PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Merrill Kelly, Ryne Nelson latest additions to LONG Diamondbacks injury report
Episode Date: April 22, 2024The injuries continue to pile up for the Arizona Diamondbacks, with Ryne Nelson, Blaze Alexander, and Merrill Kelly being added to the injury report. We take a look at the whole list and discuss when ...we could see some faces returning to the lineup. We also answer your Mailbag Monday questions and more!An ALLCITY Network ProductionSUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports PHNX Events: Get your tickets to Suns Takeovers, Coyotes & Suns Watch Parties at BetMGM, and MORE here: https://gophnx.com/events/Factor Mealkits: Use code PHNXDBACKS50 to get 50% OFF your first Factor box and free wellness shots for life with any active subscription at https://factormeals.com/phnxdbacks50Desert Financial Credit Union: Open a free checking account online with Desert Financial Credit Union and get $200 in bonuses https://www.desertfinancial.com/200Gametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase.Circle K: Join Inner Circle for free by downloading the Circle K app today! Head to https://www.circlek.com/store-locator to find Circle Ks near you!OGeez!: OGeez! is not your average cannabis-infused gummy. Head over to https://www.ogeezbrands.com to find where you can purchase. Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. Four Peaks: Follow on social @fourpeaksbrew & @fourpeakspub! Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. 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.
Transcript
Discussion (0)
A ski now. Hope you all can hear us. Welcome in to another edition of the PHNXDVax podcast, the second one of the day, right?
Yeah, yeah, round two. Round two, here we go. Of course, my name is Derek Montaia.
Occasionally known as your mayor, PHNX. This man is occasionally known as the vice mayor of sound around here.
It's one and only thundersick Jesse Friedman. Of course, he's the one to blame for all of our technical difficulties.
Yes. Jesse, I do have a report breaking news from Craig Moore.
Morgan that I've been placed.
Breaking news from Craig Morgan is not usually.
No, it's not good.
It hasn't been good in the last couple of years.
Lately it's been very bad and this one continues to be bad because according to his report,
I have been placed on the 15-day IL with a right elbow contusion.
There was only a matter of time there.
God damn it.
I didn't.
I felt like I was going to make it out.
You even as much root for this team.
You're headed for the injured list, Derek.
It's an inevitability.
I hate it here.
I hate it here.
I hate it here.
I'm glad you guys are here.
I don't hate it here.
but I hate the situation the Diamondbacks are currently in with all of these injuries.
Jesse, how many, how many Diamondbacks are now injured?
How many members of the 40-man roster are now injured?
Yeah, in terms of, I mean, like, like, Blaze Alexander is not technically on the injured list.
Merrill Kelly is not on the injured list yet either.
But on the injury report, if you were.
But they are still players who have like a pending injury situation.
If you include them, it is 11.
11 players on the Diamondbacks 40-man roster.
are experiencing some kind of injury right now.
This sucks.
Yeah.
Yeah, this sucks.
Obviously, the Diamondbacks were able to somehow come out of the series in San Francisco with the win.
But at what cost?
At what cost?
Diamondbacks lose Ryan Nelson to the 15-day IL with a right bell elbow contusion after he got hit on the elbow.
Yeah, I mean, you I guess would know exactly how he feels.
Yeah, I hit it on the desk in the office earlier.
Yeah.
I am now on the IL.
But yeah, no, that sucks.
Like it's injuries coming in every way you can imagine.
Like you said, Blaze Alexander was removed from Sunday's game with a cramp in his right hamstring.
We don't know how that's going to turn out.
But the big news is Merrill Kelly being scratched from his start on Sunday to do what he called a mild terrace major strain.
Shoulder injuries are scary just in general.
and a terrace major is in that is in the shoulder area.
So, you know, once I saw that, it was like, all right, here we go.
Good thing you got Jordan Montgomery back, but you're sort of paying for it by losing
one of your other good starting pitchers, I guess.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's a really tough loss for the diamond backs.
And we don't know a ton of information about this yet.
It still sounds like there's a chance that Merrill Kelly might not miss all that much time.
As I said earlier, he hasn't actually been placed on the injured list,
although I sort of expect that to happen tomorrow when the debacks need a starting pitcher for Ryan Nelson's spot.
He has been placed on the injured list already.
But yeah, Tori when talking about this yesterday, he told reporters in San Francisco,
we feel like this is going to be something he's going to work through rather quickly.
He added, we're keeping our fingers crossed.
So do with that what you will.
Diamondbacks in general, they tend to be a little bit vague about injuries on the front end.
and, you know, they're not going to make this sound any worse than it is.
They're going to only give, you know, they're going to give like the best possible representation of the injury until they can't anymore, essentially.
I just say it.
I don't believe Toro Lavello anymore.
I don't believe him.
I just straight up don't because now we've seen the series of actions in which it takes place.
First, it's downplayed.
Then it's kind of like, hey, we'll see.
Hopefully we won't lose them.
And then it's next is a report that he's on the 60 day aisle, right, is what it feels like with stuff.
And I understand because you don't want to overreact.
And in the moment, you do want to trust what the athlete is reporting back to you in regards to how they're feeling.
However, imaging and getting doctors involved can change things fairly dramatically, right?
Once they realize the, I guess, the extent of the injury.
But, I mean, again, Tori's, you know, hopeful quote of saying, we feel like this is going to be something going to work through rather quickly.
We're keeping our fingers crossed.
Some of the other things he said, I think, you know, Nick McCorrell reported that he said that they're hoping to avoid any time on the IL, which seems impossible.
It seems impossible, right?
So that's the thing here when it comes to this, you know, there's some things to compare it to, right?
Some other guys have had this injury before.
Yeah, Max Scherzer had a what was deemed a low-grade
terrorist major strain last September.
I believe he went on the injured list on September 13th.
And he pitched for the Rangers in the postseason
against the Astros on October 18th.
So he wound up missing just a little bit over a month.
Granted, he wasn't throwing quite as many pitches.
I think he built back mostly to a starter's workload,
but I don't think he threw even as many as 70 pitches
in any of his outings in the playoffs.
So, you know, the Rangers in that situation being in the postseason,
they probably just wanted to get him back as soon as they possibly could,
regardless of how deep he could go.
He didn't pitch especially well.
He pitched pretty well against the debacks,
but he didn't pitch especially well against the Astros.
But, yeah, we don't know exactly how Merrill Kelly's injury compares to that one.
That one was low grade.
This one, Merrill used the word mild to describe this,
but it sounds like the diamondbacks are still gathering.
information. Merrill Kelly was sent back to Arizona yesterday for potentially some further testing
and evaluation. So my guess is that Merrill Kelly is going to hit the injured list tomorrow.
Whenever the debacks have another decision to make about who's starting the Tuesday game
against the Cardinals, it could be Logan Allen, who did a really nice job. Pitching on back of
Ryan Nelson after he went down with the injury, they could bring up Tommy Henry. It seems like
maybe the more the more likely outcome but yeah it's it's tough right now Derek I mean this diamondbacks team has been
I feel like the word decimated by injuries was maybe maybe a bit of hyperbole in like the first few days of the season
but now it's sort of just accurate it's pretty it's pretty rough we have the full list if we could take a look at
the entire list of the injuries for the diamondbacks well I mean look how small we had to make the font
yeah this to fit everybody in my god we have
A graphic like this, what, like two weeks ago?
And I think the font was twice as big.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, this makes me sick.
It's a long list.
I'll run through it real quick for those of you joining us on the audio side.
Alec Thomas, of course, dealing with a hamstring, Heraldo Pridomo, a torn meniscus that he had surgery on.
That's a knee injury.
Jordan Lawler, of course, guy in the minors, but someone who might be playing right now,
potentially could be up in the majors right now, had it not been for a thumb injury that required
surgery. He's expected to be out for, you know, another month and a half, two months at
Eduardo Rodriguez, of course, with the lat injury that set back there, it could be, you know,
till June potentially. It sounds like Paul Sewell with the oblique injury, J. Jameson,
of course, coming back from Tommy John's surgery, he's not going to pitch this year.
Ryan Nelson with that elbow contusion, Merrill Kelly with his shoulder injury. Luis Frius was also
placed on the 15 day out. The debacks actually optioned Luis Frius. And then the next day, they
apparently you can you can change it.
So after you've optioned a player, you can decide to put them on the injured list instead.
And the debacks did that.
He had shoulder inflammation.
And then Jorge Barrosa, hamstring injury that's come on just in the last few days.
So he's on the minor league injured list is on the 40-man roster.
And then Blaze Alexander, not on the injured list as of right now, but was removed from that game yesterday.
So we'll wait to hear more on him.
But yeah, I mean, that's the full list, Eric.
That is 11 Diamondbacks players on the 40-man roster guys who could be contributing to this team right now who are who are currently
Currently currently I guess Blaise Alexander can maybe return tomorrow, but pretty much all these guys are currently unavailable
This is just an eyesore.
Jesse this is an absolute eyesore. I can't believe that this is where they're at and to be honest
I can't believe with all of these injuries that Diamondbacks have the record that they have to be honest
You can blame a lot of things I see somebody in the chat blaming the
strength and conditioning coach.
We want to fire a lot of people over
this. But sometimes freak
injuries happening like Ryan Nelson getting hit
with a comebacker. You can't blame that
on anybody else. It's really nobody's
fault. And in some cases, you
could say some of these injuries like Merrill Kelly
is perhaps a product
of the fact that these guys didn't have a proper offseason
that they actually, their pitch workload
was so much last year.
And then they come in to this spring
fairly quickly with very little rest.
But I mean, what more could the debacks have
Like they were as cautious with Zach Gallin and Merrill Kelly as you could possibly be right.
I'm not blaming them.
Right.
And I mean, there's so many other things that people are discussing in MLB as a whole, right?
Because the Diamondbacks are not the only team that are played with injuries.
It's the injury bug is going around all of Major League Baseball.
And it's becoming to, you know, it's to a point where people are trying to find something to blame the pitch clock right now being a big scapegoat when it comes to that.
But you can't, you can't blame the pitch clock for these other injuries that are on here.
Again, you can't blame the strength and conditioning coach for Perdomo hitting his knee with an opposing player as he rounds first base.
Some of this stuff is just really bad luck.
The Diamondbacks have had some extremely bad luck already this season.
And that's not just when it comes to injuries.
It comes to like some of the way the ball has just been bouncing on the field.
Luckily for them, they somehow figured out a way to split this series with the Giants.
We already went crazy.
I busted the beer bat out over the 17 to 1 victory on Friday night.
But the Diamondbacks found a way to win on Sunday.
Of course, they did lose on Thursday, 5 to nothing.
Logan Webb looked dominant.
Ryan Nelson left that game early with the elbow injury.
And Logan Allen did a great job of filling in nicely, right?
You can't really blame the bullpen for giving up the runs that they gave up,
considering the bats just managed just the three hits.
And two of them were right off the bat.
Like two of them were literally the first two batters of the game for the Diamondbacks
and then nothing until very, very late.
that Thursday game was pretty rough.
Yeah, and then they come back on Friday.
They turn Jordan Montgomery pitches out duels Blake Snell.
And then the debacks just decide to score 12 runs on the Giants bullpen for,
for, you know, I guess that was cool to watch.
It only got them one win, no matter how many runs they scored.
But still a pretty impressive outburst of offense in that Friday game.
And then Saturday, Zach Allen really struggled.
He actually, he had the worst start of any Diamondbacks,
of any Diamondback starter over the weekend, oddly enough.
And the bats went silent again, like you said, hilariously enough.
That's a Kyle Harrison a little bit.
But, yeah, once the Giants bullpen was in, it was five, five scoreless innings.
I think one hit, eight strikeouts.
Giants bullpen was super efficient.
And then yesterday's game was maybe the first game this year where you feel like the
D-backs maybe caught a break here and there.
There was the play in the eighth inning where Kevin Newman appeared to strikeout,
but the home plate umpire said it was a foul tip instead.
Appear to strike out.
And Bob Melvin was not super happy about that.
And Kevin Newman wound up doubling.
He did, yes.
He struck out.
He struck out.
Yeah, he absolutely.
But then it's funny because that's one of those moments that even though it goes your way,
if you're a Diamondbacks fan, and you're happy about it.
And you're making that face.
Tori was making in the dugout while that was going on.
And Bob Melvin was getting tossed from the game.
You cannot help.
It did seem like he was kind of making a face.
He was trying so hard not to grin while all of that was going on.
And I think maybe part of it is like, oh, good.
It's good for you guys.
Like it's good for the opposing team wants to fill it.
It had to be a bit relieving to Tori, considering everything that went into Sunday's games, Slate having the start and replacement of Merrill.
You know, just everything the way that the day went, the Diamondbacks end up, you know, catching a break.
And then having that break be such a substantial, I guess, such a substantial moment in the game.
Not only does Newman double, the Diamondbacks end up scoring, you know, multiple runs there to really pad their lead.
And they would absolutely need that lead.
And the Diamondbacks end up stealing, you know, that game there late.
And it felt like it felt good.
It felt like they needed it.
And of course, we do have the count.
Let's work the count here because this series, wild stuff here.
The thing that's really surprising to me is the 38 hits the Diamondbacks got to the 33 the Giants got.
Like for the one lopsided game being so lopsided, you would think that the Diamondbacks would have a substantial lead in a lot of categories here.
They end up scoring 25 runs to the Giant 16 runs.
They went 14 for 41 with runners in scoring position, which is just a crazy amount of opportunities with runners and scoring position.
I mean, they went 10 for 23 on Friday.
On Friday, yeah, 10 of those.
And they went four for 18 in the other three games to find.
So it's a little misleading.
He's never a little misleading in one game where you put up that much offense.
But, I mean, the starting pitching ERA for the Diamondbacks 3.79, like you said,
Zach Gallen was probably the biggest contributing factor there to that even being that high.
It would have been much lower.
Yeah, Zach Gallen had better out.
Relief pitching 3.60.
So, I mean, overall, not too bad here.
The Giants starting pitching ERA 3.92, relief pitching 7.63, obviously.
Again, big part of that was that one game in game two and what they were able to do against the bullpen.
I don't think the Diamondbacks have lost one of these graphics at the end of a series all year.
Like as far as the totals are concerned?
I think if you factor in the totals and you were to look at each one in a vacuum,
the Diamondbacks would be like objectively the better side over the course of the three or four games series in every series thus far.
Well, and that's the thing.
They're an 11 and 12 baseball team that has, I mean, how many teams have a better run differential than that right now?
I think five.
I think they have the sixth best run differential in baseball.
It is, and I know people have been pointing this out in the chat, like to have to have an injured, an injury report as long as the one that we just showed and to still be right in the mix.
Debacks aren't buried in the standings or anything.
Obviously, it's really early in the season to be talking about standings anyway, but they've managed to hang around.
And I think I think you have to feel pretty good about that if you're a fan of this team.
I did see the video today, by the way.
I think Braden in the chat brought up a fan, got Boone ejected today from Yankee's.
stadium. One of my favorite moments of this baseball season so far.
Yeah, that was, that was pretty funny. Absolutely hilarious. Again, Jesse pointed out to me how
the umpire at one point said to Aaron Boone, I don't care who said it in regards to the phrase
that got Aaron Boone, obviously tossed from the game. Now, that seems like an important
very important factor in him getting ejected from the game is who in fact did say the thing.
that got him ejected from the game.
Now, that was hilarious, but that wasn't really Aaron Boone's fault.
But maybe it was because he'd already gotten a warning, and we were one batter into the game.
So maybe just calm down a little bit right out of the gate, Booney.
But the opposite end of the spectrum is Bob Melvin getting angry about that call in this series
because, man, I was 100% with him there.
He was right.
And I love the fact that he waited until it really impacted the game negatively to be like,
fuck it, I'm getting tossed.
Like he knew it.
He was like, here, hold my hat and my keys.
I'm about to go out there and start a fight, right?
And that I appreciate because sometimes you just have to let an umpire know,
like your egregious call just cost us runs and possibly this game.
One call.
And in baseball, one bad call can do that.
Like, that's what we saw in the finale on Sunday.
If Kevin Newman doesn't hit that double, Bob Melvin doesn't get tossed from the game.
Absolutely.
He was upset about it.
I mean, he made his point before anything happened.
But there wasn't a point to get tossed until that call end up costing them
because Kevin Newman could strike out and then you go get tossed out for nothing.
And then right now.
Innings over.
Yeah, who cares about it at that point?
Debacks also, I mean, Kevin Ginkle in there in the ninth inning.
I think he might have picked up a favorable call or two.
The Giants fans and the Giants dugout certainly were not too happy.
Robot umpires.
You know what you can't do to a robot umpire is hurt its feelings, Jesse?
You can't get it mad at you and your whole team to the point where he's like,
I'm just going to make calls for these guys now.
You guys keep acting up like that.
Watch out these calls.
I'll go this way.
I don't think the robot would be able to decipher whether a hitter caught a piece in that situation.
Oh, so that's what the home play umpire would actually be there for.
I think the home play ball and strikes.
Could he not pay better attention to that kind of thing?
Because he's trying to look at a strike zone.
I mean, it's a tough, like I think it's a pretty tough call to make.
It is because it bounces up.
It changes trajectory.
based on bouncing off the ground.
And so you obviously missed it.
You didn't see it with your naked eye,
but it was enough in your peripheral vision
that you saw that the change in direction
was enough to make you think that he fouled it off.
But again, that was a bad call.
It was a fairly obvious ball, a bad call, though.
Gabby Moreno had a really good game yesterday.
I want to shout that out.
He had a couple of hits,
including a really big two-run single.
It turned a 2-1 deficit into a 3-2 lead.
It was a really big moment in the game.
And then also in the eighth, Ryan Thompson came in and walked the first battery face on four pitches.
And then Jung Huli inexplicably decided that he wanted to try to steal second base on Gavin Reno.
And it went about as you would expect it to.
And that changed.
I mean, that changed the complexion of the inning.
I think when that happened, Ryan Thompson hadn't thrown a pitch in the strike zone yet.
You're kind of wondering what his command is going to be like in the inning.
And then all of a sudden, you know, it's one out.
There's nobody on base.
and Thompson was able to settle in and get out of the inning on Skate at that point.
So Gabby Moreno had a really, really big impact on that game yesterday.
Nothing fires me up like that celebration there.
Nothing.
Gabby Moreno, every single time that Gabby Moreno catches an attempting base dealer,
he posts the highlight on Instagram.
Yeah.
And it's pretty, yeah.
And you have to, you have to respect that.
I mean, he's good at it, and he knows he's good at it,
and he takes pride in it.
And it is one of the coolest things to watch on a baseball field.
It is.
watch Gabby Marino, get out of the crouch and, you know, just nail the spot pretty much
every single time.
And if you're like me, that quote runs through your head when he does it.
What he's like?
Yeah, I understand the opposing team wants to score, but I can't let them.
What we got here?
I'm not going to allow it.
I'm not going to allow it.
I believe that's the exact hermit.
They want to win, but I'm not going to allow it.
We got in the super chat up here.
I don't think we've addressed the super chat yet.
Damon?
Super chat.
We got Altek Zizi.
What up, Alltech says I'll be there today, tomorrow, and Wednesday.
Shout out to you in St. Louis.
Hope you had a chance to go maybe see AEW Dynasty,
and my boy, Shane Strickland become AEW champion.
Congrats to my guy, Swerve.
Also, we have Elise in the chat, asked us if we could go take some sage,
go to the clubhouse and sage the clubhouse to get out these bad injury vibes next time we're there.
I can guarantee you Casey will not allow me to do that.
that. Teo Mackey, according to Michael, is reporting that Tommy Henry is in St. Louis. No surprise there.
No surprise there. So he's going to start on Tuesday, presumably, and Merrill Kelly is probably
going to go on the IL as the corresponding move. Although the debacks could, technically, I guess,
they could send out Logan Allen as well in order to, in order to make that move official.
The move probably won't be official until tomorrow because Tommy Henry is not going to pitch today.
So you're saying send Logan Allen back to that?
down. Yeah, I think it would either be sending
Logan Allen down or
more likely in my mind
putting Merrill Kelly on the injured list.
But we'll see.
Doesn't he have to be placed with the
15 day I'll be enough for him to
okay for him to be on the roster?
Okay. And then we have
I think Skeletor there was talking
about how you can see the ball get
tipped though. No, you can't.
I don't know about that.
I watched that place several times.
I mean those replays are always like it
It's a little bit hard to tell for sure, I would say, watching those replays.
But you can generally see the trajectory of the ball change in some fashion.
And I didn't see any evidence of that.
So like maybe it's possible that Kevin Newman got a piece.
But I just, it was a hard play to call in the moment.
And I understand the umpire missing it.
But I also understand Bob Melvin being furious about it because it might have cost them that game yesterday.
It was a pretty big, pretty big moment.
pretty big moment and we do thank you guys for your comments for being here in the chat
even if you're wrong skeletor is really you're wrong i just i disagree i mean i'll go back and check
it again i don't i don't i mean the donkey says it's a foul in my book it's a foul in melb's book technically
so as far as history is concerned in the book you're right it was it was a foul of a foul ball and that's
why kevin newman didn't go walking back to the dugout and instead wound up on second base
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Are we holding the line?
Yeah, we've never held anything.
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This Thursday?
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Hold on the one.
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Correct.
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He will be there?
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and if something did change there in regards to who's available at 4.
But of course, you can get way better analysis than this over at the PHNX Cardinals show.
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I think I'm not invited.
Damon told me specifically I was invited.
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All right.
Well, it's that time.
It's that time, Jesse.
And you know what that time is because every year on their...
show is our year every month on this show black women's history month every week on the show
obviously shark week but as you know every day on this show Passover of course right of course
of course it's Passover every day is also Earth Day even on Earth Day of course I'm still I'm
wearing my Captain Planet shirt I'm excited for this because we don't get to do the Earth Day bit
on Earth Day often but it doesn't matter no that doesn't matter because every day are all of those
days on this show. But on Mondays,
Mondays are special. On Mondays, we go
to the mailbag. Daman, let's go to the mailbag.
My mailbox.
I'm trying to get to everything in my mailbox.
And then what's in a while?
Let's go.
All right. First question, of course, is from, of course, the Iron Man
himself, Travis. More for me.
Travis asks, with all of the injuries to the rotation
and Monty's first start not coming until just a few days ago,
why have we not heard Blake Walston's name come up at all for getting an opportunity?
It always seemed like the organization covers him.
I think he means covets him, but I haven't seen his name come up at all.
Jesse, I actually have the same question.
I don't have an answer for Travis because I've kind of been wondering the same thing.
I felt like Blake Walston would be a name that we could potentially see this year.
And maybe we would even see in the case of an emergency like the Diamondbacks are currently going through.
but instead they go to Slade and Slade turns out to be a very good choice at least based on his performance on Sunday.
I mean, at the rate of injuries in the starting rotation that we currently have, I mean, Blake Walson's probably going to be in the majors.
He just so stretched out, Blake.
What, like a week or two?
Yeah.
Yeah, I think.
That's gross to say, by the way.
I think Blake Walston certainly does have a chance to contribute to the Diamondbacks at some point this year.
You know, entering the season, I think he was relatively.
you know, far down on the, on the starting pitching depth tart.
Slate Sacconi certainly ahead of him after getting a taste of the majors last year,
Bryce Jarvis as well, although we've seen Jarvis using more of a bullpen role.
You know, if the debacks, God forbid, needed to dip even further into their starting
rotation depth.
I think Christian Mena is, you know, off to a decent start.
But Blake Walston has a little bit more experience pitching at the AAA level.
Maybe the debacks would opt to go that direction instead.
But yeah, I mean, we talked a little bit about Walston.
and some of the challenges he's he's walked through throughout his pro career.
He's still only 22 years old.
So you still feel like there's some upside there.
But the velocity that Diamondbacks hoped he would eventually reach coming out of the draft has never really shown up.
And yeah, he had a decent year last year.
But he didn't really have all that many more strikeouts than walks.
And it's kind of been the same story this year out of the gate.
He has 16 strikeouts compared to 12 walks so far in 14 and 2 thirds inning.
So, yeah, I'm not going to say it's impossible that Blake Walson could pitch in the majors,
but D-BACs would need to – there would have to be even more injuries than what we've seen so far,
which you certainly hope that doesn't happen.
Christian Mena is a name.
I would not be surprised to see if he can maintain the current numbers, even though he's very young.
He's only 21 years old, but he's pitching in the PCL for the Reno Aces.
And currently has a 3.79 – or 3.32 ERA.
he's, you know, struck out 21 and he's walked 12.
He's just so far been pretty good.
I mean, he's allowed three home runs.
That's it in his four starts.
So I think that that's fairly impressive considering where he's pitching and considering that a lot of times we've kind of joked about how like if you're pitching for the Reno Aces and you have a five ERA that might as well be a sub two in the majors.
But there's a lot of promise there.
And I think when you see someone like Blake Walston continue to slide down.
as far as the prospect listing and not be a guy that the diamondbacks are looking at at a major league level as much anymore,
it just might be due to options and it might be due to other guys outperforming him and maybe his progress not coming along as much as the diamondbacks would like to see.
The numbers sometimes can look very good, but then when you see guys at a major league level not be able to do certain basic things, you're like, wow, what is going on here?
Well, that's the reason that most likely at times in their minor league career that they were being held back was,
They're good at X, Y, and Z, but there's still some aspects of the game that they're still very bad at.
And those areas might end up costing the Major League Club game should that person be in in high leverage situations.
Yeah, I think Walson at this point, as I said, being 22 years old, there are still ways for him to develop.
There are still things that the Diamondbacks want him to get better at.
Absolutely.
So I think AAA is really the best place for him at this point as he continues to try to mature and get better at those things.
running out of prospects to rely on in the future and they still have to plan towards their future
and who's going to be their future starting pitchers, right? Marcus in the chat is absolutely right.
Humberto Castiano's has been very good so far. Yeah, minor, minor, I guess, PCL pitcher of the week
this past week. Wow.
I think he only pitched once, but it was a good start. Five scoreless innings, I want to say. It's
pretty good stuff. I know we have some more questions in regards to what are the Diamondbacks going to do
with, you know, this relief pitching
and what are they going to do in regards to trades and free agency?
So let's, or not for agency, but picking up some other guys here.
Free agency, that's over.
But let's see what else we got here.
I think this question comes from Kevin.
Kevin?
And Kevin asks, when can we see the debacks trade for a reliever or relievers?
Unfortunately, I don't think that that's going to come until later in the towards the trade deadline, right?
So that's not going to happen until the end of July, most likely.
And as much as we know that the Diamondbacks have already, the front office has already made it known that they intend on adding at the trade deadline.
They have to get there first.
They have to have a successful season up until July in order for them to warrant trading for those relievers at the trade deadline.
So that's an important factor.
Right now I think that relief in the bullpen is going to come from their minor league system.
And hopefully when they start getting their starters back, maybe it can come from guys like Ryan Nelson or other guys that might have been.
kind of checked off or used here as starters,
but can possibly be a weapon out of the bullpen.
That was a benefit of all the starting pitching depth that they had coming into the season.
We were like, oh, if you've got, you know, Gallen, Kelly, Erod, Montgomery, and fought,
then that allows you to put Ryan Nelson, you know, in a bullpen role, potentially,
or Bryce Jarvis, which we have seen him in a bullpen role.
Yeah, those guys haven't really been able to be used in those situations outside of Jarvis
because the debacks have needed every bit of starting pitching depth that they have.
so far. But yeah, I mean, I look at the Aralda's Chapman trade. I think that was, I want to say that was
the earliest reliever that we saw dealt last year. And that trade happened on June 30th. So I think that is
as early as I could really possibly imagine the Diamondbacks being able to land a reliever. But as you said,
more likely to be, you know, pretty much right up against the deadline. The devax, I think,
completed the Paul Seawald trade on August 1st last year. That's how these how these things tend
to go. And also the other challenges, which we had this issue last year, there's just not a whole
lot of teams that sell when you have playoffs expanded as much as we do.
It's a great point. And so that's going to be another thing is, you know, we figure the Rockies
and the Marlins and the White Sox are going to be sellers. But do you want any of their relievers?
Like, you know, maybe there's a couple guys, but.
Start taking a look at those rosters now, folks.
Yeah, not a whole lot necessarily to choose from. So that's another byproduct of the
expanded playoffs is it takes teams a long time.
There's more incentive to wait till the very last minute to decide if you're going to be
a buyer or seller because you might be able to, you know, go on a little run and kind of
put yourself in the mix a few days before the deadline and then maybe you want to be aggressive
and kind of go for it in that situation.
So you're going to have to, teabacks are going to be on their own, I think, as far as the
bullpen is concerned here for at least about two more months.
They have some quality pieces and this is a Bryce Jarvis appreciation post, but in,
going back to last season in 38 and one-third innings pitch, Bryce Jarvis has allowed four home runs and has a 3.05 ERA.
He has a 3.04 ERA last season, 3.07 ERA this year allowed one home run this season in 14 and 2 thirds innings pitch.
That man has consistently, you know exactly what you're getting out of him.
He has been consistent.
He might not be the best member of the bullpen, but like he's been able to give this team length and he has been just really a bright spot in the bullpen.
when you don't really know who you can rely on consistently, right?
And that's the key phrase here for a lot of the Diamondbacks woes has been not,
it hasn't been what their potential is.
It's what they can do consistently.
And that includes a lot of arms in the bullpen, as we've discussed before.
But moving on to the next question.
Our next question comes from Diamondback 1325, Frank the Tank.
And he asks a similar question.
He wants to know, what are the chances of Diamondbacks make some moves or early trades to shore up the squad?
seems like bullpen are always needed, hoping for good health and bouncebacks from everyone soon.
We are as well.
Thank you, Frank, for your message.
And yeah, again, this is the same thing.
It's like right now I think the Diamondbacks might look to, again, their minor league system and maybe some available options, not Trevor Bauer, available other options.
But like Colton Wong was a pickup for this team for this exact reason because they didn't really like some of their options there when it came to infield depth.
Then they decided that maybe Colton Wong might end up being a,
piece that the team can call up here shortly and add to their infield should they need that.
Yeah, they, they're, I mean, the diamond backs had a good amount of starting pitching depth coming
into the season. And honestly, I think the debacks are pretty well prepared for the situation
that they're in. I mean, as well prepared as you reasonably could have been. Yeah. Not, you're not saying
they're in a great spot without, you know, Erod and Merrill Kelly and, you know, Ryan Nelson for however long.
but you know you can you can do okay with Zach Allen Jordan Montgomery Brandon Fod
and then I guess Tommy Henry and Slate Cicone that's sort of how things line up right now
oh my God you can you can stay aflo with that group and it's actually pretty impressive
to be down three starting pitchers and have a group it's like all right it's not I mean it's
not great but I think there's enough talent in this rotation still it's for the diamondbacks
to stay afloat while these guys are out and that's you know that's really the goal here is just
find a way to make it to not get buried in the standings for, you know, however long until
until some of these guys, until some of these guys get back.
The lucky part here is that the Diamondbacks have had to call on a lot of these guys over the
last two seasons, right? Slade has experience starting. Bryce has been a big part of this team.
Like I said, you know, you have Ryan and you have Tommy who have been asked to compete for a
starting spot and now both will probably be asked at times to be in the rotation at the same time,
Right. So like there's there's a lot of things here like you said that the diamondbacks were set up for
for success. The thing that we cannot underestimate here though is how important signing Jordan Montgomery was.
Yes. So sure. The impact that he could have in helping the diamondbacks stay afloat during this time,
it might not be able to be measured. It's essentially now someone that could, I know he's not going to literally slot into the number two spot,
but essentially becomes the number two pitcher behind like gallon.
And like you said,
that's not that bad of a rotation overall.
A lot of baseball teams would be happy with that starting rotation.
So it's at least something decent.
And if they can stay around 500,
maybe a game or two above or below,
and then start getting these pieces back
from that massive list we showed you earlier,
things can start turning around.
I think the big thing is that each time a guy comes back,
you know, kind of like the call-ups when these young guys like Blaze and Corbyn and everybody kind of that's been called up at times recently over the last, you know, 12 months has added that spark to the lineup.
I feel like you're going to get that when these guys are coming back.
And even though that they might not be back very soon, it's going to be a staggered, you know, a staggered essentially release of guys returning to the lineup.
And hopefully those sparks will be able to keep the team, you know, afloat and give them, you know, a nice little push when each guy returns.
Yeah, I mean, you just have to hope, right, that the current trend doesn't continue where every time you get someone back, you know, you've got two players that go on the IL the same weekend.
It's not exactly a coming out on top if that's how things go.
So, but yeah, they were, I think, as well prepared as I said earlier as you could reasonably be for this.
And imagining this rotation to your point without Jordan Montgomery, if it was Gallen fought Henry Sacconi, Logan Allen.
Stop it.
That would be that that group looks a whole lot different
than Gallin Montgomery fought Henry Sikoni.
And, you know, hopefully those guys were able to stay healthy.
And again, Ryan Nelson might not be gone for too long.
Meryl Kelly might not even be gone for too long.
So it's a great point.
Maybe this is only something they have to deal with for a couple of weeks.
And we do know that Erod is supposed to come off the, what is it, the 60-day IL as of the end of the month of May.
So hopefully.
Well, he's eligible to come off.
But we don't know if he will come off.
Probably won't come off when he's immediately eligible.
But could come off maybe not too far after that.
But then still has to get ramped up after that point.
So most likely we won't see him until possibly July, right?
Tori, yeah, Tori said June.
He was asked about if June is like a reasonable time frame for Errod and he said yes.
So, but, you know, these situations were fluid.
You know, a couple weeks ago, we thought Erod would be back by now, potentially.
So things, yeah, things change.
All right.
What else we got?
Next question comes from PHX Hoops.
And they ask, please provide a rundown on the injury front with estimated timelines for return.
That's the part there is the estimated timelines for return.
I don't think we really went over that.
Not in super detail.
Yeah.
What do you got?
Can we pull up the injury, the very long injury report?
I don't want to look at it again.
Okay.
See, I'll just kind of go rapid fire here, although we don't know that much information about some of these guys.
Alec Thomas, I'm not sure, but I'm supposed to be running bases this week and making left turns.
Yeah, so theoretically with Alec Thomas, you might only be looking at another couple of weeks maybe.
Sort of, you know, don't have super specifics on that yet.
Haraldo Pardomo was originally said to be around four to six weeks.
So I guess you're around one week, a little over a week into that.
So you're still
probably about a month away
from Geraldo Prado-Prodomo
getting back roughly.
Jordan Lawler, I think, is going to be,
as I said earlier,
a month and a half to two months.
I think the original timeline there was
eight to ten weeks.
And that happened kind of right,
pretty close to when the season started.
Eduardo Rodriguez,
we were just talking about June
is sort of the rough estimate right now.
We'll see how that goes.
Paul Seawald is getting pretty close.
Paul Seawald.
Give me dad,
back.
I need dad back.
Seawald has thrown a bullpen and has faced live hitters as well.
I believe he just did that the other day.
I don't think the Diamondbacks have sent him out on a rehab assignment yet, but I think
they could be pretty close to doing that.
And, you know, they're going to want him to get more than just one rep in the minor.
So probably going to want to pitch in a few games.
So you still might be, you know, a couple of weeks away from Seawald being back.
But that one is probably closer and more definitive than any of the other ones on this list.
Drey Jamison, of course, Tommy John's surgery.
He's not going to pitch this year.
Ryan Nelson, just an elbow contusion.
He was placed on the 15-day IL, but based on contusions,
generally that doesn't take too, too long to come back from.
I think it's reasonable that he could be back as soon as when he's eligible to return.
So that minimum 15-day mark, in which case he would only miss two starts.
Merrill Kelly, we don't know a ton about his situation yet, as we said earlier.
We should know hopefully more here in the next day or two.
Luis Frius, he was, as I said earlier, the debacks optioned him and then shifted him over to the 15AIL with shoulder inflammation.
Don't really have concrete updates there as of yet.
And then Jorge Burroughs is a hamstring.
I was able to find that out the other day, but we don't know exactly what that timeline looks like.
And then Blaze Alexander, who is with the debacks still in St. Louis, he told Teo Mackey a few minutes
ago that he is still experiencing some discomfort, but that he is available off the bench today.
And there's no structural damage of any kind there.
Encouraging there a little bit.
Yeah, he seems like just sort of a day-to-day situation.
All right.
What did Craig Morgan say in the chat?
What is Craig doing here?
Craig Morgan has a question for Mailbag Monday.
He says, I have a question.
How does it feel to have a beat to cover?
Oh, my God, Craig.
Craig.
He's so sad.
You monster.
Why do I feel tremendous amounts of guilt, right?
Like, what did I do to deserve this guilt to be heaped upon me?
Feels pretty good, actually.
I won't lie.
I mean, it doesn't feel bad.
It doesn't feel bad.
Though, I mean, with all the injuries, the Diamondbacks are kind of half not here is what it feels like.
But at least we're not talking about.
We have three quarters of a beat.
We have three quarters of a beat.
The other quarter is on the injured list.
So see that's that's that's that's why I do this show with this man.
All right.
What else we got?
Let's do one more.
And then I got reads some ads.
Saul and Alasko asked at this point,
I'm worried about Corbyn.
Are you?
I think it's fair to be worried about Corbyn.
I do think it's fair to be worried about Corbyn,
especially if you track his production back to that Godforsaken shoulder situation last season
and just how his production has kind of been down since then.
This year,
things aren't great and definitely I think one thing I'll say is that it appears that pitchers know how to pitch to him now and know what his weaknesses are.
Yeah, I've done some digging on what's gone wrong with Corbyn Carroll and it's been hard for me to really find anything super definitive.
I'm not, you know, I'm not a hitting coach.
Like I can't really break down the finer points of Corbyn Carroll's swing in a competent way.
So I'm not going to try.
But, you know, I can play around on baseball savon.
There you go.
That's up my alley.
And, you know, the narrative, I think you've heard people say,
you've heard Stephen Bob talk about this on the broadcasts of teams pitching Corbyn Carol
Hyanin and him having a hard time laying off those pitches.
Right.
And there is some truth to that.
I looked at, you know, pitches that are kind of in that high and in quadrant of the zone
and also out of the zone.
And he's seen about 1% more pitches in that area than he did last.
year. Last year, I want to say it was about 17% of the pitches he'd seen were in that zone this
year. It's a little over 18%. It's not really an alarming difference. And his results in that zone
have been, you know, what you've, what you've witnessed on a day-to-day basis. Corbyn Carroll does not
yet have a base hit on a pitch in that area. But he also was not particularly great in that area
last year. Corbin, that was a weakness, a clear weakness of his last year, getting to pitches high
and high and tight.
You compare his numbers with like the league averages and that in that area of the zone and
out of the zone.
And yeah, definitely a weakness for Corvin.
This year has been even more so.
But it's not just that.
You know, he's not doing as much damage and other quadrants of his own as well.
So I don't think we can totally simplify it down to just that.
But yeah, I'm with you where I'm still not, I'm still not super concerned about Corbyn Carroll.
I've learned in my limited time doing this
that betting against very, very, very talented pro athletes
just doesn't generally end well.
Like, you know, they tend,
their talent generally wins out in the end.
But yeah, it's been a slow start.
And it's not just that he's had a couple of bad weeks.
You know, you mentioned the time frame going back to the middle of June of last year,
where he's been just a little bit above league average as a hitter.
His OPS in that time frame is around seven.
50 pretty different from the player we saw in the first couple of months last year.
I think that there's a way to integrate these two things together, and that is that maybe his slump is connected to what's going on with the coyotes.
Maybe it's the fact that he's not taking his boys trips with Gabby and Jerry P to coyotes games at Mollett anymore.
Maybe he's just, maybe he's just sad.
Maybe he's just not in the right head space, right?
Thinking about all of his boys over there at the coyotes.
I mean, it's hard for me to do this show thinking about Craig Moore.
But then he has to show up and make me feel even worse.
He has to keep that guilt on me in the chat.
He really enjoyed that.
He really did.
He was over here, just giggling and...
Off to the side, smirking.
He typed that to us.
I will tell you that, of course, go see some baseball games.
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You know, if you're in those obstructed view seats, you know, if you got yourself a nice view,
you can even sometimes see, like, how a concert stage is laid out because they're doing these, you know, walkway stages where they have a main stage over here and another stage over here.
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And of course, another thing that might fix Corbyn, boys trip to illegal Pete's with Damon.
I mean, that's where Damon and Jerry Pee.
I think that's the answer, Derek.
It's the reverse nachos.
He needs some piping hot queso, and what he needs is just a little boy's time out on the patio
because it's patio season.
Patio season felt like it came and went really fast, didn't it?
Like we were at 80 degrees, and then we were at 97 this weekend, and I don't like it.
I didn't get enough patio time.
100 at Sky Harbor.
Oh, that's gross.
That's gross.
But a great way to cool off is with illegal peat's margaritas, which are the strongest in Arizona.
And, of course, all of their irresistible drinks and mouthwatering food, they do have a full bar with custom cocktails.
So do not sleep on the time you can have it.
Illegal Pete's, especially quenching your thirst in this heat.
Illegal Pete's is here to bring you a win with their legendary sound check deal.
Right now, bringing your ticket stub from any ticketed event and get a draft beer or a house margarito for just one penny.
A legal Pete's wants to celebrate with you, whether it's pregame or post game.
They got you covered with all of your game day needs.
Must purchase an adult entree to redeem Illegal Pete's sound check deal.
A legal Pete your go-to spot for burritos, buddies, beer, Damon, and Jerry Pee.
I mean, Corby.
The whole crew.
I will say, you know, I know Corby makes a lot more money than me.
But this is I'm big enough to put it out there.
This is a standing offer for I will buy Corbyn Carroll illegal peeds.
We will split a meal.
And I'm big enough to put that out there.
This is the perks that athletes get that they shouldn't really get.
No, he shouldn't at all.
He should be treating me.
Because Damon's paying for his meal.
He should be treating me.
Yeah, that's really the Gary P.
Should be treating you.
We know that for a thing.
Well, I've been carrying his.
You've been carrying the torch the whole time.
Yeah.
The whole time.
I mean the whole time.
But we got some more mailbag Monday questions, and we are just going long.
Who cares?
We're going, we're going forever.
Who cares?
What else we got?
Oh, that traitor cogs is here with a question.
King Snake Cog.
That traitor Codd?
That traitor Cod.
It feels unnecessary.
Oh, with his own baseball show on at the same time as ours.
He doesn't even get to hear this question.
I don't even know why I asked it.
But Cogs still asks on a scale from one to 100, how confident are you in our starting pitching depths?
Ooh.
Now?
Now?
Now?
not confident at all.
Like our, we've, I feel like we've almost reached the bottom of the barrel as far as pitching depth.
If you're talking about the guys we've called upon, I am very confident in what Slade and Tommy Henry can do.
I'm confident in Bryce Jarvis continuing his role as a long reliever for this team.
But I don't feel confident about our starting pitching depth now as of right now because I think we're, we're out of pitchers.
I feel like we're out of arms at this point.
It is a concerning combination when you have some younger, less experienced pitchers in the rotation.
And you also have a bullpen that is not totally stable, right?
Because, you know, if you have guys like Tommy Henry or Slate Cicconi pitched plenty deep into the game yesterday.
But if, you know, Henry or Cicconi or Fought has had his struggles, although he still managed to pitch pretty deep into games,
you just don't want to have a bullpen that is overtax while it also is missing a very key component in Paul CWald.
We've seen how that has gone in some of these games.
So, but yeah, again, like the debacks came into the year with what I felt were, you know, about
eight or nine, pretty, pretty competent starting pitchers, guys that, you know, not necessarily
guarantees that you're going to get great results, but guys that I think deserve opportunities to
pitch, you know, to start games in the majors.
And they're pretty much at the end of that at this point with Jarvis being in the bullpen.
and then as we said, Tommy Henry and Slate Soconi now slotting into the rotation for the time being.
They're at the end of what I think is like the reliable starting pitching depth that you have.
Not to say that Christian Mena or Blake Walston or Humberto Castiano couldn't come up and do some good things.
But those guys aren't really assured.
None of those guys pitched in the majors last year, you know, outside of Castellanos,
those other two guys haven't ever pitched in the majors.
So, yeah, their starting pitching depth has definitely been tested.
I guess if I have to put a number on it, I don't know.
38.
You're at a 38?
If you're talking about now, right now, who the other guys are.
But if you're asking me about how the Diamondbacks were set up to come into the season
to deal with all of these injuries, I'd have to put them in the 80s.
Like, they absolutely were structured in a way that allowed them that even though there was
this, you know, positional or this starting rotation battle between these two young guys.
It kept them ready. It kept them available, kept them stretched out. And it kept them performing
through spring training to the point where when they were called upon due to reasons,
they were both still ready. Now, they obviously didn't have the greatest outing. And Tommy Henry
has had his struggles. Brian Nelson performed a little bit better there. But still, it's the fact
that these guys were able to come out and give them four innings, even five innings at a time,
was still fairly good compared to the fact of where the position the Diamondbacks could have been on,
been in losing the arms that they lost.
So, I mean, now they're just, now this is it.
You have depth for this reason, but unfortunately, the Diamondbacks can't sustain too much more without it truly impacting them.
But, Huberto?
Womberto gives me hope.
Humberto Castiano's, I like him a lot, and I've always liked him a lot.
We once led the league in Humberto's.
So I think that maybe should he be called upon to have another.
chance. I think he could be a wonderful story for this
organization. All right, what else we got?
Skeletor the Great has a question.
Skeletor the Great asks, do you think the
debacks would benefit from a consistent lineup
instead of a match of hodgepodge seemingly
every day? I feel like
a lot of managers in baseball
do the match of hodgepodge
thing. So I don't know if necessarily
they would benefit from a consistent lineup.
It's hard to ask that though because of course
it feels like any bad or any
position player or
pitcher in baseball, it doesn't matter who it is, loves consistency.
That's a big part of their game.
They like their routine and they like being set in their routine.
So I think there is a benefit to that.
But I don't know if the benefit is worth the cost of now you batting guys that don't match up well with the opposing pitcher, especially when it comes to the starter.
I actually think the Diamondbacks lineup has been pretty consistent, right?
More than it has in the past.
Coutel Marte is your lead off guy against both lefties and righties at this point.
Corbyn Carroll's hit second.
Scurrayal is at third.
Christian Walker is at fourth.
And then after that, you got Jock Peterson, generally in the five spot with the righty on the
mound.
And then Randall Gritchick is in there.
I think maybe they slide up a E.
Oh, Hennio-Swarres with a lefty on the mound.
And the bottom of the lineup has maybe seen a little bit more turnover, but that's a
result of, you know, a lot of these guys getting hurt and Geraldo Prudoma being out,
Alec Thomas being out, you know, they've cycled through some different players there.
But I actually think the lineup has been pretty consistent.
And I think you absolutely have to play the matchups.
I mean, Jock Peterson, the numbers are very clear that Jock Peterson is a very, very good hitter against Ritey's.
And although this year against Lefties, he's like two for three with a double in a Homer or something like that.
Because he hasn't had many opportunities, but he's done well in those situations.
The sample is very small.
And there's a long sample of Jock being great against Ritees and not so great against lefties.
There's a long sample of Randall Grishick being very good against lefties and not so great against Ritees.
And I think the deboxer are totally right to continue to leverage those splits and try to put the best lineup that they can on an everyday basis.
Yep, I agree.
All right, what else we got?
Next question comes from Michael Rokickey.
Michael asks, do you think, nope, that's, he sent a goddamn pie chart?
What the hell?
Michael says for Jesse, I've told you guys.
I don't like being left out of things.
So that's a good way to get your question deleted immediately.
He said for Jesse, I made a pie chart for my concerns related to the 2024 Diamondbacks, and I need your take on it.
All right.
So for those of you, they can't see that.
The red area is injuries.
The green area is bullpen.
Blue area is just Corbin Carroll.
Okay.
We got, what is that?
You mean to read these two?
Yeah, if you could.
60% injuries.
30% bullpen.
30% bullpen.
4% in-game Corby and Carol.
Oh, no, sorry.
That's just written a little weird.
4% Corby Carroll.
4% in-game Corby Carol.
2% out of game, Corbyn Carroll.
They're concerned of his off-field activities.
Game management.
Yeah.
No, get your guys' jokes in.
No, we will.
It's written very confusingly.
It came right above Corbyn Carroll.
It's a terrible.
He sent a pie chart.
I mean, you should be ashamed just for that.
What is?
It's the sign of a pie chart.
That's a good point.
It is a donut.
A donut chart.
But, yeah, Jesse, what are your thoughts here?
Is this a fairly accurate assessment of the Diamondbacks right now?
and your concerns for them?
Yeah.
Is Corbyn Carroll,
4% of your concerns
about the Diamondbacks right now?
I mean,
injuries would definitely be the majority for me,
so I think 60% is pretty reasonable there.
Bullpen is something we've talked about,
we talked about in the off season
and certainly in the early going here
is that's been a bit of a non-ideal part
of this Diamondbacks team.
So, yeah, I mean, I think it's all pretty reasonable.
In-game management,
I don't really have much concern there to speak of,
not to say that Toro Lavello is perfect.
That's Tori playing Jase Peterson is what it is.
It's 6% Tori playing Jays Peterson.
Yeah, but I mean that that has ended at this point.
And it ended because Mike Hazen made a decision,
not because Troy Lavello made a decision.
And that's how it was always going to go.
As a manager, you cannot just have guys on your roster
that you just decide you're not going to play.
It's just not good from a clubhouse standpoint.
It's not good from your relationship with your GM who put that player on your team for a reason standpoint.
Obviously not a good standpoint from the player, right?
Like, I mean, the player is not going to respond positively when you do call on them if you don't call on them at all, right?
Like, that's just the way it is.
Not to mention the fact that baseball is always about getting guys going.
It's always about that.
And when guys struggle, it seems crazy that the manager is letting them going.
but when they're going and he wants to like let's say give kattel marty a day off we all you know scream
for his job because we're like no you doing the man's on a 12 game hitting street you want to sit him right so
it's like it goes both ways when you manage a team and a big part of it as we saw last year and as we've
seen the entire time tori lovel has been a manager of this team is that he has an end goal in mind
which is getting to the postseason and making sure your team is ready not only you know not only
ready as far as their abilities and ready to take on that challenge but
but ready physically due to injuries and ready for the team to be, you know,
rested as much as possible over 162 game marathon of a season.
So, you know, I think it worked out for Tori last year.
It worked out for him in his first year as manager of this team.
So I understand him sticking to it.
But at times it is going to be, it's going to be something that people aren't going to like
because he does have to play his roster and the pieces that he has.
All right.
What else we got?
Damon.
Next question comes from known troublemaker Elizabeth.
and Elizabeth at the burritosaur has taken over Don's Bread's position as a wacky question asker,
and I am here for it.
She says, if the chat regulars were on Survivor, who would win and who would be the villain?
I'm going to take this a step further here because I'm going to just start labeling people as different,
like, I guess, stereotype people from the show Survivor, right?
So, yeah.
Cogs and Karen would absolutely be on the island together, but no one would know that they were mother and son because that would make them a target, right?
Remind me the, remind me the general idea.
So the general idea of Survivor is that I think 15 people get put on this island.
They get divided into tribes, sometimes two tribes, sometimes three tribes.
And then they have to essentially play like challenges against each other for basic needs, like a flint to make a fire back at your camp and a tarp if it's raining for you to have cover.
But they also play for immunity.
And immunity keeps your team, your tribe, if you will, from being part of a tribal council where you vote someone off, right?
Sure.
So what happens in these reality shows is there's always someone like a villain.
And that villain obviously would be Don's bread.
It'd be Mark.
100%.
Because there was no question.
There's no question at all.
I was thinking Mark without.
Right out of the gate, right?
Because Mark is that guy that like he would give like a different, you know, like when they went and did the diary session thing and they talked to him personally.
he'd just be over there like talking shit about all the other people and just plotting out his plan telling us on TV what he was doing.
I thought you were going to say Coggs is the villain.
Coggs could absolutely be a villain.
But Coggs is going to be the young guy that grows up in the 40 days on the island and he's going to almost make it to the end and then get voted out right before the end.
Coggs is going to mature and literally change as a person.
He's going to go from like a like, you know, he's going to turn into a butterfly while he's there and then promptly get voted out once he's reached.
his full potential. I want to say that Elizabeth would be a big time backstabber. Now, I just say that
because I've known her for a long time. And I think her and Elise would immediately team up.
But they'd be smart enough to, like, not be a faction together. They wouldn't hang out together.
They'd go have secret meetings in the woods about the other people. And they'd fill each other in.
But they'd maybe even be on different tribes. So then that way that they could like play those tribes
against each other, getting to their ultimate goal
where it's the two of them left standing, right?
Yeah, right, right.
Jesse knows all about reality shows.
So, of course, he's an expert on this.
I think the Daniel, Daniel Kasten wouldn't make it through the first day.
He would be so angry about the food situation that he would maybe take himself out of the game.
I don't know.
I feel like that definitely would be something.
Connor, Conor, Mormon, who just came in, said Cogsville tried, go and trying to be the villain.
But he can't do it, right?
He doesn't have it inside of him.
Coggs is just too wholesome of a guy.
Two nice of a guy.
Right.
See, again, Connor is the kind of guy.
Like, I'm taking Elise as my winner of this survivor situation, but I think she's going to use
Connor.
Like, I think she would bring Connor into the fold, make Connor think she's really with him
when in actuality she's with Elizabeth and they're just plotting against him the whole time.
Yeah, I mean, Elise is that she's a known baseball GM.
So she's got to, negotiation tactics.
She's got all this stuff.
She has the knowledge. She had the blueprint. She has everything figured out.
She's finding all of the hidden immunities.
She's going to hide them all back at camp. And it's going to be pretty incredible.
She says it would be the dream team until you turned on them, Elise.
And we know you would because someone has to win the money.
And it would most likely be you.
So I'm sure there's other positions I'm leaving out of this.
But I definitely think I think there's some people that would be front runners like right away.
Like if people hear from the office like Beau and Saul, like they would just be too competitive out of the gates.
So they'd get voted out right away.
Like right away.
Yeah, they wouldn't.
They would be seen as threats, labeled as threats.
They'd get to hold all the tribes against them, and they'd just be voted out.
But I mean, I could go on for half an hour with this, but I know Jesse knows nothing about the show Survivor.
So we'll just move on.
What else we got?
We got one from Jacob Schult.
And Jacob, did we get this one?
Oh, yeah.
He says, is it just me or do Logan, Allen, Slade, and Jordan all look like brothers who go hunting in the backwoods of South Carolina for a turkey on Thanksgiving Day?
The answer is yes.
Jacob, you nailed it.
That is absolutely what those three guys look like.
And I mean, just having the best time, too.
Like, those three guys would go have the best time as brothers hunting down a turkey.
And it would make you wish you had a closer relationship with your own family members.
That's exactly the kind of time those guys would have.
I feel, I mean, Jordan Montgomery and Slate Cicconi are both very, very tall individuals.
Correct.
Jordan Montgomery is listed at 6-6.
Slate Cicone is.
is listed at 6-4.
Logan Allen's listed at 6-3, but I don't know about that.
That seems, you know.
I think, I think, you know, the slate looks like a, like a small, like, you know, like the
Pokemon, the different levels of Pokemon, like a more basic version of Jordan Montgomery.
Like he's going to evolve into his final form and look like Jordan Montgomery once his beard fills
out, but that's like part of it.
But anyway, we do appreciate you guys being here.
Of course.
and also we do appreciate our friends over at OG's brands that helped make my 420 much more enjoyable.
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That's all I got.
Jesse Friedman.
You got anything else?
It's all I got.
You got to stay off the aisle.
We need you.
All right?
Yeah.
Stay healthy.
We're going to wrap him and bubble wrap.
Yeah, bubble wrap me, bubble wrap everyone in the Diamondbacks Clubhouse.
Jesse Jr.
We got to make sure he stays healthy.
Hope your elbow heals up as well.
I can't guarantee that's going to happen.
Like when I get an injury at this age, that's it.
It's just that body part is no longer functional.
It doesn't work.
Yeah, so, but anyway, we do appreciate you guys stopping by.
You can follow us on Twitter.
I am at cap underscore Capeman with a K.
Jesse is at Jesse N. Friedman.
Of course, the people's producer, Damon is at Damon Dog.
That's D-A-W-G.
We are Damon's dogs.
Bark-bar.
There's our guy.
He helped us out when we had our technical issues.
So we're just going to call him.
He's a wannabe, Damon doc.
Oh.
That's not quite bad.
As much as allegiance to the line, and therefore I won't be accepting any Espo slander.
I'm still trying to understand what that means.
I think I get it.
I think I get like 80% of it.
We'll talk after the show.
What's confusing about it?
Is there like a movement to not do that?
There's a movement to trade down.
Johnny Venerable.
Get a big old, like all these trade picks or draft picks and stuff in return and give up that.
Johnny Venerable and Bo Brock have every day for the last like month and a half made the show about how the Cardinals are going to trade down.
So you could say, yeah, there's a little bit of a movement to trade down.
Okay.
I mean, trading down in the NFL is like a huge thing, you know, especially if you want to get, come.
get a quarterback. So the dilemma there is either pick Marvin Harrison
Jr. or get three first round picks for that one. I'm going to end this right now. We're done
with this. You can go listen to the P.J.N. X. Cardinals show if you want more of this shit.
If Johnny Venerable and Bo Brock are for it, I'm against it.
That's all. That's just a general. We are. We are Damon's dogs.
They are the bad guys. They are the bad guys and I'm the good guy. And I go every day on
the Fugn X Cardinal show at 4.30 p.m. All I do is just put my cape on and
ride for this community.
Damon. David. David, David,
David loves to label who is good guys and bad guys around this office.
Oh, 100%.
And luckily, we fall into the good guy category.
Yeah, Derek, you are a good guy.
I know.
Max Simpson.
Yeah, well, we know that for a fact.
But anyway, we can follow the show filled with good guys at PHNX underscore Dbacks.
But of course, all roads do lead to at PHNX underscore sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
Thank you guys so much for your time.
Appreciate you stopping by.
We will see you tomorrow with a postgame show.
Go Diamondbacks tonight out there in St.
Lewis and in the meantime have yourselves a wonderful night. Remember kids baseball is fun but it's
so much more fun when you keep yourselves off the 15 day IL be careful out there.
