PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Mike Hazen Is NOT Happy About The Diamondbacks Missing The Playoffs

Episode Date: October 1, 2024

With the Diamondbacks missing out on the playoffs on Monday, general manager Mike Hazen and manager Torey Lovullo sat down with media for an extended exit interview session on Tuesday. Topics ranged from majority owner Ken Kendrick’s recent comments on signing Jordan Montgomery, the team’s handling of injuries, an early look at needs for the offseason, the possibility of Christian Walker returning in free agency and more. Join Derek, Jesse and Damon on the PHNX D-backs Show! An ALLCITY Network Production SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtube ALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports MERCH https://store.allcitynetwork.com/collections/phnx-locker ALLCITY Network, Inc. aka PHNX and PHNX Sports is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by the City of Phoenix PHNX Events: Get your tickets to PHNX events and takeovers here: https://gophnx.com/events/ bet365: https://www.bet365.com/olp/open-account?affiliate=365_03330244 Use the code PHNX365 to sign up, deposit $10 and choose your offer! Disclaimer: Must be 21+ and physically located in AZ. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem and wants help, call 1-800-NEXT-STEP, text NEXTSTEP to 53342 or visit https://problemgambling.az.gov/ Bluechew: Try BlueChew FREE when you use our promo code ALLCITY at checkout--just pay $5 shipping. That’s https://bluechew.com promo code ALLCITY to receive your first month FREE. Visit for more details and important safety information, and we thank BlueChew for sponsoring the podcast.. Zbiotics: Go to https://zbiotics.com/phnxdbacks to get 15% off your first order when you use PHNXDBACKS at checkout. Pre-Alcohol is backed with 100% money back guarantee so if you’re unsatisfied for any reason, they’ll refund your money, no questions asked. Empire Today: Schedule a free in-home estimate today! All listeners can receive a $350 OFF discount when they use the promo code PHNX. Restrictions apply. See https://empiretoday.com/phnx for details. Branded Bills: Use code PHNX at https://www.brandedbills.com/ for 20% off your first order! Mint Mobile: To get your new 3-month unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month, go to https://mintmobile.com/diamondbacks. $45 upfront payment required (equivalent to $15/mo.). New customers on first 3 month plan only. Speeds slower above 40GB on Unlimited plan. Additional taxes, fees, & restrictions apply. See MINT MOBILE for details. Gametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. 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! Shady Rays: Exclusively for our listeners, Shady Rays is giving out their best deal of the season. Head to https://shadyrays.com and use code: PHNX for 35% off polarized sunglasses. Try for yourself the shades rated 5 stars by over 300,000 people. Check out FOCO merch and collectibles and use promo code “PHNX10” for 10% off your order on all non Pre Order items. Rugged Road: Gear up for your next adventure with Rugged Road Coolers - Your ultimate outdoor companion! Head to http://ruggedroadoutdoors.pxf.io/ALLCITY and use code PHNX for 10% off! 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. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

One day removed from the Arizona Diamondbacks being eliminated from playoff contention, and Mike Hazen was not happy. We have more from the final media availability over at Chase Field here in 30 seconds. Don't go anywhere. Well, ski and welcome in to another edition of the PHNX D-Backs podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Montia, occasionally known as your mayor of PHNX. I'm joined by my pals. Of course, Damon dog next to me, and we got the one and only thunder stick, Jesse Friedman here.

This show is brought to you by our friends at Bet365. Go download the Bet365 app right now. Use our code of PHNX365 when you sign up. Choose your offer and find out why it is never ordinary at Bet365. And of course, it was not an ordinary end to the Diamondbacks season, as we have discussed, one of the biggest meltdowns in Diamondbacks history, if not, as Jesse would say, the biggest meltdown. You can tell us whether you think it is the biggest collapse in DeBax history. Good point.

Go over to our Twitter, our Twitter account. at PHNX underscore DBAX, and you can cast your vote for whether it is 2024, 2018, or one that I think some people might have forgotten about 2008 was also a year where the debacks were in first place, basically the entire season, and then the Dodgers sort of had their way with them at the end. So stay tuned for Jesse Friedman's content, and he'll let you know about all the times that you felt the worst in your entire life. Yeah, Jesse is an expert.

making you feel even worse than you do after watching the Diamondbacks collapse. It's all part of the grieving process, Derek. You can't you can't instantly try to be like more positive than people are actually ready to be. You have to like follow the emotional roller coaster with them. That's right. And I think you need to understand that. Groundhog Mama said, did Derek have jury duty or something? The fit is not normal.

Yeah, let's. Well, what actually happened is. You want to tell everybody? So Derek, Derek group facetimes me and Jesse this morning and he just wanted to make sure that he was sitting in front of a mirror and he wanted to make sure that Jesse approved his outfit today. After yesterday's debacle where of course Jesse told Derek that he looked like a clown essentially. I thought that those are not. I'm pretty sure those are the words that Jesse. That's not like he was like you forgot your wig and your nose clown is what I believe he said to me.

also Tanner van Newkirk who is taking up as being a resident crumogen along with Thunderbolt says Mike Hazen wasn't happy or Hazen wasn't angry is what Tanner says that's funny because we're going to talk about that and I did not see Tanner in the press conference but I can assure you sitting a few feet away from Mike Hazen that he definitely wasn't pleased he definitely wasn't happy about what happened with this team and obviously Mike Hazen is a big. part of everything that involved this team. Something that, I mean, even a lot of people don't really seem to understand is Mike Hazen, the front office is responsible for like the roster moves, right? So as much as they do get Tori's input, I know there's always a lot put on Tori about sending guys down and calling guys up and all of that. That's a Mike Hazen thing, you know, and it's also a Mike Hazen thing to, you know, add the free agents that the Diamondbacks did in this offseason.

We'll talk about Ken Kendrick's comments and some more in regard to free agency. but first we did want to talk about Hazen's comments in regards to what happened this season. And I think we should kick things off with his reaction to the Diamondbacks missing the postseason. Here's what Hazen had to say. Yeah, not great. Not great. We should be in Milwaukee. And we're not.

And we, you know, we play this game to play in the playoffs. You know, we've talked a little bit about it. We're aware that, you know, We improved our win total by five year over year. And there's something there. But this is a fairly binary situation in my mind, which I know is not what everybody really wants to hear, but it is. And, you know, the investments I think that were made in this ball club, Tori and I, I think, share the similar sentiments on this is that we should have made the playoffs. And we didn't.

And it's pretty disappointing, quite frankly. We played hard. We prepared. We played hard. We had a lot of really good moments. We had a lot of good individual moments. We had a lot of players take huge steps forward. Those are things that we're going to keep with us moving forward.

And we'll turn the page on this. But, you know, pretty disappointed that take out yesterday, it is what it is, that we hadn't, that we didn't determine our fate when we had the opportunity to do so prior to yesterday. That's it. That's the feeling. And, I mean, we have more comments from Hazen. He goes on to echo a lot of the sentiment that he kind of opened up with there at the beginning. But obviously not happy.

And again, they had a lot of expectations. All season long, we've talked about trying to manage those expectations, including even labeling them as something other than expectations. But they were there. And they were big after the Diamondbacks did what they did in the postseason last year. Yeah. I mean, honestly, I like to hear that from Mike Hazen because that's kind of what my sense it was yesterday.

And I think that it's good that we're looking at it, honestly, in making it kind of a black and white binary situation, as Hazen mentioned, where instead of being like, well, guys, you know, we won more games than we did last year. So get off our cases. It's like, no, this was a disappointing season. And I think it's good that the Diamondbacks are going to wear that and they're going to go into next year saying we have to make the playoffs next season because, frankly, they had to make it this year to consider it a successful season.

And I think that was my barometer personally. I think that was many people's barometer all year was get into the playoffs. And they failed in doing so. So I love to see that Mike Hezan is not taking that lightly. I don't even know if a win total was necessarily viewed by folks as much of a barometer about their success as much as it was just making it back to the playoffs in consecutive seasons. Right. And Jesse, I know that at times, you know, especially in the chat, we get. kind of accused of making excuses and such.

And Mike Hazen did not mix words about how he felt about this. There were no excuses, and he wasn't going to allow any excuses to be used for why the Diamondbacks didn't make the postseason. He was, they didn't make the postseason. That's it. The binary thing, black and white, it's that easy. Yeah, and Mike was, you could,

I mean, Mike is always a, you know, generally kind of an intense person. more so now than other situations. Yeah, today there was a little bit of edge to him for sure. And you can understand, right? The wound is really fresh here, right? The diamond backs were eliminated from the postseason. What is it, less than 24 hours ago at this point?

And we're already talking through all of these factors that led the diamondbacks to where they wound up. I thought it was interesting that Mike said at the beginning of the year that his goal was to get to 90 wins, that he figured that if you get to 90 wins, you're in the playoffs. and you had a good season. You gave yourself a shot. And the Diamondbacks did not fall very short of that goal, right? 89 is as close as you can get.

But, you know, 90 wins would have been plenty enough to get into the playoffs last year. I think the DeBox would have had the second wildcard spot, I want to say. I think the Phillies might have been right around 90 wins as well. But this season, the situation was just different. And 90, 90 would have been enough. But the debacks fell one game short of that. So it's tough that, you know, the goal that Mike started the season with was, was really only one win higher than than where the debacks ended up. But obviously, as Mike described there, it is a binary situation.

You either make the postseason or you don't. And the Diamondbacks did not make the postseason in 2024. And that's really what it comes down to overall is not making the postseason. There are factors, though. I don't. I know people are upset. I know they're emotional. I don't think it's excuses as much as when you look back.

upon the season, which we will continue to do on this show. You'll find reasons why this team had one of the worst ERAs in all of, all of, you know, baseball. It's not luck. It's not a magical reason. I mean, there are a lot of factors here. I know one of them is innings pitched by the starters that was not nearly, they did not nearly have the outings that they had last year, even though there was less of the, you know,

quality starting pitchers on this team by definition. Obviously, the injuries had a huge impact. But as Mike, you know, says here in this next clip, injuries aren't an excuse because every team has injuries. And this is what Mike said in regards to that. Yeah, I can't, honestly. I mean, injuries are injuries. Every team's injured.

I mean, look at the number of pitching injuries that Dodgers have taken on in their rotation. They won the division, right? Like, it's just hard for me to say that we deal with, I mean, you know, the position player group lost Pardomo and Alec Thomas and others too. and, you know, we led the league and runs. So I can't make the argument in both directions, right? Yes, we took on some injuries early in the season.

I am very, I'm proud of the fact that when we lost as many players as we did in April and May, the Tory and the group and the players were able to hold our head above water. It's kind of we, I literally came in and asked him every day, keep the team at 500. Just try to keep it at 500 because when everybody comes back, we'll have a chance to be, to be good. So we were aware of what it was doing to us at the time, and they did it. That team held it together.

But injuries are no excuse. Every team takes on injuries. You look at the team, some of the teams are in the playoffs right now. They're decimated with injuries, right? I mean, Atlanta lost a Coonio for the entire year, Strider for the whole year, and look where they are. So it's, I can't do that. You know, the, yeah, the pitching needed to be better.

Our pitching wasn't very good. And, you know, we led the league in runs. and and it was it was it was a it was something that we need to improve upon going in the next year Mike discussed that quite a bit but he also again wouldn't let the injuries really be the reason and I mean he does he's not wrong I mean you look at the Braves the Braves were a team that one of the reasons why we were confident that they would not be here in the postseason and diamondbacks would be was because of those injuries piling up for them for their stars it just seemed insurmountable, but they found a way to overcome that adversity and the diamondbacks.

I mean, they did, they did a good job, but it felt like it took a while for the diamondbacks to really get their head above water as Mike Hazen is talking about there. I remember a period of time there in May when they were below 500 and, you know, obviously everything kind of came together at the end of June and beginning of July. It just, it took a while. And we pick apart that game, you know, against the brewers. We pick apart a lot of games that, the Diamondbacks lost. Mike brought up during the press conference, the series with the Braves early on

when the Diamondbacks had a 6-0 lead in one of those games, right? So there are a lot of games this season that you could go back, but they're not just the recent ones. It's not just the ones down the last stretch. It's early on in the season. It's when a lot of guys weren't hitting well.

A lot of guys weren't doing their part. Essentially, though, it does feel like at the core of this issue for Hazen, pitching is the biggest problem with this team. Obviously, because when you, have the top offense in baseball, it's hard to, you know, have a problem with your position players. Well, you look at the Dodgers, right? And the Dodgers are a team that had a ton of pitching injuries. And their lineup kind of kept them afloat all season long. But there are, their pitchers weren't

as bad as the Diamondbacks pitchers that they brought in from the, you know, the guys, replacing the guys that were injured like the Merrill Kelly's and Zach Gowens. Like they were bad, but they weren't bottom five in the league bad. Like Landon Mack would have been the Diamondback second best starter this year. right and that's crazy yeah like the Dodgers yeah all their fans are looking at their pitching going our pitching is going to be the reason that we don't win the world series this year whereas the diamondbacks i mean we had the front line starting guys coming back but the just the season itself we had significantly worse pitchers it's it's crazy to look at um but every team had injuries

the Braves as you mentioned had a ton of injuries it kind of felt like when they were kind of you know on that downturn in the middle of the season with all those injuries that it It's just like the Braves are cooked. There's no way the Braves find their way into the postseason. And they figured it out. They started playing hot baseball. And that's what this team didn't do. Yeah, I think it was interesting hearing Mike try to sort of grapple with the pitching struggles this year.

He was asked like, how do you make sense of what happened with the pitching? On paper, this was a more talented group. And he kind of agreed with that and was like, I don't know. I don't know. You know, you enter the season with the roster. that the debacks had. And, you know, injuries are certainly a part of what happened there

as much as they can't be used as an excuse. They're also a factor that I think we have to take into consideration. But going into the season, we were talking about all of the pitching depth that the diamond backs had, right? You felt like you were a solid five deep in the rotation. And then behind that, you had Ryan Nelson.

Behind that, you had Tommy Henry, who going into the season, I think was viewed as more of an asset based on the year that he had last year. Absolutely. And there were some other guys behind him that you felt pretty good about Slade Sacconi going into this season was an arm that I think a lot of us were very curious what he could give you at the big league level. And it wasn't just that some of those primary arms that you were counting on struggled, like primarily Jordan Montgomery.

But those depth guys weren't able to really step up either. Tommy Henry really struggled when he was up in the big league. Slade Sikoni, we talked about him yesterday. He had an ERA of almost seven this season, right? And when those are your depth starters, when that's your next level, your sort of line of defense, when your front line guys are either struggling or are injured, as was the case for much of the season, it's going to be really, really hard to make it through the season with a competent starting rotation. And what you have at the end of the day is a debacks rotation that had a worse ERA than the Chicago White Sox. The Chicago White Sox had, I believe, a four, six section. I think the White Sox ended with just a slightly worse ERA, but it doesn't matter.

They're literally. I'm looking at starting pitching. Oh, sorry. If you narrow in on starting pitching. It's not a big difference, but it's like 4.6 versus 4.8, something like that. And of course, they're comparing with arguably the worst team in modern baseball history. It doesn't matter if you're above them or below them, but would be in the same neighborhood. Right.

By the fact, though, that Garrett Crochet is just going out there for like three innings a game. Sure. and then hitching three scoreless starting innings and then yeah and then leaving the game after that yeah and Eric fettie was really good in the first half of the white sock so that that's another reason that their hottest free is not as yeah yeah that's right well here's what i will say though is like it's got to be frustrating for hazen because as much as you know some moves have worked out incredibly well and were excellent and and are going to benefit this team for the future others weren't and again you look at you know a j Huck, for instance, and how good he was up until that damn game on Saturday against the Padres, right? You look at the versus, I guess you could say, Dylan Floro and the Diamondbacks literally having the DFA Dylan Floreau for how bad he was, right? That was, yeah, we didn't talk about that much. Like, what a, what a just outrageous, like a guy has a two ERA at the trade deadline. And he was just not pitchable for the Diamondbacks.

his velocity just kept dropping and dropping. And eventually they just had to move on. It kind of doesn't make sense how how he was good in the first place, to be honest. No. Like he was, I mean, I mean, throwing like 91, 92 mile per hour fastballs. There's a difference between like 91 and like 88 though. There is pretty much where he where he ended up. But the big stuff wasn't good.

But the thing about it is like how I don't know. I just like how frustrating does it have to be? You know, there are people in the chat. I'm sure there's fans that feel this way that have said something similar. go get pitching go get better pitching he tried to he went and got the guy that beat everybody last year for the rangers he went out and got you know some of the best bullpen arms in the er you know as far as a r a he got a solid guy for a few years that they thought they had in errod unfortunately injuries did impact this and and as much as much as they don't want to use it as

an excuse and shouldn't because he's right every team has been impacted you know by injuries i felt like the injuries impacted starting position or starting pitching especially because it felt like there was a strain put on the guys that were here like Jordan Montgomery and Brandon fought when everybody else was out. I feel like the constant up and down for guys like Zach Gallen never

really allowed him to have like a nice constant stretch where he was healthy and kind of got into a rhythm like we've seen him in the past and it just nothing worked out for them. The new guys added didn't work out for them. Guys that have been here like Gallin and Merrill Kelly weren't what they were last year like pitching just all around was terrible. And at one point, like our beacon of light was Ryan Nelson. And then he

gets injured and has gone here down the stretch when the Diamondbacks essentially needed him the most. Same thing with AJ Puck. You know, I think they brought it up today. But every single person in the world thought it was a good idea to bring A.J. Puck into that game there when he gave up those home runs. So as much as you might want to criticize Tori and as much as Tori might want to take blame because of how overworked A.J. Puck was up until that point, you know, that's the guy. that you want in that situation and you expect to be able to come through for you. It's just a frustrating thing.

It was Tori's fault that our best reliever came in the game and gave a back-to-back home runs. It's also Tori's fault that Catal Marte made two first-inning errors. Right. I must win games. Now you're figuring it out, Damon. Yeah, you're getting it now.

Right. One thing I will say on the pitching side of things, a question that I asked during the presser today is kind of where's the balance between the, with the pitching struggles as far as that's concerned? where's the balance between not having the right guys here or needing, maybe needing to have added more players versus getting the most out of the guys that you already have in house? And from what Mike said in response to that question, it sounds like the concern for the debacks is more on the side of how do we maximize the guys that we already have, right? Yeah.

Why did George, I mean, you know, spring training narrative aside, why did Jordan Montgomery go the entire season and never really show any signs of coming out of the funk that he's started out in, right? I mean, minimum 100 innings, Jordan Montgomery had the highest ERA in all of baseball. And you could, I mean, Eduardo Rodriguez, like, I do think the injuries are a factor there. There's maybe a period of time that you need in, in order

to really look sharp. But he wasn't, it didn't look like he was really maximizing his skill set. I think Brandon Fott is another interesting example of this. A guy whose peripheral numbers were actually quite strong this year. You know, you look at the FIP and the X FIP and all of those,

all of those numbers view him as a pitcher who should have had an ERA of about three and a half. And you look up at the end of the season and it's in the high fours. He had one of the highest ERAs in baseball again. If you look at guys who threw a hundred or more innings. So that's something that this organization I think is struggled with for a while, developing pitchers in house and then also maybe kind of maximizing what they get from pitchers that they bring in externally. Well, here is Mike Hazen discussing what went wrong or at least what he felt

went wrong and why it was the pitching. I can't really make sense of it right now, to be honest with you. It's been the last month. I've tried to make sense of it in my mind in terms of evaluating where what I rightly so got criticized for last year going into the playoffs without a fourth starter and now feeling like we had six and yet performing at a different level than when we had three, honestly, or four. And when we made the move of Zach Davies, we did have three, right?

and went into playoffs with three starting pitchers. So I don't know, it's hard for me to wrap my arms around that right now. I feel like this was a veteran group of starting pitchers. We had some young kids take a few steps forward for sure. But I just, I don't know where it went sideways, but it's obvious. Like, there's no hiding where sort of everything kind of lines up on how we ranked in a lot of the ways that we played. And, you know, our pitching needed to be better.

Oh, and by the way, it's only taking me three seasons now to realize I need to turn HDR off on my camera so that those videos don't look like that. We'll get it in season four. We'll get in season four. They're not. They're not that orange. Yeah, we promise. Yeah. It wasn't that bright in the room.

Mike and Tori are much healthier than they look. Yeah. They don't have jaundice. We can confirm that. They've been really taken the playoff. Yeah. Not making the playoffs hard. All right.

But I mean, I don't know. Mike Hazen makes some great points there. And again, that kind of shows his. frustration and the fact that as much as in you know it's hindsight is easy to sit here and say should have gotten better pitchers well they did based on the numbers and based on what those guys had done last season yeah you know going out and acquiring the arms that they acquired making this team better in the manner in which they did it's just crazy to think that this team would six able bodied you know starting pitchers was worse than a team with three able body pitchers right from last

year i think the biggest thing there is the able body part because you couldn't probably say that about this starting rotation for most of the year. And last year, Merrill especially was really healthy, gave this team a lot of innings. And that was what was missing. Yeah. You know,

just giving the starters, just the starters giving the outings that they gave last year, where the bullpen wasn't needed as much as it felt like it was needed this year. I mean, it was a total nightmare scenario from a starting pitcher standpoint. It was all season long. Like everything that possibly could have gone wrong went wrong. From E.

Erod being hurt for a majority of the season, you know, not from the start to the middle of the year, from Jordan Montgomery, the big acquisition, you know, that seemed like the consistency guy that this rotation was begging for to essentially just be the worst pitcher in baseball, as you outlined Jesse with a certain number of innings. And then, you know, Zach Allen missed some time, but mostly I would say that his season really comes down to battling inconsistency. He wasn't. There was never that sustained.

period of success, as you mentioned, Derek. And then Merrill Kelly, who's Mr. Consistent, missing a good portion of this season. And then none of those young guys stepping up. Like, it's just everything possible that could have happened to this rotation happened in the wrong way. Last year they had, you know, you said three and I said three in the middle of that clip. It really was two. It really was.

Let's call it like it is. Brandon Fott showed up in the playoffs. He was awful. He was better like in that final stint coming up. Yeah. He had like a four ERA from late. July to the end of the season. But yes, going into the postseason, it wasn't like, oh, we have a number one and number two

and a number three. Tommy Henry was not sure about number four. Yeah, it was after Zach Allen and Merrill Kelly, the debacks really had no source of stability at all on the starting pitching front. Really only Ryan Nelson went right. It felt like this season. Yeah, Ryan Nelson deserves a lot of credit. He does.

And he should be penciled into the starting rotation going into next season. Like there, I don't think there's any excuse for. not having him as one of the five guys because he proved that he deserved it. And I have that's the one thing that like fills me with a lot of confidence from a pitching standpoint. It goes back to what Jesse was saying about just in general like Hazen's comments that they don't really need at least still in his mind to go out and add more as much as they just need the guys to perform at the level that they know that they're capable of performing at, right? Is is Jordan Montgomery cooked? Is his career over? Because you can't be a starting pitcher or even a relief pitcher in major.

like baseball with a plus 6ERA right and again that he's also the most he's currently the highest paid relief pitcher in all of baseball just if you wanted to factor that in as well um but again it's it's a matter of if they can get these guys healthy and get them back to you know the players that they were when the diamondbacks went out and acquired them if that if that's the case then hypothetically this team should be able to get you know to be even better than they were this year last year but they're also going to lose some guys and that's something that we're going to talk about here shortly uh and we have more of course from media availability day we do thank you guys of course for being here in the phnxports youtube channel if you haven't subscribed to the channel yet make sure to do so now

sign up for notifications that way you don't miss whenever our shows go live uh and hit that like button htl for this guy hold the line hit the like uh and hold the line for i guess that's this team for next season i don't know that's gross i don't want to do that but just hit the like for my own personal self-esteem. If you're listening on the audio podcasting side, make sure you subscribe on your favorite audio podcasting app and leave us a review. Those five-star reviews do mean the world to us. And like I said, we will

talk a little bit more about the similarities between how the end of this season went compared to last season and more on the Diamondbacks free agency, at least what we know for now on the other side of this break. But first, got to tell you guys about Sanderson Ford.

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1 800 next step text next step to 53342 or visit problem gambling. a z dot gov I do anything to use that first bet safety net offer on my Corbyn Carroll home runs future that died perhaps the most painful possible death that was that that's like as bad as the season right coming up close the it was almost the opposite of the And it was the debacks were like, hey, we're totally making playoffs, totally making playoffs, just kidding. Whereas Corby and Carroll was like, dude, I'm not hitting 23 home runs. I'm not even hitting 15.

Or am I? Or am I going to hit 23 home runs? I totally am. Oh, wait, just kidding. We're going to fall just short at the last possible moment. I mean, he missed by one. It was a Sarah Limerick. He literally had 22.

Yes. And Sal Freelick robbed him of a home run. Oh, I'm very aware. A week plus. So that, that, that's tough for you, Damon. I feel like, I feel like, Jesse, when I, brought that up to you. I remember I specifically was like that's going to cost me my future. And you were like, you didn't understand like that I was talking about my future bet and not the dynambacks gained in that

circumstance. And you were like, well, it didn't really have that much of an impact. I was like, no, it's going to ruin my entire life. It ruined my life. Well, we do know Tori has ruined some of some people's lives in our chat based on the way that they always comment on the show. And a big part of that is the criticism obviously that Tori receives for sitting players right and i mean that's not just a this year thing uh i i have memes in a folder for many years of criticizing tory for the fact that uh when a guy has a three home run game you know they're not going to play tomorrow right but uh a lot of that criticism i think is because torrey just takes it uh on himself and i don't i don't think tory wants to put his players out there or their business out there or any information out there

other than he gave them the day off. So he kind of takes, like, he takes the credit or takes the blame, I should say, for all of those circumstances, no matter who came to him with that request, whether it's the medical staff, whether it's the player themselves, whatever the case may be. But Mike kind of stepped up today because that's, again, a criticism Tori has received for a longer period of time than just, you know, recently. And this is what Mike had to say in regards to Tori and the way that his roster is constructed around, you know, his player's health. I'd like to say something on this subject. I didn't get a chance to weigh in on this. I just want to say that, you know, at some level when the team and the players that you have,

there has to be a trust that we trust them and understand them and listen to them. And there's a time where you push, right? and you guys don't get to see all those things, but I do. I listen to the conversations. I watch it happen. And that trust is, you know, the concept of like making a guy go out and play or pushing a guy past and then we re-injuring him, like, which happened this year. Then the conversation turns in the other direction of like, how did we do that? We pushed him and now he misses two and a half weeks in September, right, which is what happened.

And he wanted to push and we wanted to. and it just didn't work out. So I think there's a balance of all those things. We, he does as good a job as anyone I've ever been around of getting his players to buy into him and what he needs and what he needs to tell him I need it, they listen. And it's not, and when there's times where it's like, look, I can't, then the, well, you have to isn't really, you know,

it's not an answer. It's just not an answer. we'd all love to say that. Would all love to be in the position of being like, well, I'm the boss and I'm going to tell you to go do it. That's just not how it works. It's not realistic in my mind. And I think that balance has to get struck over the long term. And I think one of the reasons Tori's been as successful as he has with this group, with the same amount of players,

is because the trust that they have in each other that, you know, yeah, everyone's frustrated in those situations. The player that's hurt or is banged up is also frustrated in that situation too. Like, that's not how they want to draw it up either. They come in and express frustration for how they're feeling and that they may be letting people down in certain places. But it is what it is. We have to deal with what the reality of the situation is. And we have to be smart about it. It would love to just make everybody AJ Puck go out and pitch five days in a row.

And then he gives a couple of bombs. And, you know, Tori sitting here and be like, maybe I overused them. Well, everybody wanted A.J. Puck in that situation in the game. These are some of the balances that we have to sort of weigh out. Just to follow up, Gabby. So rub some dirt on it isn't a real thing. Just rub some dirt on it and then go play baseball isn't a real because I thought we just rub dirt on it. This whole conversation, I don't know if his name was ever mentioned.

This whole conversation is about Catele, right? It's about Catell coming back a little bit earlier than he was ready, frankly. And the Diamondbacks needing to put him on the injured list as a result and give him some time to be able to work back from that ankle injury. and even then it was clear that he wasn't 100%. And there was that very controversial first game against the Giants where Tori did not have Catelle in his lineup. And of course, all of us are trying to understand why he didn't have Cotel in the lineup.

And it wasn't a situation where Cotel like, you know, needed to go on the IL or, you know, Tori even said on that day that maybe if this was the last day of the year, Cotel could push through and play. But yeah, this was a situation where Cotel came to the diamond backs and said that I need a day. And Mike is kind of explaining there just the reality of the situation behind the scenes where you can't look that guy in the face and be like, no, you're playing.

Like that's just not a thing that you can actually do. And I understand that, right? I mean, obviously I wasn't there for the conversation. But based on what's being described here, it's really hard to fault the diamond backs for going through with that. Well, and again, it's the, it's rushing them back due to need, rushing them. back when they might not have been 100% in the first place. We saw Catelle take some, you know, pinch hit at bats and fall down like a sack of bricks. Like the man looked like his

ankle was literally broken and had fallen off at one point during one of his at bat. So I mean, it didn't look like he felt, you know, ready to come back. And as we've heard since then, Cattel had requested, you know, that time off. So again, Tori kind of gets the blame there, uh, in regards to, you know, uh, those players asking for those days off and things like that and of course not having his all-star in for one of the biggest games of the diamondbacks entire season right you know yeah you could tell today that tory was very regretful there there was a lot of there was a lot that tory was going to think about and process over you know this off season and and you know there is something to criticize there in regards tory that two of the collapses that

have occurred that we are talking about you know on in jesse's article did happen under his watch, right? And then you could also say that there were some similarities to how last season ended as well, where the Diamondbacks did make it in. But again, we were talking about them making it in due to not their own play due to other teams losing and kind of backing their way in at the end of the season. Here's what Tori had to say in regards to the similarities between how the end of this season went to the end of last year. Yeah, they definitely overlapped. We were we were drawing some energy from that experience knowing that we'd been through it. We didn't clinch until the Saturday before the end of the season last year with a SINC

loss. And we knew that it was going to be tight. We budgeted for those times. We talked about it. We've constantly been saying that one game is going to make a difference here. And that's how we prepare it from day one of spring training. So we use it as a reference point, but we were trying to block that out and go out and take care of it. our mindset is just win today.

That's it, plain simple. I will say this. The game in Milwaukee, the Sunday in Milwaukee, that was a painful loss. That was, that's the one we all go back to. You know, Cam asked me the question, what are some things I think about? When I am thinking externally, that's one that I think about.

And I think everybody else does too. So coming back home from Milwaukee on that day, I was very curious to see how this team would respond. And, you know, we had a couple days where I think we were hungover. So that's something I wish we had cycled through and got through from the experience that we had last year. But I think something happened to this team from that game. That's my gut feel. He confirmed something we felt, right?

We talked about that. We were like, this team is not the same. They were broken by losing that eight-runner. lead in Milwaukee. And I mean, you could, you could potentially say that about other stretches throughout this season. In fact, going back to a series that very much impacted, you know, the Diamondbacks and the way that this, you know, obviously this tiebreaker situation played out, that series against the Braves early on seemed to kind of wreck them. They had big leads. They were actually playing pretty good baseball during that stretch. And that, I think it was a,

the brave swept that series. And it just, it, it, felt like it completely deflated the diamond backs in the moment, even though early on, they obviously weren't playing the baseball that they were playing, you know, over the last couple of months. Yeah. It's, it's tough because I think Tori is the type of guy where he's always going to take some accountability, right? When it comes to a collapse like this, he's never going to point at his players and be like,

well, it was this guy's fault and this guy's fault. Like, he's going to, he's going to look internally. But the people that are so anti-Torri are going to take that and be like, see, even he agrees that it's all his fault. Yeah. And you're like, well, no, that's actually just good leadership. And that's, that's, that's why the players want to play for Tori. In reality, you know, I mentioned it yesterday on the show.

Tori didn't have a great season. I think there, there, he isn't blameless. There are moments where you could point to here and there where it's like, yeah, if Tori did this differently, maybe we make playoffs because it was a one game reason that we missed playoffs. So you could do that with basically everybody on this entire team. You can do that with a lot of managers around baseball. without question.

Gibb Schumacher being no manager is right all the time. You know, after winning the NL manager of the year last year, right? So but like, yeah, you're right. And I mean, I think what I think what people want to see, I think what Mike Hazen gives them in this, in this is fire and anger. And like, Tori is privately angry. And I think that we are privy to the way that Tori acts sometimes with the players that we don't get to see. I think Tori at times some of the criticism he gets for his demeanor is basically, on the fact that he tries to present a very even keeled positive demeanor at the podium,

even though that's not how he's acting privately all the time with the players. He's also just that guy. Like he's just also not a leader who leads with anger. He's a leader. And he'll be the first to tell you that leads with love. And people in sports might not like that. People might not feel like that's the right kind of direction. However, when it's a team like this, a franchise like this that builds their players

from the minor league system and that's going to be such a critical part of how they build this team probably forever. It's good to have a manager there that gets the most out of young guys when they come up because of the fact that he's willing to embrace them as family and show them that love when they come up.

I think that's why young guys are so successful with this team when they get called up. Another note on the injury front that came out today, which was very interesting, is that apparently Kevin Ginkle broke a bone. Oh, yeah. And we never knew about it. And we never knew about it.

We kind of knew. But then what was wild was you remember this game where Kevin Ginkle got hit with a comebacker, right? And we were. Yeah, this was June. This was June 1st, I believe, in New York. Against two, Jesse. Against the Mets, once again. Yeah.

Unreal. Public enemy. It all comes back to the Mets, doesn't it? Yeah, it breaks 98 miles an hour off the bat of Brandon Nimmo, I believe. Hit him in his shin and caused a fracture. a small fracture that Kevin Ginkle just played through. He just played through a small fracture that they couldn't really do anything with because of where it was fractured, right?

Like he didn't, he couldn't be putting a cast. He didn't miss time with I.L. What's wild about that, though, is we joked that getting hit in the shin caused Kevin Ginkle to get that fire back because next thing you know, he was pitching really well. And he was pitching really well with like a broken shit.

Yeah, that's actually a great point. So this happened on June 1st. So he didn't pitch on the second or the third, but he did pitch again on the fourth at home against the Giants. And in the month of June, Ginkle had a 0.75BRA. With a broken shit. And in July,

he had a sub 2ERA also. Oh, my God. He was better post fracture than he was pre-fracture. He said it woke him up, but we didn't know it broke him. Yeah, I guess so. And I mean, again, that's just like, I think one of the points they were trying to make with all of this.

is how badly guys do want to play and how badly guys want to be in there. And they're willing to play through these injuries and through these aches and pains to try to get this team to the postseason to that promise land once again. And it really, really hurts that they fell one game short. Again, it's an easier pill to swallow if this team is like the Cubs five games, six games back. But considering that they fell one game short, considering Mike knew that it was going to take 90 before the season started. And, you know, here they got 89. Good call on Mike's part. Like, he nailed it.

He nailed that. He nailed that. Well, we do have some super chats I wanted to address before we move on. But we thank you guys, all of you guys for being here. We appreciate all of your comments, all of your chats. Cruz, thank you so much for your super chat. Cruz says when the whole pitching staff has a bad year, should the coaching staff not be questioned? Great, great point.

And I mean, I do think that there is. A thousand percent. There's going to be some questioning done about that. And I mean, I think part of it might fall a little bit on Brent Strom. And then the problem there is it's, Strom. Brent Strom is a legend. I think it's hard for people to question him, but there might be like a conflict. Like for the most part, you hear from pitchers on this, you know, pitching staff and a lot of guys do enjoy Brent Strom and, you know, how he's been able to mentor them. But, you know, the other thing there is, is that Brent Strom was kind of a guy that was riding off into the sunset prior to joining the Diamondbacks. And he came back and has been a valuable coach might not be here next year. Right. So it'll be interesting to see if they do make any change. changes with the coaching staff.

We've already addressed that Banny, you know, Jeff Bannister might be a guy that ends up managing his own baseball team. And that's going to be interesting to see how that impacts this team. Tori will be the first to tell you that, you know, Jeff Bannister is one half of him as a coach and that he rarely does anything without bouncing it off Bannister. So without him in the dugout, it'll be interesting to see how Tori is as a manager. Chris C, the grouch says,

Can I just speak real quick on that? I just want to say, when I mentioned, the Brent Strom thing yesterday, like being more upset with his performance this season than Tories. A lot of people in the chat were not happy with that. I like I seriously don't understand how you could have a different opinion. The pitching staff was horrendous this year. I love Brent Strom. I think he's been a valuable piece to this organization.

He's brought so much to the table. We don't go on our run last year if we don't have Brent Strom as our pitching coach. I am 100% cognizant of that. That being said, like he has to, he's not at all blameless. He shares a huge portion of the blame for what's gone wrong with the pitching this year. And the pitching factually is the reason that this season got derailed. Yeah. So, like, I don't see how you could not be upset with Brent Strom and the performance of the entire pitching staff.

That's what's odd is like a manager's job is kind of to delegate. But what you really do. And he sure, Tori shares blame for that. He does. He does. But when you, when you take it a level beyond that, right? There might be other, you know, other. coaches to blame within the organization or maybe not to blame.

Maybe you just want to try something new and go in a different direction and might not want to technically blame it on them. But with the results, it's hard, you know, to look at a staff that was 27th in ERA as a whole and not think that there's something wrong there on a bigger level than it just being Jordan Montgomery was bad and these guys were injured, right? Because that doesn't really add up. right. Chris Cee, the Grouch says, were you able to speak with Strom this week? I don't not really. I mean, I know Jesse you have this week. No. Yeah, I mean, I did

speak to Brent Strom for a while a couple weeks ago in Colorado. I don't know if we want to go down that that rabbit hole. We'll save that for another day for sure. Okay. But yeah, we'll have more in regards to Brent Strom and the pitching staff. But Chris, we thank you for your other

super chat. Thank you for your kind words. He says, thank you guys for covering the season. you guys are some of the reasons why the vibes were immaculate. It was a fun ride until the last week, excited for next year. Cheers to another year of Diamondbacks baseball. Chris, I'm going to have to take the grouch thing away from you because that was entirely too nice of a comment. We need you to stay a little more on brand than that, Chris.

Come on. Like, we need the fire, Chris. Mark, thank you for your Super Jays. I'm begging on my knees for the debacks to go get a lefty starter who can throw 95 miles per hour. So are we. Need some gas to get some case. Thank you for your shows, guys. Thank you, Mark.

Appreciate you. Sean, thank you so much for your super chat. He said, came to peace last night and gave a Padre's show a super chat, wishing them luck. A Padres troll was in here yesterday, and I had to write the world by reverse trolling. Anyway, thanks again to the PHNX crew in this chat. That's a very kind move, Sean. And honestly, I mean, I know we get trolls from every team, but I'll say the Padres fans are kind of the least of my worries when it comes to trolling. They don't seem to have like as, they're not as mean-spirited as like,

Let's say the Phillies fans. I've heard this guy's going to come for this week. I don't, I have not had many interactions with Padres fans personally. But when I've heard other reporters say talk about Padres fans, they do not speak positively. They describe them as being some of the most, the most brutal people out there. They're very arrogant for how little success they've had. There you go. That's the problem with Padres fans.

You get the nail on that. Eagle 9815 says the gink hockey player status playing with a broken boat for sure. Like certified tough there for the gink. So thank you for your super chat. Thank you guys all once again for your comments. And of course we know that we have some more comments from this press conference today that was a little uncomfortable. But it should have been, right? I mean, considering the way that this season went, considering how this season ended, I understand things being a little uncomfortable.

And of course, one of the stories that has come out over the last 24 hours was Ken Kendrick's comments about Jordan Montgomery, kind of taking some blame, saying that he pushed for this team. I have the, I have the quote here. Oh, please, go ahead.

Give us the quote, Jesse. Ken Kendrick was on, I believe it was Burns and Gambo yesterday after the Diamondbacks were officially eliminated. And his words, and I quote, talking about the Jordan Montgomery contract, I pushed for it. They agreed to it.

It wasn't in our game plan when he was signed right at the end of spring training. And looking back in hindsight, it was a horrible decision to have invested that money and a guy that performed as poorly as he did. It's our biggest mistake this season from a talent standpoint. And I'm the perpetrator of that. That is the, those are the words of Ken Kendrick. What are we doing here with that? What is the point of this comment?

Very, very bold thing to say, given that Jordan Montgomery has a, a player option. This is not a player who you've already paid off and is gone at this point. Correct. It's crazy. This isn't a comment about Paul Seewald or Christian Walker or Jock or Randall Gritchick. This is a guy like are they trying to strategically make him feel unwelcome so that he doesn't pick up that player. That's what it feels like, right? I don't, I mean, I think that's, I don't think that's going to work. No, but I, but 23 million dollars. I got some great advice today. from Mr. Cam Cox at Channel 12, and he told me, don't ever turn down $23 million.

And I think that's solid advice, especially considering you're talking about one single year of your life. Interestingly enough, though, Mike Hazen wasn't having none of it as the GM. He takes responsibility once again. And here's what he had to say about Ken Kendrick's comments, taking the blame for Jordan Montgomery. Look, yeah.

Look, there's two things I want to say to that. Number one is ideas come from everywhere, and I am ultimately responsible to say no to a lot of things or yes to a lot of things. He presents me with ideas and options sometimes, and Derek does and Ken does, and Fitz does, and Amiel does, and we kick around a lot of things. And ultimately, it's my job to make decisions for this organization, and I believe he trusts in some of the decisions and almost all the decisions that we make. and that that was a that was a group process and I understand why we made that decision at the time and I believe that Jordan Montgomery is going to have a better year next year and I think for whatever myriad of factors went into this year and and it ended up the way it did it didn't work out it didn't work out but I also think next year is going to look a lot different

this is an interesting comment from R.A. in the chat Ken Rosenthal seems to think that he should opt out because he thinks Monty can get a long-term contract elsewhere. I respect Ken, but I don't know what the hell he is talking about. I haven't seen that from Ken. Granted, I haven't been super dialed into Ken's coverage the last few days. Yeah, we're all crossing our fingers on that one, buddy. No, I mean, for real. I'm really begging on my hands and knees.

I don't see it. I don't. Why would, why would a team give a guy who had the highest ERA in the sports minimum him 100 innings a multi-year con I mean maybe it's multi-year but you know a few million a year I could see that okay it was on foul territory um I I could see Montgomery getting a one-year deal with a decent amount of money like I don't think he's going to get one year two million dollars if he walks away I think you get one year and you know double digits I think that's pretty realistic we see a lot of we see a lot of pictures with good track records but coming off a really bad season where

a team will take a chance on them. But why are you giving a guy a multi-year deal when the, the VLOs down? And I think it's clear that there just, there wasn't really anything that we saw, again, throughout the course of the season that they really made it feel like he was turning things around, right? And it's not to say I don't think he could turn it around. I just don't know. I just don't understand why his market would be there.

Yeah, what would make another team believe that, right? Whereas I believe Candace asked what makes. Hazen so confident there in regards to what makes him so certain that he'll have a better year. I think the idea there is because of how chaotic and erratic Jordan Montgomery's offseason was, how disappointing it was for him, all of the ups and downs.

He seemed to be taking it very hard. And I think that is demonstrated by him parting ways with Scott Boris, right? Like most people in baseball don't hire Scott Boris and then eventually fire Scott Boris. Usually stay a Boris client for the rest of your life for good reason. And that's because that guy is going to get you the most money that you possibly could. And I think he was guaranteed something that was a longer term deal that was going to probably make a similar annual value as what he got from the Diamondbacks.

And instead he gets this two-year deal, views it as a disappointment. And maybe, just maybe, just couldn't get over that mentally to have himself a good year. He wasn't in great condition. you know, his physical condition wasn't great. And obviously he didn't pitch well out there on the mound. I think the idea there is that when you have a proven track record as a starting pitcher and then you can kind of address maybe that that they're just having an off sloppy kind of year that maybe next year with them being back in their normal, you know,

in their normal kind of routine and having a normal offseason where they actually start spring training with a team, have a normal spring training and coming into the regular season ready for the year, that he could be a better pitcher. Also, it's a contract year for him. So if he ever wants to see another dime in baseball and wants to make the level of money that he was hoping to, he has to. I mean, this isn't just something he needs to come out and do

for the Diamondbacks or to prove people wrong. He needs to literally do it for himself if he ever wants another one of those double-digit contracts that Jesse is referencing. I just don't see that being the case next year. And maybe, like, maybe, yeah, maybe he could get like 10 million, 15 million, but it's not going to be close to the money

that the Diamondbacks are already contractually obligated to pay him next year should he pick up that player option. I also think that Mike is just I mean what else do you expect him to say in this moment, right? He's not going to say that he is very concerned about Montgomery next year

right. He's going to express optimism about about where this could go next year. He's also not going to say Ken's totally at fault either. He's like yeah, yeah, that was all Ken's idea. Yeah, right. Which would have been great if he did. I like him saying taking responsibility for that but also like it's also with Monty it's like you're the worst

starting pitcher in baseball this year that qualified like it's only up from there so it's you literally can't be worse so true it's a low bar to clear it really is if he has a 5.25 era it's still better than it's significantly better look at uh kevin go up in the comments to go to glove ready i did want to point this out uh he says it's a media psychological trick to trick montie into thinking he can get another contract get on board guys i think that's true we have to do our part yeah as members of this beat to say to just keep throwing out there he can get 50 million easily someone else are so desperate for starting pictures this off season like there's no way he couldn't sign a three year you know 55 million dollar contract out there for somebody else yeah absolutely it would be it would be

malpractice on jordan montgomery's new agents part to not opt out of the contract and see what he can get on the open market it really would he's right he's right i'm not yours you guys are bad Am I good at this? You're great at this. You're fantastic at this. All right. I just needed this backup. Jesse,

I'm going to need you to get on this level pretty soon here. Well, because we got free agency coming up, right? And that's something that we all have to focus on. The Diamondbacks especially have to focus on. Mike Hazen talked about free agents, including the ones that probably won't be here next year. This is what he had to say. Yeah, look, I'm not going to get into free agency.

These guys, I will say this. Our free agents are walking off or, hopefully not walking off, but at least going out into what they've earned in a good spot as possible. And we talked about, we've met with all of them. I've said the same thing to them. I'm happy for them. You know, it feels good when especially free agents that come in here and invest in us and want to come play here. And they turn around and have a career year in a free agent year.

We feel good about that because I think it sends a message down the line for other players. first of all, and I'm not avoiding your question. We're going to stay engaged with all the guys we have. It's just, I've said this all the time. You know, you never know where free agency is going to go. And you certainly don't know where free agency is going to go when a guy's walking off in a free agency in a career year. And good for them.

They've earned it. We have a long history with Christian Walker way back in the day all the way until he was an up-down guy in AAA for us. And the amount of pride that I think, and I'll speak for Tori, that we have in what he has accomplished and made himself into as a player is something that I'm extremely proud of as it from an organization standpoint not me personally but for all of us that the defensive player he's become he's the best defensive first basement in baseball by a long shot he's earned all that that wasn't the case six or seven years

ago he's put all the time and effort in doing that obviously as a power hitter that that speaks for itself and he's done that year over year over year so to watch that process play itself out and to do it in a year when you have a lot of pressure on you personally to go out and produce when you're going to walk into free agency, good for him. He deserves everything that's coming his way. He almost sounds like Christian Walker's gone already, but we do know that the Diamondbacks did pull that with Lordus Gueriel Jr. And I talked about it a little bit yesterday.

I felt like it just made sense for everybody for Lordus to walk, right? And again, it's not because I didn't like him as a player. It's not like I didn't dye my hair exactly like his in unison with him. But what it was more about was just the market value for that play. and other teams wanting to overpay for them. And that's kind of what we're talking about here also with Jordan Montgomery and being undervalued. Christian Walker is very well known in baseball.

Jesse brought up that a lot of times when you look at other teams talking about their offseason acquisitions that Christian Walker seems to be a fix for a lot of teams at first base and a very popular choice. They're just like a reliability element there, right? Like the best defensive first baseman in baseball. And this year's OPS Plus was 121. Last year was 122. The year before that, it was 125.

Granted, he's getting up there in age a little bit by baseball standards at 33, but you still feel like you've got a really good chance to have a solid first baseman here for a few more years. To me, it would feel a little bit ass backwards. Had to think about whether I could say that. It would feel a little bit asked backwards if from last off season, you're probably paying Gurriel than more than what any of us really expected was going to be on the table for him

for you know. From the Diamondbacks perspective. Yeah, for you know, an above average outfielder, but not an exceptional outfielder. Whereas you have one of the best first baseman in baseball and are you not willing to go a little bit over the cuff to bring him back?

To me, that would feel a little bit of straying from the path that you kind of set yourself on in last year's offseason. And it would be. kind of admittedly taking a step back as a franchise. I don't know that I'm not even saying that that would be the wrong move necessarily. I think that you'll have to see that play out with Christian Walker because of his age and how well he'll play. Yeah.

Moving forward. It's not a zero risk. For sure, absolutely not. But it also would be letting a 30 homer guy with an OPS plus of 120 consistently walk straight out the door without, you know, necessarily a great contingency plan unless you're just. the world's biggest Pavin Smith fan. Well, we are the home of the world's biggest Pavan Smith fans. We are. You know that.

But I think it goes beyond that. I think this is a choice for Christian Walker. I think Christian Walker has no idea what his value is. And if he resigned with the Diamondbacks, he wouldn't continue to not truly know what his value is because you don't know until another team is offering you a contract. I think that this is good for him to go out. And I do think that there is maybe based on his comments yesterday,

maybe a little desire for him to return to this team. He sounded a little nostalgic. He talked about this being, you know, the only place he's ever known and having best friends in the clubhouse and all of that stuff. But it might just be time for him to look at this as a business and not, you know, best friend kind of stuff and being a place where you're comfortable. Christian is going to get paid and he's going to get paid a big amount. It's going to be the last contract most likely, a long-term contract of his career, you know, multi-year. at least deal. The first and the last.

The first and the last, right. So, I mean, again, it's something for him that is important to at the very least see what other teams out there are offering. And for the Diamondbacks, it's their chance to evaluate if he's worth matching that price. I have a feeling if they do, there's a good chance he would want to come back here, similar to what we heard about Lordus Gurriel Jr., who did want to return to the Arizona Diamondbacks. But free agency in its nature is inherently you're not necessarily getting the best deals.

That's kind of how it works in sports. like you're you're oftentimes paying a little bit more than their value because of the scarcity of these types of players there's not going to be uh you know 10 first baseman that provide gold glove defense leadership and 30 home runs the season out there so it's like he's probably going to get paid more than you know what his market value might be but it's about whether the diamondbacks are willing to continue to do that necessarily to try to you know keep this contending status if you're willing to negotiate on a contract extension you're already being like here I'm willing to leave some money on the table right yeah I don't get a million emails a week

basically saying things are limited addition deals limited time things if they weren't trying to create that sense of urgency and that's what free agency does for teams it creates a sense of urgency that you're not going to be able to sign that player and you're willing to maybe pony up that offer that you're not normally willing to otherwise the diamondbacks might be in that position to match an offer or maybe even offer christian more than another team is to bring him back. I will say real quick on Christian that I think he's a pretty good qualifying offer candidate where the diamondbacks could extend people who don't know the qualifying offer. It's a one year we don't know exactly what it will be MLB trade rumors has it estimated to be $21.2 million.

So you offer Christian Walker a one year $21.2 million contract which I think the debacks would be willing to do. It's not a total guarantee that that is a decent amount of money. Even though it's just for one season. There is a chance that he could accept. I wouldn't expect it, but I think it is possible in his case. But it would put the debacks in position to get draft pick compensation where he to go elsewhere, which would also bring his value down a little bit. Other teams are not going to be willing to pay as much money for him if they have to give up some sort of draft pick compensation to get him. So I don't know that that's going to happen for sure, but that's something that I would I would definitely be on the lookout for. I think they have to do that. The way that you just line that out

there like if it's going to suppress potentially the long-term contract that another team might offer him yeah uh i don't think that there's any any uh realm where they shouldn't be offering that because 21 million for christian walker while it's you know not necessarily his apy why value it's not also that egregious now like it's pretty close to what i would expect him to get on average per year it's over like a three-year deal maybe maybe i'd expect like 18 million a year as opposed to 21. But yeah, it's in that range. It's not like you're paying, you know,

$10 million more for him for just one season. Right, but the $18 million contract, that's going to probably require a three-year deal. Yeah, I don't know if at this point. 3 and 54, something like that. I don't know if the Diamondbacks really want to commit to Christian Walker for a three-year deal. But it would be worth it.

You're saying you don't think that 36-year-olds can can play. You're the one getting on me there for all the, For all the so-called ages comments all the time. I'm agist. Yeah, well, I know you were. Yeah, you called me your dad at work the other day, and that made me throw up in my mouth. So anyway, we'll get more. We got some more about Christian Walker.

We're not done talking about walk. And, of course, the things we heard today will be back to those on the other side of this break. But first, make sure to stop by Circle K. It is America's third stop. It is the best place for you to, I guess, cool off on a day. like this or maybe after watching the Arizona Diamondbacks blow this lead that they had to get in the playoffs, head over to the beer cave and get yourself some beer. If you join the Inner Circle for free right now by downloading the Circle K app, you will save on all sorts of stuff,

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Hitting back up, Shady Raised and saying, hey, I lost my sunglasses. Would you guys mind sending me a new pair? And then they, them saying, absolutely. That's literally what this company is, is founded off. This is what we are built on. Yeah. I actually wanted to ask you guys this because someone put it in the in the chat. And also I've been seeing it on Twitter a little bit.

did Mike Hazen talk about Paul Seawald today in the press conference? He did, but he didn't really talk about necessarily bringing Paul Seawall back. I think that they were asked about the closer situation. Headed into the playoffs. Well, no, just if it was better basically to have a closer and, you know, then then do go with what Tori was going with down the stretch. And I, you know, Mike Hazen's comments about that were just in regards to last year, Seawall, as much as people want to remember seewald for the blown saves and for how bad things were in june paul seawald or july paul seawald was very good for this team up until that point and was the main factor as to why they made the

playoffs last year people don't want to give him credit for that when they had a closer that they knew was in that closer role mike commented that it just gave set everything up before that so well and that was really what allowed them to have that success down the stretch and whatever i think that's what allowed guys like Andrew Saul Frank and Ryan Thompson to be so effective last year. This year, yeah, it was kind of back to that same chaotic, you know, bullpen energy of not knowing if you were going to be called on in the ninth inning. I know in a conversation we had with Joe Mantiply, the Joe Manciple told us how much that stability of having, you know, Paul Seawall there at the end helped all of those guys know what their role was. And he did admit there was some confusion last season when you

would come down as to what you would be doing that night. Yeah, I mean, the Diamondbacks bullpen was so much better with Seawald than than without him, right? I mean, say what you will about whether he deserved to be in that role. And I think it's obvious why the D-backs made the decision that they did. Not saying that was a bad decision. I think it was sort of what they had to do. But there was a lot of bullpen instability even after the D-Backs made that decision, right?

I mean, Justin Martinez didn't do a terrible job in that role. But calling him a state. stabilizing presence. I don't know if that's really high would describe it, right? And AJ Puck, like, yeah, you could argue maybe he should have been in that role all along, but he was really valuable to the debacks in some seventh and eighth inning situations. I don't know if it's super obvious that that was the right move to make either. So I'm not sure. I know Mike did an interview with Arizona sports separately today. So maybe he talked more about Seawald there.

Sure. What we heard today was just about how valuable Seawald was for the team last year. And Mike sort of made it sound like it was coming from him that he really wanted to get Seawald back in that closer role down the stretch of the season. And obviously, we never saw it. Seawald wasn't able to get in the kind of rhythm needed to get back into that role. And obviously he got hurt at the end of the season as well. Yeah, it says here actually it was from Arizona Sports, Wolf and Luke. And apparently Mike Hazen said that he wanted Paul Seawald back in that closer role for the playoffs, as Tori had hinted at a couple times throw.

Back for the playoffs 100%. Yeah. He doesn't want CWald to come back or didn't express anything about CWald coming back as a free agent or next season. But yes, he's absolutely right. He did say that today. He said that. That's still kind of egregious though based off of how he did not.

Yeah, he didn't tell us today that he wanted him back in the closer role in the playoffs. He just said that he wanted him back in the playoffs. He did say that. Okay. Yeah. Maybe on a bad listener. No, no, no. It was like he was basically just saying like down the stretch and stuff that they wanted

seewald back in that. role but obviously like due injury he was able to be there right i think like wanted in like kind of an idealistic sense of like that like that would have been what's best for the team is seawald being in that role and and being able to succeed in that role but i don't think that was the reality of the situation right i don't think the debacks once they got seawald back off the i'll we're going to instantly plug him in as the closer role you know in a safe situation tonight in milwaukee i don't i don't think that's what mike yeah it just it just honestly it is like i that's the one thing where like i i think Mike Hayson said pretty much all the right things,

but if he's actually saying, like holding on to like, you know, this team really would have been special if Paul could have came back and got revved up and ready to go for playoffs. Like Paul, Paul's cooked. I'm sorry, but it's like it's over. Like it's he was his, his velocity went way down.

He was throwing bad. He didn't. It didn't go way down. It did drop. He was throwing in the 80s at one point. He just, he didn't already he didn't already throw it very fast. But he never threw particularly hard. Let me get some numbers. What is wild about Paul Seawald, which I will say that it's just something funny to me that now considering the results and the way this season went, I think back upon is during spring training.

And even at times during last season, Paul Seawald almost joked that you know exactly what two pitches he's going to throw. And there's not going to be a lot of like surprises with what he's doing. and it feels like, yeah, that eventually caught up to him is kind of what it feels like. But usually the thing about Paul Seawald is his, is location, right? Location, location, location, his ability to put it in a place where you're most likely going to ground out softly and not do much damage with it. He's pitching the contact at times. And he's just not being very deceptive as much as, again, you know what he's going to throw. But he somehow found a way to be effective without, you know, having a real flashy kind of, I guess, I guess, pitch.

that he throws out. I think that's exactly that though, right? Like, closers, they oftentimes throw two pitches and you know what's coming. Like that was always the thing with Mario Rivera is like he's throwing a cutter. Every single time that he goes up there and there's nothing you can do about it. But the problem is is that when you do throw two pitches and then those start regressing slightly.

Yeah. Yeah. That regression feels very, very insurmountable. Like it's not it's not like a gradual thing when like maybe a guy who throws a, has a five pitch arsenal and his fastball gets a little bit worse when your fastball gets a little bit worse and you throw two pitches that's really really going to be evident to everybody that's watching now i feel like that's exactly what we saw this season his he started regressing a little bit and

it was just like it they knew what was coming and it started regressing and the combination of those two things made him just like an unplayable pitcher in high leverage situations this year so it's a little bit disheartening to hear that he was still such like a factor in their long term plan of like I just I wouldn't want policy while pitching at any high leverage situation down the stretch and it felt like they kept holding on to that all season long well I mean again we lose faith much faster than they do and that's something that everybody needs to realize is that internally a team does not think that a guy is washed as much as we think they are washed right like they they think that there's you know, obviously a commodity there.

There is something that they have invested money in. So there's also like, I guess maybe even a false hope in the scenario, maybe guys that are washed that they're not. But you're going to be hard pressed to find internally them have the same feeling, especially towards a guy that suddenly became bad that has a track record of being good

more than, you know, anything else, right? Like they're going to believe that this is more of an anomaly and a fluke and that he can get back to being the pitcher that he once was. And like baseball might be one of those sports where that end for your career comes faster than you could have ever imagined it. Some guys have very lengthy careers, but that's those are few and far between. For the most part, baseball players careers can suddenly end because they suddenly become, right, because they suddenly can't do the thing that they used to do so well. Can I can I add a few, a few numbers, a few metrics to this conversation? Nobody wants to hear that.

So, so last season, uh, Paul C-Wall, average 92.2 on his four seam fastball. This year was 91.4. And that's not a very big difference. It's 0.8 miles an hour. It's not a very big difference. However, I do agree that for someone who's who's in the low 90s, 0.8 miles an hour, I do think it make a difference.

Yeah, that's kind of my point. Yeah, I don't think that's nothing. But the other thing I'll say is that if you look at Seawald's peripheral stats, some of them are actually better this year. Last season with the Diamondbacks after the trade, Seawald had a 1.47 whip, which is not good. That is very, very high for a high leverage reliever. This year was 1.13.

So he allowed way fewer base runners in 2024 than he did in 2023. His walk rate was, he had the same number of walks this year as he did last year and more than twice as many innings since being traded to the Diamondbacks. and his home run per nine was basically identical. It was pretty high last year and it was pretty high this year as well. So I'm not at all saying that I think Paul Seawald is like, you know, a guaranteed like, you know, next season plug him back into a closer role and he's going to be great. Yeah. I don't necessarily think that.

But I also don't think the diamondbacks were as delusional as maybe people make it out to be that he could find his way back into being that guy. Not that he was going to be an Edwin Diaz, you know, Josh Hater, Emmanuel Class A S. Like, he was never going to be that, not at this stage in his career. But could he be a guy who could save, you know, 80, 85% of games successfully and have an ERA around three. It wouldn't shock me if next season Seawald found a way to become something like that guy again. Maybe it's not as a closer, maybe it's more of a seventh inning role. but I don't think he's I don't think he's as terrible as as some people are making him out to be. Well, we do know that the Diamondbacks have, what was it?

It's five free agents at the end of this season. Paul Seawald is one of them. Jock Peterson, Randall Gritchick are two more. Yeah, they're mutual option guys. So they're basically free agents. Right. So we have those guys that all basically we know are probably not going to be back, right? We don't know how Paul Seawald, what the market will be for him, or if the Diamondbacks will try to pursue him to bring him back.

But we have a feeling that Jock and Randall are both going to be priced out. If anything, they'll focus on Christian Walker. Who else are forgetting that's a free agent after this year? Because there was supposedly five. Kevin Newman, maybe? I think. Josh Bell. I think you're right.

Yeah, Josh Bell for sure. Okay. Because they said they had conversations with five guys so far today, which were the five free agents. Yeah, Kevin Newman is a, I think you're right. I think Kevin Newman is a free agent, if I'm not mistaken. Well, and so, of course, the most important one out of that bunch is Christian Walker. And I think if anybody has a chance of returning, it's him due to his ties to this team, you know, just wanting to be here. And I think that he is the guy that the Diamondbacks would most likely go spend that money on.

I'm not saying that their DH's situation is ever going to be the same. I think that's one thing my case was mad about today. Their DH situation went so well this year. That was such a well-constructed plan by Mike Hazen overall, and it was wasted because the pitching staff couldn't be middle of the pack. We weren't even asking for the best pitching staff in baseball, like we thought this staff had the potential to be at the beginning of the season. What kind of idiot sounds like crazy idiot talk to me.

But I mean, I think if anything kind of portrays how important Tori is, or Christian Walker is, it's what Tori had to say about Seawak. Here's Tori's comments on their first baseman and their time together. Oh, man. I've watched him evolve. He was an up-down guy. He was playing a backup one of the greatest debacks of all time of Paul Goldschmidt, and he just kept plowing away.

And he is a great story of perseverance. and understanding who he is, self-evaluation, with constant self-evaluation, and just getting better and blocking out black noise. So I think I appreciate the way he was built. I think I'm built that way a little bit. I think every personality inside of this game is built that way. But the way he came out the other side

and had the type of years that he's had on both sides of the ball, is remarkable. Now you throw on the fact that he comes into my office and sits down and has a very calm, a very directed conversation about how he's feeling and what he's trying to get to and what he needs for me. I mean, I love Christian Walker because of the person and the human being. He just happens to be a really good baseball player. So I get all sides of Christian Walker, and that's what I love most.

Yeah, I mean, of all the guys that, like Christian Walker is a guy that feels like he came up in this organization. Like he said, they sent him down. They brought him back up. He lived in the shadow of Paul Goldschmidt. Like there were a lot of things within this organization that Christian Walker had to go through to kind of emerge as the player that he's become. And that player is a guy that is very respected around the league and highly desired as a free agent this offseason. Yeah, Christian Walker is, I think. he just represents so much of what the Diamondbacks organization is really about, right?

This organization emphasizes defense so much and approach at the plate. And Walker has always been a guy who doesn't chase a ton, you know, generally takes his walks. The strikeout rate was a little bit higher this year. But generally he's been one of the few power hitters in the league that doesn't really strike out all that often. And yeah, again, he plays outstanding defense first base. He's the best in the league over there and has been for a while.

So his story is really, really cool. And, you know, as a journalist, I'll miss having Christian Walker around if he does go because he is pretty much the best quote. One of the best quotes in the clubhouse. For real. Always very available to the media, super nice, super friendly. So he's been a real asset to this organization, not only on the field, but off it as well. My favorite moment with Christian Walker was in Chicago this year, getting to speak to him after the All-Star game. and kind of just having not really an off-the-record conversation,

but just asking him like, hey, man, were you disappointed that you didn't get to go to the All-Star game? And he had just such a down-to-earth, real human-being answer of like, a man, I just really enjoyed the time off. It was good to get away and spend time with my friends and my family and stuff like that. And that's what kind of Walker has been as a player for this team. Very humble, very, you know, a very down-to-earth blue-collar kind of guy works hard. plays baseball, you know, the Diamondbacks way, right?

Which is like Jesse said, you know, playing, you know, error-free baseball being your best defensively. And honestly, I think there was a period of time where he was like our biggest slugger, right? So it's like, it's just hard to lose that out of your lineup. I know there are a lot of people that feel a lot of ways about Christian Walker. I know that there are people that were frustrated with him down the stretch. And I'm sure he was frustrated with his performance. I'm sure he was frustrated with his health. and I think overall the you know the the one benefit here to this off season is that a lot of guys are going to have some time off that they didn't get last year.

They had a really short off season last year due to the amazing playoff run that they went on and now hopefully guys can get right and be ready for next year. That sucks though. It sucks already talking about next year. It sucked to hear them talk about next year today and that. It sucked for them talking about next year. Like they blatantly said they weren't ready to move on yet. Like they weren't, they weren't ready to put the anger of what just happened to them. Beside yet.

They just, they, you know, the flush it thing, right? They shouldn't for a while. We hear that all year long, the flushed thing. And you're right. They shouldn't. And they shouldn't be flush. This should be one that you wear. There should be one that you look in the mirror and think about at least one of those games

that you could have won every single day. And just to have it kind of, you know, maybe form a little fire in you for next season, you know. Well, it felt like Cattel last off season, at least to me, like, DVX made it to the World Series and he was like, I want that back. And he came back. Yeah. Like on fire, right?

Like we saw him training in the Dominican Republic. That's exactly. That's what I'm saying. It felt like that was kind of, you know, what went down in that situation. And I hope the whole Diamondbacks team treats this season and how it ended exactly like that. Like just unacceptable to miss the playoffs and like it worked that much harder in the office. season to make it next year. Yeah.

Wow. How are the, how are the Dback's going to ever win a game at Dodger Stadium again? Without Christian Walker, I don't know. I mean, they, they've got two dingers minimum penciled in like every single time they go there. So that's a big gap to fill. I don't know.

Like how hard would it be as the Dodgers as an organization for you to not be tempted to get rid of Freddie Freeman and bring Christian Walker? And he'd hit 175 home runs in that ballpark. That's an outrageous take, but I like it. He gets it. He gets it. Yeah. All right.

Well, we thank you guys, of course, so much for being here. Make sure to hit that like button. That little character is going to be back tomorrow. We'll be joined by Archie Bradley in studio tomorrow. So make sure to join us for that. We are very interested to get his take on how things went down and how he feels about the Diamondbacks missing the postseason. But until then, follow us all on Twitter. I'm at cap underscore caveman with a K.

Jesse is at Jesse and Friedman. The man in the middle here is a Damon dog. I don't know. Are we still Damon's dogs when he's here? No. No. We're not Damon's dogs anymore. Because you know what we are now?

We're Keb's crew is what we are. We're part of Kev's crew. You follow Kev at Kev Tom, TH, THO.M. I get that right. You're down on the Kev's? Yeah. Well, I mean, except I want to be part of fantasy football team. Yeah, no, I don't know what we do.

We'll have crew. We'll figure something out. But of course, like I said, Kev Tom writes, that's T-H-O-M-R-R-E. ITES or shows at PHNX underscore D-Backs, but all roads do lead to at PHNX underscore sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. We appreciate you guys for being baseball fans. We thank you so much for rooting for the Diamondbacks. And we will see you tomorrow at 1 p.m.

Until then, have a wonderful evening. And remember, kids, baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun when you get a little angry after not making the postseason.