus 260.

They're all pretty dang close. They're all pretty damn close and they're all pretty damn good teams. So make sure to, hey, again, how do you want to make you sports better? Do it through the Drap King's Sportsbook app.

Bet on the World Baseball Classic. Again, you have a horse in a race that way. You're more excited about it. you can also drop some MLB future bets while you're on there. Download the Draft King Sportsbook app and use our code of PHNX. New customers can bet $5 and get $200 and bonus bets instantly. Only at the Drafking Sportsbook with code PHNX, minimum age and eligibility restrictions apply, see show notes for details.

And also, we don't know what's going to happen the day of. We know that Team USA versus Team Mexico at Chase Field sold out. Jesse checked. Some of those other games are getting pretty close as well, right? USA versus Great Britain was pretty... Yeah, that one, I think all of the lower level seats. I think you can get an upper deck third level seat for that game. I don't know if you can get much of anything else at this point.

And then Jesse just bashed Canada as a country for like 20 minutes after that because that game still has lots of tickets available. He was like, who wants to see Canada and all this other garbage? I don't know how close that game will be. I'll just say, although to be fair, I don't know how close the Team USA Great Britain game will be either. And he did this all within earshot of the league. by the way, who's Canadian. Unknowingly. He says unknowingly, but do you believe that? I don't.

Here's the thing. You can grab those tickets. You can get them on sale at gametime.co. And more importantly, for that sold out game the day of, again, just like the Super Bowl, who knows what might happen. But drop in there the day of if you're interested in go on that game. See if there's some tickets available. You might just find some things available and you might just save up to 60% on tickets when you buy them last minute. the best way to support us is by buying your tickets through the link in the description. And of course, we thank you guys so much for being here. We thank you guys so much for being here in the chat.

You can follow us on Twitter. I'm at Cap underscore Kman with the K. This maniac is at Jesse N. Friedman. Our show is at PHNX underscore D-Backs. But of course, all roads lead to at PHNX underscore Sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Shout out to Jeff. Shout out to Jeff, man. I'll tell you, check out that Rotowire website if you are interested in every

piece of information you could possibly want about any sporting event. He's pretty clearly an encyclopedia of, I mean, what really amazes me is it's not just baseball. Like the man knows everything about every sport. That's a lot. That's a lot. Not really sure how one person can fit all that information into his brain. Me and this guy have to confer on the son's information to just be rounded out and understand. And then forget the Cardinals and all the other teams.

We can barely keep up. But we also have the longest season. So I think we have an excuse. Jeff, no excuses for Jeff. that man is a machine and of course make sure to check out that website check out all of our partners we appreciate all of them so much and we appreciate all of you so much on behalf of damon jesse and myself we thank you guys so much for your time as always and remember kids baseball is fun but it's so much more fun when you play fantasy baseball with all of the information