PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - MLB furthers preparation to broadcast games for the Arizona Diamondbacks and 17 other clubs

Episode Date: March 3, 2023

Major League Baseball makes further preparations to potentially take over broadcasting games in 2023 as a new wrinkle with Warner Bros. Discovery has developed. Does MLB have the infrastructure in place to take over RSNs from both Diamond Sports Group and AT&T SportsNet? This would impact 18 organizations, including the Arizona Diamondbacks.BUY D-BACKS TICKETS HERE: https://gametime.hnyj8s.net/c/3442941/1410622/10874 SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports PHNX: Make sure to get your hands on our new “Slim Valley Reaper” t-shirt! Go to https://phnxlocker.com/products/slim-valley-reaper now!DraftKings: Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app now (https://bit.ly/3Jl1dMX), use promo code PHNX and make your first deposit of FIVE DOLLARS and get TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS in BONUS BETS INSTANTLY! Gambling Problem? Call 877-8-HOPENY/text HOPENY (467369) (NY), If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, crisis counseling and referral services can be accessed by calling 1-800-GAMBLER (1-800-426-2537) (CO/IL/IN/LA/MD/MI/NJ/OH/PA/TN/WV/WY), 1-800-NEXT STEP (AZ), 1-800-522-4700 (KS/NH), 888-789-7777/visit ccpg.org (CT), 1-800-BETS OFF (IA), visit OPGR.org (OR), or 1-888-532-3500 (VA).21+ (18+ NH/WY). Physically present in AZ/CO/CT/IL/IN/IA/KS/LA(select parishes)/MD/MI /NJ/ NY/OH/PA/TN/VA/WV/WY only. VOID IN ONT. Eligibility restrictions apply. BONUS bets: Valid 1 per new customer. Min. $5 deposit. Min $5 bet. $200 issued as bonus bets that expire 7 days (168 hours) after being awarded.  See terms at sportsbook.draftkings.com/basketballlterms.Circle K: Text code “PHNX” to 31310 to win a $500 gas card! Limit one entry per person—limit of one entry per phone number. The offer is valid for Arizona residents only. Must be able to verify the place of residence. This contest is administered at the discretion of the Grand Canyon Division of Circle K Stores. Circle K Store Inc. is a part of Alimentation Couche-Tard. You must be 18 years of age or older to win. For questions about this contest or our stores, text ”CARE” to 31310.Rotowire: All the best fantasy news and updates at https://rotowire.com/phnx OGeez!: Learn more about OGeez! at https://ogeezbrands.com//. Must be 21 years or older to purchase.Four Peaks: Drink, eat, find, and experience Four Peaks at https://www.fourpeaks.com/.  Must be 21 or older. Enjoy responsibly. Bad Birdie: Use code “PHNXBB15” for 15% off your next order https://glnk.io/7qnq/phnx-sportsMor Furniture: Save up to 50% all through the holidays! Check out https://morfurniture.comRoman: Go to https://ro.co/PHNX today to get 20% off your entire first order. 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.

Coming to you from beautiful downtown Phoenix in front of a live studio. We are the PHNXT Bags podcast. Hi guys, welcome in. Of course, I am your mayor, occasionally known as Derek Montia. This guy over here is your thunderstick, occasionally known as Jesse Friedman. Jesse, the Diamondbacks came back and tied a baseball game with the Dodgers today. They did. That was pretty fun to watch, right?

Yeah, I mean, you know, like, like, a. Cactus League game is a Cactus League game. Nobody really cares about the outcome that much. And then when you have a tie in a Cactus League game, then it's like, I really don't care. I just feel like achy deep down. Like there was nothing important about the actual result of that game. No matter how short the pitch clock made this game, I still feel like this was a waste of our time. Of course, this show is brought to you by the fine folks at the Drafking Sportsbook app, America's top-rated sports book app. And we promise we won't waste your time on this podcast right here. Because we are just here to talk about the facts, ma'am.

And of course, one of the facts was seeing J.D. Martinez and David Peralta in Dodger Blue. And that was something. Something I fucking hated. Look at this. Nailed it with the caption here. Think we're going to be sick seeing these two guys in Dodger Blue. Hey, Jesse, what did you think of David Peralta there in Dodger Blue, huh? You're trying to bait me into saying a certain thing. I'm going to just go ahead and say it. I think I know I'm going to be crucified. for this Derek but I just have to say some people look good in different colors right like wearing

different colors like personally I don't wear you sell he said you hear what he's insinuating here you guys okay I don't look great in like brighter colors because I'm very pale skinned and so it just doesn't look great so I tend to wear darker colors as you can see right now if you're watching us and and David Peralta always look good and red but I'm just he looks pretty good. good in blue too, like from a pure aesthetic standpoint. But at the same time, I know it's kind of devastating for Diamondbacks fans to see David Peralton and for them to see J.D. Martinez and I don't know. And I don't know why you're saying all these things, Elizabeth. They're all, they're making me sad and infuriating me. But of course, we don't care about those guys anymore.

They're not in Sedona Red anymore. We care about the guys in Sedona Red. And one of those guys is pitcher Ryan Nelson, who is one of the three to maybe four guys that are currently I guess competing, you would say, fighting for the final rotation spot in the Diamondbacks Major League starting rotation. And he struggles once again to get through two innings of work. Another non-stellar outing for Ryan Nelson. Yeah, I don't know if he would have gone more than two innings anyway, even if it had been perfect. But you want to see him get through it, right? You want to see him get through those two innings.

Yeah, at least completing the two innings would have been nice, which unfortunately was not able to do, as you said. an inning in two-thirds, four hits, three runs, two walks, one strikeout. There was one play, which was charges in air. There was a bounce, a ball that came right back to Ryan Nelson. He had a chance to turn what would have been an inning-ending double play. He threw a little bit wide left to Buddy Kennedy at second base. Kennedy wasn't able to make the catch, and that kind of made the inning go on. So all three runs wound up being earned, but he definitely could have been out of that

inning for whatever that's worth. But yeah, it wasn't a great outing for Ryan Nelson. I wish I could say that, you know, it felt like it was a fluke or, you know, it was a lot of soft contact or anything like that. But Freddie Freeman really got into that two-run bomb. He could get the hell out of the ball. Double and a home run with three RBI, two for two, I think. I don't know if he stayed in the game after that. Two for three.

Two for three. Yeah. But, man, I mean, of course, with Ryan Nelson, the one thing here is that the other guys are performing so well. So I really feel like it's, I guess it's not as dramatic, you know, it's just to start. So there is potentially the ability for him to fight back and still compete for this spot, right? And again, it's not always the results or the numbers necessarily that the Diamondbacks are looking for. But like you said, there was hard contact. There's just a lot of things that didn't go his way and didn't look great out there.

When compared to especially, Brandon Fott's first outing and Drey Jameson's two outings now, especially, Dre's last outing on Tuesday. Yeah, it's definitely still too early to say, like, oh, Ryan Nelson couldn't possibly win a rotation spot. I think Tori Lavello was very clear at the beginning of this process that it's not just the box score that matters at the end of the day, right? Or that 23.63 ERA.

Yeah, yeah, the 23 point, I mean, yeah, maybe it matters to some extent. I'd be a little surprised if Ryan Nelson got the spot, if he's not able to bring that down at least a little bit. But he was working on some specific things today. And he talked about how those things didn't necessarily align with, like, what the ideal game plan would have been for actually getting all these Dodgers hitters out in spring training. You're not necessarily planning for getting guys out or planning based on their weaknesses.

You're planning on, you're planning on, you know, what you want to accomplish in that particular game. So if there are certain pitches you're working on, certain locations, that you want to focus on. Those are the kinds of things that guys are working on. And sometimes that means, yeah, the results might not look so great, even if you do execute in a lot of those ways. I think there is something to be said about the difference in the attitude between Ryan Nelson and

Dre Jameson. And it's not to take anything away from Ryan Nelson. It just because last year he came in, he was asked to perform. He wasn't necessarily asked to compete with his peers to win a spot. as much as he was asked to go out there and win baseball games, right? Yeah. There seems to be a difference between Bloodfire Dre Jameson and Ryan Nelson when it comes to that competitive edge, right? Like, and I was kind of comparing it a little bit to the Phoenix Suns and and what people say about Devin Booker versus what people say about Kevin Durant, right?

Devin Booker, we know he's a scoring machine. We know he's a great baseball player. We know he's very talented. Maybe he's a great baseball player. Probably a very baseball player too, right? But my point being is that we've seen as Phoenix Suns fans times where Devin, you know, wasn't really that same guy that guys like Kevin Durant are where they almost demand to have the ball and they want to take over the game in that late moment.

It's almost like Booker knows he's a very talented player and knows he should have the ball in it. But maybe it's just the fact that his personality doesn't that same kind of aggressively fire, you know, that aggressively competitive nature. that's what we're kind of seeing out of Dre Jameson here. When we talked with Vince from the Reno Aces, even he was surprised by Jameson's success last year at a major league level compared to what they had seen in Reno. And that's, again, not to say that he wasn't competing,

it's just numbers-wise and the success that he was having. And I really feel like right now for Dre, that competitive edge and that fire is really the thing that's kind of pushing him over the edge where a lot of people don't expect him to be better than Ryan Nelson. A lot of people don't expect him to win out at the starting spot over Brandon Fought. It's really starting to look like Drey Jameson might, at least for the time being, just might have a little bit more of a top position here amongst the three guys.

I agree with that. I mean, I think just looking at the numbers, like if you had to pick a front runner for that rotation spot right now, I think Drey Jameson is probably the guy. We're scheduled to see Brandon Fought again on Saturday. So that'll certainly be interesting to see how he does. his second outing. But I will push back a little bit and say, like, I think Ryan Nelson has a competitive fire too. And, you know, I think every major leaguer does, right? The only way that you get to this level of competition is that you are, you have an outrageous amount of self-confidence,

basically. One of us knows about that. Yeah. And I think, right, exactly. I think Ryan Nelson has no shortage of confidence. And Dre Jameson, certainly, as we, as we saw, with that clip yesterday, and we'll talk a little bit more about that later in this show. Yeah, like that, it's very external for him. Like, he's willing to go out on camera after the game and say, yeah, don't swing three O on me. You're going to light a fire in my soul, basically. Don't do that. It puts fire in my blood.

It puts fire in my blood. Don't do that. Those are. It puts fire in my blood. Those are Dre Jameson's exact words. I said that's my daughter last night, actually. She was being argument with me. She was like, I need help on a homework assignment I've had for a week.

that I haven't worked on yet. And I was like, don't do that. It puts fire. I'm already quoting Drey Jamison and everybody should put it on a t-shirt. All that to say, though, like, yeah, I think Ryan Nelson has the competitive edge too. It just, it just manifests itself differently. The difference between these two guys right now and the reason that maybe Jay Jameson is the frontrunner is just that he's pitched really well. And I think Ryan Nelson maybe hasn't checked every box that he's been trying to check so far.

I say it's fire. Okay. All right. But you're right about Nelson. Nelson, he said that he feels good despite what the numbers show, and he still feels confident about his ability to compete for this final rotation spot. Definitely, the stats don't look great, but I think they don't show how good I feel with the ball right now.

I feel like it's coming out good. I feel like the shape of my pitches are really good, so I try not to read into the numbers and stuff too much, but I definitely want to throw some zeros up and keep some guys from scoring. And again, it's spring training, so it's definitely not the reason. results that they're looking at. There's a lot of other things. And I mean, we've even seen the Diamondbacks in the past kind of make some surprising decisions based on the roster because we tend to base it on the stats and the success they

had. And Lovallo and staff are looking at completely different things than what we're looking at. Yeah, absolutely. And specifically that home run to Freddie Freeman that we talked about earlier, it was a change-up. And Ryan Nelson acknowledged after the game. if I was game planning to try to get Freddie Freeman out, rather than to try to throw strikes with all my pitches, which is what one of his goals was coming into this game,

he probably doesn't throw that change up to Freddie Freeman. He probably goes back to a pitch that maybe he's a little bit more confident in. And that's, I mean, that scored two runs, right? That's two of the three runs that he gave up right there in one swing. So you definitely don't want to get too carried away looking at the numbers here. But I still think Ryan Nelson didn't look that great. Like his four seam command was a little bit all over the place. Strike zone was a little bit odd for him today.

So that might have played a little bit of a role in things. But he's definitely not out of this race at this point. Well, Tori also commented and had some thoughts on Dre Jameson's fiery personality when it came to his responses that we got yesterday. And just in general, the delight that Dre Jameson is. You know, the first time I saw him he had on the Sponge Bob shoes, right, throwing on field three and throwing low bullets. And I told him when I was introduced to him in Chase that he should keep the same routine

and wear the same shoes. So I told him I would be disappointed if he didn't wear the SpongeBob, powder blue shoes on his first start. He did. So he just has a different personality. And I want to embrace each personality on this team. and I certainly appreciate his. I love that about Tori, too,

the fact that he wants these guys to be themselves. And, like, Tori gets us fired up about these guys making comments like Dre did as we do. You know, really, he does. He loves that shit. He loves the confidence. And more importantly, he feels like guys can verbally commit sometimes, you know, to their actions. Sometimes when they talk a big talk, they have to back it up. And as far as Tori sees it, it's just more motivation for these guys.

guys to go out there and compete. Yeah. Yeah, unlike the, you know, Dre Jameson's comments that he made yesterday about the three O count and don't swing on a three O count and whatnot. Tori, when I asked him about that, Tori basically just said like, yeah, whatever Dre Jameson needs to get fired up, I'm on board, you know. He didn't necessarily say like, yeah, I felt the same way.

Like, you know, I'm pissed as a manager. If someone's slings, three-o. The audacity of that batter to swing a three-year. Yeah, I don't think Tori necessarily. felt that way, but it's like, hey, like, if that's what lights the fire for Dre Jameson, then, you know, he's all for it. We all have things that motivate us. I mean, I don't know.

Yeah, what motivates you, Derek? Let's talk about that. I mean, I'll say, honestly, I wouldn't be sitting here right now if it wasn't for the fact that I had made a new little human being who was my daughter and that this daughter was eventually going to go to school and tell her friends where her dad went to work. And I didn't want it to be, I don't know, in some cubes somewhere at an office building. You know what I mean? And it's not knocking it, but it got me up to try to do new things.

And it motivated me, right? So I started writing. I wrote for a local magazine. And then I started covering sports with my friend Paul Richardson. So even that, right? Even that there was, there's things that motivated me along the way. I was a huge sports fan. So being a part of this entire thing and going out there and covering the Diamondbacks,

just being there motivated me, right? But, you know, honestly, I wanted, after I started doing it, I wanted to legitimately, as cheesy as the sound sitting here right now, I wanted to provide great content. And it kind of motivated me just because I wanted to try to see what I could do differently out there, right? But a lot of that, obviously, is because, you know, in my personal life, I felt like a lot of people doubted me.

So for me to be doing this kind of job now, and proving a lot of people wrong. It's the same kind of thing with, you know, with Dre Jameson. Like sometimes just just getting people to have to shut up and realize that you did fun things with your life is enough motivation for me. But definitely I wanted, you know, I wanted my daughter to be proud of me. You know what I mean? And it's funny because I don't know if I ever felt that way. And it's no knock to other people in my life, my family, my parents.

But I had a child and like more than anything, I wanted her to be proud of what I did for a living, you know. That was very wholesome moment from Derek on the show. I could have said, fucking, I could have said, you know, the strippers and the drugs. What a family man. Those always motivate me, but, you know, it is what it is. But I'll say we have some more guys that actually did some fun things out there offensively, so it's not just the pitchers. Though, though Justin Martinez, once again, threw 100 miles an hour, threw so fast that the poor ballpark velo reader couldn't keep up with him. out at Camelback Ranch.

Look at this thing. He's just sitting at double zeros now. Double zero. What was fascinating, and I didn't include this in the tweet, was when he threw 1001, it did work. What? But when he threw 100, it would just show up as zero zero. It's like a Y2K situation, I feel like, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Something like that. Yeah, some eerie is going on at Camelback Ranch. 100 miles an hour. Just couldn't handle it. Oh, man. I will say that, again, Jesse has a lot of thoughts about.

lot of ballparks, by the way. It's not the only ballpark that he's, like, judging their technology. This is the first time I've been to Camel Back Grand. What did you think? I liked it. I liked it. I've heard that some of the other writers were telling me that there's a serious lack of shade. Like, if you're sitting down in the stands,

it has some problems. If it is not a nice, cool day, even on a nice cool day. Today was a nice cool day. It's still too much of it. Today was, it was genuinely kind of cold outside. It was like in the mid-50s or something. We didn't even open the windows in the press box because because we were like, yeah, no, we're going to watch this one inside.

But I liked it. I mean, it was a beautiful day for baseball, at least from the confines of the indoor press box. Yes, yes. And looking out to the cold field. Right. Exactly. Well, our friend buddy Kennedy, speaking of cold, was very hot, actually. He has been hot offensively so far.

Six for 10 with two doubles, a triple, a walk, and no strikeouts this spring so far. He did unfortunately make two errors at second base today. And of course, defensively, that's probably where Kennedy is kind of being held back. We've always seen him be very productive at the dish. It's really just been his defense, unfortunately. That doesn't really allow him to remain even really in a backup role there for like that second base position. Yeah, I mean, the defense is, I don't know if that's ever going to be a plus necessarily for Buddy Kennedy. And offensively, you know, you've certainly had some moments in the big leagues last year.

But on the whole, you know, he's not necessarily a plus. offensive player. At least he hasn't shown himself to be that in the big leagues just yet. So trying to figure out if there's like a roster spot that could be had for Buddy Kennedy. I mean, he is six for ten with a few extra base hits and he hasn't struck out yet and looks really, really good at the dish so far in the Cactus League. Still a little hard to see how a roster spot would come together for him. He doesn't really play shortstop.

I think the debacks would probably need a guy who play shortstop in that extra infielder spot. You already know Christian Walker, Catele Martin, Josh Rojas, Evan Longoria, those guys are all going to make the roster. Probably only have room for one more infielder. You're probably going to need that guy to play shortstop. So that's kind of the main obstacle for Buddy Kennedy that I see right now. Kyle, thank you for the wonderful comment.

I appreciate that so much. And he asks how was Cattel's defense been looking? Very good. Actually, much better defensively than he has at the dish so far. But I don't feel like we have a lot of concerns for that. Like, it's almost like if he's going to say, slump and have struggles. Now is the time to do it. You know what I mean? Get on track before the season starts. But defensively, he's looked great. And that's something, I think that was the bigger

question mark for him this year is obviously how does he feel? Has he truly healed? And so far, that that all looks like it's a thumbs up. However, at the plate, he still is working on getting his timing back, I think. And he's working through some frustrations there. You don't necessarily worry too much about a Cattel or, you know, like a veteran player in spring training. I mean, Evan Longoria has looked frankly terrible at the plate. I mean, he's also recovering from being. Yeah, you know, he's out with strep throat. So, but yeah, like, I'm not looking at Evan Longoria, you know, striking out and grounding

into a double play yesterday and being like, oh, you know, he's way behind or anything. Like, like with veterans, you don't necessarily worry about that. I'm more looking for like changes in swings or different mechanical changes. changes that they've been or whatnot. If they look pretty much like the same guy, but the numbers don't look good, you're not necessarily too worried about that at this point. You know, it looks like the same guy as Corbyn Carroll. And when I say the same guy, I mean that streak of-

That streak of blur that just passed by you that lost his hat as he went because Corbyn Carroll triples remain the most entertaining aspect of Diamondbacks baseball. Him in general, just his speed remains one of the most entertaining aspects of Diamondbacks baseball, but he loses his hat every single time. He does. He's too fast for clothing, right? I'm surprised that he doesn't like, like, I'm surprised all the uniform and everything doesn't just rip off as he runs, you know?

He also lost his hat tracking down a fly ball in left field today. Oh. I have a theory that Corbyn Carroll loses his hat basically every time he moves. And I think we can get this down to a science because, you know, we talk about sprint speed. Yeah, yeah. We talk about all these different, you know, ways of measuring speed. Sports science. We should start measuring like how and when does Corbyn Carol lose his hat.

Right. Does he lose it between first and second base? Does he lose it between second and third base? I think there's some baseball savant metric there that somebody has yet to discover it. Maybe it'll be us, Derek. Maybe we'll find a way. Pugs and hugs gave us a super sticker. $1.99 says,

Shiba, a dog shaking his body from left to right, surrounded by red hearts. We love you. Love you, Shiba. Gabriel Ferrer says he's so fast he makes fast people look not fast, correct. Well said. He's so fast that his face looks like when you look at it in slow motion, it looks like he got hit in one of those power slap, you know, that show power slap. Like that's what it looks like and it's great and I love him for it.

Just a couple of other tidbits. Tori said that Madison Bumgarner could start this Sunday. Yeah, potentially this Sunday. He didn't commit to it. He said that this Sunday is a possibility. So we might see Mad Bum make his debut on that day, but nothing is, nothing is for certain just yet. And then Merrill Kelly might start on Friday. Would that be his last start before he joins Team USA after that point?

That's a good question. I don't know the answer to that. Because they're supposed to join the team on March 6th, I believe, right? Yeah, so it probably would be. His next, his last start. Yeah. And then we got. He'll start.

Yeah, tomorrow, Friday. Yeah. Merrill Kelly is slated to start tomorrow. and then you've got Brandon fought and Slade Shikoni for the split squad games on Saturday. What about Zach Gallen? Zach Gallen threw a sim game today out at Salt River Field. So the debacks continue to hide him on the back lot fields for the moment. And he's up past what the guys are throwing in live games are, right?

He's got three innings, 45 innings. I don't know if he actually completed three innings or if he reached 45 pitches and didn't complete three innings or what happened. But yeah, he was on like the three inning, 45. pitch limit today in that sim game. So when he does make his Cactus League debut, which should be relatively soon, we don't have a day on that yet. He should be built up already. So you'll likely see him throw either three, maybe even four innings in that game. And of course, every time that Gallen pitches, it's Galentine's Day. It is Galentine's. So you got to make sure to be ready for that. Of course, we thank you guys so much for being here in the chat. Thank you again for that super

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It did it. It was the thing. It happened. I'm so excited. So anyway, pick up all that stuff, become a member and join us today, become part of the family. Well, we were talking about this. We know that the Major League Baseball has been talking about it. Rob Manfred brought it up when we met with him,

but Major League Baseball is expanding its newly formed local media department, or as I'm calling them, the LMD, in preparation to start broadcasting games. I only want to say that because I know you haven't seen this show, but on the Goldbergs there's a group called the Janketown Posse, and they always say, GTP. So I imagine these guys all following around the head of the apartment, which is Billy Chambers, and then he introduces them, and then they all yell out, LMD!

But anyway, that's just what happens in my head. Major League Baseball announced three new hires on Wednesday, Doug Johnson, Greg Pinell, and Kendall Burgess, all with a tremendous amount of experience already broadcasting Major League Baseball games. They all come from either Bally Sports, Sinclair, or, honestly, AT&T, which is something that we're going to talk about as well, AT&T Sportsnet. So there's a lot of experience there being broadcast. in as MLB kind of ramps up this group to take over potentially broadcast games this season.

This is going to happen fast because there's kind of a new wrinkle here when it comes to Warner Brothers Discovery, which is, as you know, ruining HBO and all of our future, you know, streaming shows that we were going to get on that service. But they're also cutting fat elsewhere. And one of those areas where they might be cutting fat is that on Friday of last week, they announced they would be offering sporting rights on its three AT&T SportsNet regional sport networks. Back to the teams with a Chapter 7 liquidation filing possible after March 31st deadline. So those three teams are the Houston Astros, the Pittsburgh Pirates, and the Colorado Rockies. They also have a stake in Roots, which is currently owned by both AT&T Sportsnet and the Mariners

that broadcast Mariners game. So the Mariners would be affected here as well of this entire situation. Interestingly enough, this is all coming at the same time where they're already dealing with the Diamond Sports Group, basically missing their payment and now heading in a direction where they will file Chapter 11 bankruptcy. They might file. They might file. We think it's going to. I mean, come on. They have a 30-day grace period.

And Diamond Sports Group at this point, really, their only action is to basically try to restructure some of the eight-point. $6 billion in debt that they have and sell off what remains to whoever at that point would then, I don't know. Like Diamond Sports Group is probably going to dissolve. AT&T SportsNet will dissolve. These things probably won't exist anymore after all of this is said and done. But what does that mean for baseball and baseball taking over regional sports networks for now 18 teams?

Yeah, yeah, 18 teams. It really is crazy. Bally had 14 teams. I'll list those off just so that everyone knows real quick. We have the Diamondbacks, of course, the Braves, the Reds, Guardians, Tigers, Royals, Angels, Marlins, Brewers, Twins, Cardinals, Padres, Rays, Rangers. Those are all of the Bally sports teams that will likely be affected by this. And yeah, just given what we've seen, we still don't have any guarantees,

but it certainly looks like Major League Baseball is gearing up to do what we suspected they might have to do, which is step in and broadcast these games themselves. and make sure that fans are able to get access to broadcast for their teams in their local markets without some enormous shakeup, without blackouts, right? I can't even imagine the riots that would happen if you could. Could you imagine if you could get all the teams outside of your market? But they're doing all the broadcast. You can't watch your team.

But if you go on a little road trip, maybe you'll be able to. Got to drive 20 miles out of the city. Yeah, right. No, I don't think that will happen. It sounds like Major League Baseball will be able to broadcast games in local markets, make sure that fans still have access to their teams. Which is crazy. It's happening fast.

And to be honest, now with the addition of what Time Warner Discovery has done, or Warner, whatever they're called Warner Brothers Discovery. I don't know. They have kind of expedited the timeline here. I feel like based on what we saw and what we've discussed in the past with Diamond Sports Group, that that is. is going to take a lot longer to kind of play out. Whereas now they kind of have this March 31st deadline for them to come to an agreement

between the teams and Warner Brothers Discovery essentially on how to settle these accounts about SportsNet, AT&T SportsNet, RSNs. It's very complicated. There's a lot going on and not a lot of time for baseball to kind of move in. So that's why they are forming this group. I think it is a bit reassuring that they're bringing in guys with so much experience They just stole a few of the Valley Sports people. Yeah, they just literally took the top executives from Valley Sports and from AT&T and brought them over,

which makes this entire process so much easier because these people will know how to slide into the position. Not only that, but then they have kind of an insider idea about how the direction of these companies are going to go having come from them. I think that yes, they can't make public statements and yes, they can't confirm one thing or another. However, when you work for a company internally, you have the vibe. You know what's going on. Conversations are happening, especially considering these guys were all vice presidents and senior vice presidents and things like that. So of course, this is all going to be very interesting to see how it continues to play out,

especially. I think it wouldn't be interesting if it wasn't for this expedited timeline and the fact that the regular season is right around the corner. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is, I think we're going to get a resolution here relatively soon. I don't know exactly what day the ballet sports situation would be resolved, but it should be early in the season.

I don't think we'll make it too far before we have some sort of an answer there. I also want to make it clear that the reason that Warner Bros. Discovery is taking this action with their AT&D Sportsnet networks is that they don't have the money that they need in order to make the scheduled rights payments. That's what it comes down to for both of these companies. Yeah. It's not just a Diamond Sports Group. like, oh, they paid so much money, they overpaid.

And so they were doomed from the beginning, although those things are also true. Those are true. It's like, yeah, the S-R-Send thing is kind of on the struggle bus. And it's not just going to be, you know, those 14 teams that are, you know, Bally Sports Regional Networks. It's going to be some other teams that are that are affected by this too. And we're already seeing that. Look, it's not like they're just coming in and canceling this the same way they

canceled some of the, you. you know, HBO Mac shows that we're going to be, you know, taking place. But there's, there's a similar idea behind it. They're looking probably most likely at what's profitable. And it's hard to believe with how much these rights cost to broadcast the games that these divisions of these companies are profitable. So it's easy to come in and kind of look at that in a business way, in a non-objective way and just say that's not making us money.

We got to try to get rid of it. it makes sense because look if they're not going forward with such incredible shows as fuck boy island on uh hbo max then why would they ever go on broadcasting baseball games that's a real show is that a real show that's a real show that was going to happen yeah so uh anyway and they canceled that one they canceled that one that one's off the table you realize how bad of an idea it was probably probably but uh again it's business right and i think honestly at the end of the day this might end up proving to be an improved experience for people that love baseball. It might result in you being able to pay a very reasonable fee to watch your one baseball team,

not pay for the entire extra innings package or watch every baseball team, but watch your team that you want to watch and be able to stream it in a variety of ways in your home, on your phone, on the go, all of that stuff without having to pay different cost and have all these complications right now that people seem to be having. Yeah, I mean, I think there's a, route here for Major League Baseball to make this system better. Streaming is the future. I think we all understand that at this point.

And Major League Baseball has been in the streaming space for a long time. MLB.tv was kind of revolutionary when it first came out. I know you don't like me talking about WWE, but they did. Oh, here we go. WWE, when they created their network, they worked with MLB to basically learn. So, WWE did it after Major Baseball. Yeah, yeah. And they based it a lot on the infrastructure and the way.

that MLB set up their streaming service because it was a similar kind of idea of not only watching live events streaming but also being able to like go through a library of old clips and old games and stuff like that and also watch those, right? So that's what basically it's a similar concept as to what

WWE wanted for their service right? Yeah, but eventually they even abandoned it and they're just on Peacock now so they don't even have a network any longer. But MLB MLB is in a great position because honestly getting the regional those sports networks, right, it's all together and kind of fixing this blackout problem was

already on their agenda. And the way things are going, it's almost like this is working in their favor to get this all in-house and have control of it by the sport. Like, I don't know what's going to happen with Diamond Sports Group and who potentially buys it, how the rights are going to all play out or whatever. I'm sure baseball at the end of the day would love for someone to pay as much money as these companies were rather than having to broadcast it themselves. But there is, a great opportunity there. It does affect the Diamondbacks, though, because they're... $75 million a year. $75 million a year from Valley Sports, Arizona is not going to be there. And don't get me wrong. It's not like they're just going to go away without trying to get their cut of the pie one way or another.

Legal actions have to take place. They will. But that's still going to be either a temporary loss or just a loss straight up that the Diamondbacks are going to experience. Yeah, I don't think they have any guarantees of getting, you know, if they lose money, which it looks like they will. Oh, yeah. I don't, I don't think they're banking on recouping that money. Maybe they hope that in the future with whatever set up major league baseball comes up with or however this works, maybe they are able to make more money with, you know, the next arrangement here.

But in the meantime, the debacks are probably going to lose some of that 75 million and not get that back. So if you've lost that kind of money, can I offer you some OGs to maybe get over it? Maybe to everybody that's involved in this whole thing needs some OGs because holy shit. OGs are that powerful. Yeah, they really are. I mean, well, you know what, here's the thing, Jesse. They don't fix problems forever, but they fix problems for right now, right?

Like, if you want to get away. If you have eight figures of debt, you want to get away. It is no match. Yeah. You want to get away from your $8 billion in debt for just one afternoon. Have some OGs, you know? They have a wide variety of flavors and doses. Most importantly, the doses.

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some of the stony feelings that you might get from other edibles or even some of OG's edibles. Sometimes I like that. It's a feeling I dig, but not everybody does. So make sure if you don't, you try those strawberries and cream. They might be the exact thing you're looking for. And it's official. The OG's new strawberries and cream, happy balance gummies are live on shelves right now. As always, you can find them at your local dispensary by checking out OGsbrands.com. Must be 21 or over to enjoy. Four Peaks Brewing Company. Also, another way to escape from your problems when you owe $8.6 billion in debt. And of course, they have a wide variety of flavors and then beer drinks as well.

So get a strong beer and enjoy yourself. Be sure to follow them at Four Peaks Brew on Twitter to get all the latest on all of the fun stuff they're doing over at their A Street pub. The beer week is right around the corner. So make sure to check out their calendar at four peaks.com slash events. and for our friends at four peaks, they will be out at the M3F Festival, March 3rd and 4th, something Jesse and I know nothing about. But, of course, we know you guys are big electric music, electronic music. What is it?

What kind of music is it, Damon? EDM. EDM. EDM music. All right. See, I'm too old to know any of this stuff. But you guys aren't. So go out there and grab your tickets.

Grab your tickets for the M3FFS.com. and enjoy a wow wheat beer while you're there. Must be 21 years or older to enjoy and enjoy responsibly. We're about to get out of here. Of course, I'm going to give you my Draft King's pick of the week because it's Thursday, and I have a stacked NHL parlay for you guys. But we just want to let you guys know that steals are already up in baseball. So for all of you people that are against the pitch clock,

I just want you to know, you're wrong, period. That's all there is to it. There's no discussion. You're wrong. a two hour and four minute time a game and steals are up what's not to like about that yeah yeah i mean steals aren't up in the same uh as dramatically as as game times are down right right game times are down significantly uh three hours and one minute that was the average spring training game time last year this year at least entering wednesday according to jason stark we were at two hours

and 39 minutes so 22 minutes less um i love it that's 22 minutes of your life you get back, though. Yeah, so it's not as dramatic as that, but it is significant. I mean, last year, there were 0.77 still in base attempts per game in spring training games this year. Again, this was, I believe, entering Wednesday. That number was 1.07. So that's a pretty significant jump.

I mean, you're talking about almost a 40% jump. If you look at some years before that, last year was kind of weird. Like 0.77 was really low. low. So I don't know if this 1.07 is as dramatic of an increase as it as it looks like just comparing with last year. If you look at some years before, that's a little bit closer. But yeah, no matter which way you shake it, there's definitely an impact here. And it could just be that major league teams are kind of like, I don't know, trying out the new toy, like kind of seeing how it works with the pitch clock. Like how, you know, are they able to have more success

stealing bases. Maybe they're just more likely to experiment and try things out right now. Sure. So we'll have to see how it carries over to the regular season, but there's definitely something going on here. Well, and we know Tori still has a lot of questions, and Tori has told us on several occasions that he's trying to find ways to either get clarification on the rules and get major league baseball to kind of, I guess, reassess and let everyone know if something that happened in a spring training game happened correctly or if it was just a mistake in that game. Tori has been very big on them kind of doing a little case-by-case basis sometimes

on who had the last out. We talked about that with the catcher when Carson Kelly had to go back and put his gear on and stuff. But Tori, don't get it twisted. Tori is also looking for ways to exploit the rules. So if it comes down to it that they can find some sort of advantage

for this team, especially with the speed and the base stealing that this team has, Tori is fully on board with it. But he still doesn't seem to know at times, and I'm not saying he doesn't know, he's still unclear on what is allowable, what isn't, where they're trying to gain an advantage that Major League Baseball might come back, kind of like what we were talking about, where Major League Baseball was like, no, you cannot send a man in motion, right?

Like there are teams that might have tried that without asking, and then baseball would have had to be like, no, you can't do that. Stop doing that. Well, it's because Major League Baseball went to teams beforehand, and they were like, all right, how do you got to bring our rules? Put all your cards on the table. what do you got cooking what's on your mind yeah i would have held i'm like nothing i don't because there's no point in not there's no point in not being honest because if if teams

didn't say what they were going to try to do and then they came out and did it then major league baseball would be like all right well now we're going to make a rule that makes so you can't do that so uh i'm sure team stuff some stuff in their in their back pocket but they're they're probably you know the the ones that maybe they kept to themselves are the ones that they think that Major League Baseball isn't going to outlaw, you know, most likely. So, yeah, I think teams were relatively honest at the beginning. And, and that's why a lot of those, a lot of those conversations were already had. Yeah. And I think the thing about it is they're, they're like you, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, try to try to play the rules right down the middle.

Or honestly, if it comes down to it, you got to find a competitive advantage if that's the way the rules are going to allow you to go. The Diamondbacks do have a lot of competitive advantages when it comes to speed and there's a lot of things about these rules, especially the steals being up that makes me feel like the Diamondbacks are going to get some advantages when it comes to the way that they've set up the pitch clock, the disengagement and a lot of the things that pitchers are going to have to do. But we won't know until the season gets here and that's going to be a lot of fun to watch once we get there. Yeah. That's kind of what makes this whole thing with the youth of this team and the direction this team's going.

Very exciting team to watch. Like, we don't know if they're going to make the playoffs, but it feels very much so like we're going to see this team improve. We know we saw the talking baseball guys, apparently thought the Diamondbacks are going to win less games this year. But it's so weird because they're always tweeting about, you know, Corby Carroll. Jake. Yeah, what happened, Jake?

Yeah, what happened, Jake? You don't got her back anymore, Jake? Well, we thank you guys, of course, so much for being here. always thank you guys for being here. Before I let you go, I'm going to give you guys my Draft King's pick of the week. I did a five-team puck line parlay, but unfortunately a couple of those games have already started. I'm still giving it to you anyway. I took the St. Louis Blue, Chicago Blackhawks, Ottawa Senators, and Penguins,

all at plus one and a half goals for the puck line, which means that they either win or they lose by less than a goal. And I think that's going to happen with all of those. And I took the L.A. Kings at over a goal and a half on the puck line. That's a plus 1526. Wow. Plus 1526 value for a $20 bet. It's going to win you $325 plus.

I just put it together live right now, which you still can do on the drafting sportsbook app. There you go. And I got it with the boost at plus $2,400 with all of your stuff. Go. You can get the odds a little bit better right now. Wow. A couple of them are guessing one of those teams might be down at this point. Two of those teams are down a goal, but we only need them to lose by a goal.

We only need them to lose by one. That's all we need. Let's fucking go, y'all. Let's go. Get out on the Draft King's Sportsbook. Of course, we got the no sweat, same game parlayes for NBA. We got opt-in opportunities like this. This was a parlay boost.

Couldn't be a same game parlay, but a multiple game parlay. Sometimes if those boosts don't work, you just got to read all the little fine print because sometimes it's specific. Like today's boost was specifically for games on March 2nd, and they couldn't be same-game parlay. So make sure to keep an eye. out for all of those odds boost and win yourself some money over there. Download the app right now and sign up with code PHNX. New customers can bet $5 on the NBA and get $200 in bonus bets instantly.

Only at the Draft King's Sports Book and official sports betting partner of the NBA with code PHNX. Minimum age and eligibility restrictions apply. See show notes for details. Don't stop betting on the Sons. That's another thing. Suns, son, sons. Kevin Durant, Kevin Durant, let's go. He's only going to make Devin Booker better.

So, like, those points are going to go through the roof. They had 60 combined last night between those two and their first game together. Do you think Diamond Sports Group should maybe put some money on your Draft King's Pick of the Week? Maybe that, you know, gets the amount of hot water a little bit. How many billions would they have to bet in order for that parlay to pull off and bring them some money out? I would have so much respect. We're going to put $100 million on Derek's Draft King's Pick of the Week. And who knows?

We're going to try to make our payment. We're going to try to make our payment. And Valley Sports Arizona continues on for many, many years. One big weekend in Vegas. They come back and get all the sports networks, getting going again. Of course, again, we thank you guys so much for being here. You can follow us on Twitter. I'm at cap underscore caveman with a K.

This guy's at Jesse and Friedman. Our show is at PHNX underscore DVax. But of course, all roads lead to at PHNX underscore sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. We thank you guys again so much for. joining us on behalf of Damon, Jesse, and myself. We always appreciate your time. And remember, kids, baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun when you run so fast that your hat never stays on.