PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - MLB Hot Stove moves continue to improve the Arizona Diamondbacks’ outlook for 2023

Starting point is 00:00:02 Hello and welcome into another edition of the PHNX Debax podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Montia, occasionally known as a can of Arizona iced tea. It really does match your shirt. I look like to that. That's fine. It's accurate. This guy, I don't know what you'd be like a can of Coke or something. He's a tall drink of water is what he is.

Starting point is 00:00:30 Is this like the Dr. Pepper color? Yeah, it's Dr. Pepperish. Yeah. He's a pepper. and he's also a thunderstake. He's the Jesse Freebie. It's unfortunate because I personally think that Dr. Pepper tastes like carbonated

Starting point is 00:00:41 like medicine, you know, like Tylenol when you take it out of like when you're a kid and you drink like the liquid version of it. That's awful. Yeah, that's my opinion of Dr. Pepper. It's a slight step above that. That is what most sodas were at one point. Am I wrong?

Starting point is 00:00:55 Like they were when you look at the 1930s ads, they were usually made for some sort of as some sort of cure-all or to make you feel better or something before they were just known as sugar water, basically. I mean, that's essentially what they are now. Very expensive sugar water at times, of course. But this show is brought to you by the fine folks at the Drafking Sportsbook app. America's top-rated sportsbook app. Welcome in, everyone.

Starting point is 00:01:17 Thank you guys for being here. Yes, there is breaking news that Shintaro Fujunami has signed with the Oakland A's. I didn't really think that he was going to land here in Arizona, despite the fact that they were linked to him at one point, right? Yeah, yeah. I think that after the D-backs brought in Scott McGuff, which they did back in mid-December, it seemed a little bit far-fetched, honestly. It would be a bold move, frankly, to have two back-end relievers coming from overseas. There's just a lot of risk there.

Starting point is 00:01:47 I think Scott McGuff could be a great addition for the D-BACs bullpen, and I think, you know, Shantara Fujunami could have been as well. What really is interesting to me, though, Derek, is that apparently the A's are planning to use Fujimami in their starting rotation, which is not. something that most of the scouting reports that I've read about him say, you know, you could. You could use him as a starter. But he didn't throw that many innings last year. And he hasn't necessarily been used as a starter in his recent days overseas either. So that's a really bold move from the Oakland A's to come out and, you know, put him in that spot. Most teams seem to view him

Starting point is 00:02:23 as a reliever. There's no way for me to say this without it sounding like it's insulting the athletics, but is there, I mean, why are they even making moves? Like, it doesn't feel like they're trying very hard to even feel a baseball team. I mean, they sign, they signed Drew Rusinski. Like, they're just, they're signing, they're signing all these guys from over, like, that are kind of like wild cards, right? Like, like Rusinski, I think is actually really, he's really interesting, honestly. I wondered if the debacks might be interested in, in him. It kind of has a similar story to Merrill Kelly a little bit. Um, but yeah, this is, this is interesting Fujinami last year pitched in the Japanese equivalent of the minor leagues for 40 and two-thirds

Starting point is 00:03:02 innings last year. He also pitched 66 and two-thirds innings with the equivalent of the major leagues over there, the NPB. He had a 3.38 ERA with the NPB. He had a 1.77 ERA with their equivalent of the minor league. So pretty good numbers. The story with Fujinaami has been that the command has kind of come and gone over the years. In recent years, it's done a lot more going than coming. But this year, he sort of recovered that. And, you know, that's why he was posted by his team. And we don't know the contract details just yet.

Starting point is 00:03:35 But, yeah, I mean, it should be an interesting opportunity to see what he can do here in the States. And here's another thing is that, again, no knock on the Oakland A's because I know that they, again, are trying to still be a team. But we talked about them relocating. We talk about a lot of stuff. So I can only imagine how difficult it is to still try to run that team in a way as a front office where you are trying to continue to make them competitive and try to make them a better team when the outlook on them is so dusty. I mean, they've just gutted. I mean, they've just gutted, you know, like Sean Murphy obviously is not there. A lot of people don't feel good at all about the A side of that trade.

Starting point is 00:04:20 I think these might have gotten the worst part of that trade. Maybe the Brewers won that trade when it's all said and done. But yeah, they've gutted a lot of their marquee players, the players that they seem to be building around. But, I mean, yeah, they're bringing in guys like Fujinami who are interesting. I mean, I'm fascinated to see what Fujinami looks like in a big league rotation. There's a lot of different things that could happen. The A's don't necessarily, you're not going to know exactly what you're going to get here. But yeah, I mean, he was compared to showyotani, you know, when he was in high school.

Starting point is 00:04:52 So for whatever, for whatever that's worth, it was a long time ago. But not a bad comp. Brett says this is basically just another regular offseason for Billy Bean. Well, you know, they definitely have their type at times and they go after their type. And this is Shantaro Fujunami. His main default is that he used to be like showayotani but isn't anymore. So they're going to see if they can get him back to that point. another guy that had a major default, and it's now with his team, is Carlos Correa,

Starting point is 00:05:22 because his physical with the twins is somehow complete. Are we sure? I don't know. Do we know? I don't know. It seems like a six-year deal with Minnesota is official and is going to be made official shortly. I still don't believe it's going to happen. I still think his value is going to plummet, and he's going to somehow end up as an Arizona

Starting point is 00:05:39 Diamondback, but that's just... You just know the Detroit Tigers are just waiting to swoop in right now. They really are. Speaking of which, Edwin, you said, a friend of the Diamondbacks ended up there after being DFAed by Arizona. Another guy that has moved on that we are so thankful

Starting point is 00:05:57 to see move on is Brandon Belt from the San Francisco Giants. He signed a deal with the Toronto Blue Jays and he can no longer hurt us. Jesse, looking at his stats, Brandon Belt, he does have some teams that he's played obviously much less frequently that he has

Starting point is 00:06:13 a better batting average against. He does tend to really torture the Colorado Rockies in all of his plate appearances. But a Thorne in the Diamondback side for years nonetheless, a 272 career hitter with an 834 OPS in basically a full season almost against the years on the Diamondbacks. Yeah, 552 games. Yeah, 595 played appearances, 20 homers, 68 RBIs. Honestly, looking at these numbers, I was surprised they weren't better. Yeah. Brandon Bell is just, I think it might be that he's just had a lot of big hits against the D-backs.

Starting point is 00:06:48 Like there have just been a lot of big late-game home runs that really shifted the outcomes of some key games over the years. And I think that's what we all have in our heads when we think about Brandon Bell. But yeah, I mean, 272, 365, 469, nothing wrong with those numbers. He still, you know, has been better against the D-backs in his career than against the rest of the league. So I don't think D-Backs fans will be too, too, too sad to see Brandon Bell moving to the far-off American League east.

Starting point is 00:07:17 He's basically hitting just below what he would hit against the average, what is that, pitchers above 500, below 500. But he's right there just tormenting the Diamondbacks. And I mean, realistically, one thing we've talked about is the moves that the debacks have made this offseason and how satisfied. Yesterday we brought up how satisfied we both kind of were with the moves they made. It's hard not to be. I mean, you don't expect a lot out of this team.

Starting point is 00:07:45 and I think they delivered in the ways that we expected them to improve. I think they exceeded those expectations. And if you want to throw the rumors and the free agents that they were attached to, it was much bigger names than we thought that they would be offering a deal to. But one of the biggest things that might improve the outlook for the 2023 season might just be the number of players that moved on from the NL West. Now, Jacob and I were talking today about how the Diamondbacks just won't be playing the NL West nearly as much as they have in the past.

Starting point is 00:08:20 If you go back and look at their losses last year, especially their records against the Dodgers and the Padres, there were a lot of losses to those two teams in particular. Now, what, they have 13 games against them this season. Just like Brandon Belt can't hurt us anymore. The NL. West can't really hurt the Diamondbacks as badly anymore. But if you want to look within the NL West, there are a lot of big names that have left.

Starting point is 00:08:43 A lot of names that, again, much like Brandon Bell, are kind of thorns in the side to the Arizona Diamondbacks. Cody Bellinger no longer here. Carlos Correa, not in the NL. West. Trey Turner, Brandon Belt, Justin Turner, Joey Gallo, Tyler Anderson, Will Myers, Drixon Pro Farsall's and Signed, but hopefully he goes to. Sean Maniah, Josh Bell. There's just a bunch of names here that have left the NL West.

Starting point is 00:09:07 And yes, there have been some key additions, but it doesn't feel like as many as we have seen our rivals pick up in the past during free agency or during the office. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's all, it's a lot of this is because of the Dodgers, right? I mean, they've just, they've led a lot of guys walk and they brought in Noah Cindergarde on a one-year deal and, you know, J.D. Martinez on a one-year deal. And other than that, they just haven't done that much. They seem to be in a kind of a season of transition where they're looking to give some of their young guys some more opportunity.

Starting point is 00:09:39 They're trying to stay under the luxury tax threshold as well. so that, you know, maybe they're looking to get back into the market a little bit more aggressively next winter. But, yeah, for this offseason, the Dodgers have been quiet. And, you know, they're often the source of a lot of a movement that happens in the NOS. The Padres, you know, did the Xander Bogart's thing, which was a big move. I mean, that's a big addition to the NOS. But the Padres haven't been maybe quite as aggressive as we've seen them be in the past as well. They haven't made as many moves as we're used to seeing A.J. Preller make.

Starting point is 00:10:14 every offseason. And they have to be a bit satisfied with the way things are lining up for them right now as it stands, right? So it's kind of like you can't continue to make moves. Sometimes it's baffling how teams like the Padres continue to add. We get used to it to the point that when they don't, like the Dodgers are doing right now, we're kind of shocked. We talked about the Dodgers payroll and how it's just under that first initial threshold right now as it stands for the competitive balance tax. Maybe that's their plan. Maybe their key is to maybe take this, maybe take this one year off and just see how some of the young prospects can maybe flourish at a major league level.

Starting point is 00:10:49 I think we can say that pretty confidently that that is sort of what they're what they're looking to do. And yeah, with the Padres, like frankly, they didn't need to do much. I mean, they're just utterly loaded. And I think Zips, I think had them as being the best team in baseball record wise, as far as their projections for, for 2023 are concerned. So, yeah, this isn't to say the NOS sucks or anything like that. No, we would never say that.

Starting point is 00:11:16 It's still a pretty miserable place for the diamondbacks to slot in. But yeah, the silver lining here is that the Padres appear to have maybe taken a step back. And outside of adding one of the best free agents in baseball, the Padres didn't do much, which I guess is good. So there you go. We need to take a second and really acknowledge Charles Woodall Pike's comment here. It is. It is excellent. Charles Wittell Pike said Canada needed a belt to help hold.

Starting point is 00:11:44 all the tools. And I don't think a more perfect reply could have been uttered or written in the responses. So thank you for that. Charles, good of the man. But yeah, it, like you said, it's, it's by no stretch of the imagination is it that the NL West is going to be less competitive. It's just nice to see a lot of the great players in this division go elsewhere spread some of that, you know, kind of talent around the league and not have it concentrated against teams that the Diamondbacks have to play with such frequency. Right. Now, of course, though, that this happens, you know, during a year when they're not going to

Starting point is 00:12:19 play the NLS nearly as much, but that's fine. It's fine. The future, though, really is exciting when you look. And yes, I know, I do look like a can of Arizona iced tea. I just, I can't avoid looking this way, but I'm fine with it. Most of the time, I'm a snack. So I'm okay with being a drink today. This is the kind of quality content you get from watching this show.

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Starting point is 00:15:22 And, of course, we like giving feedback. We have been doing our best to make sure that all of the current Arizona Diamondbacks players and even some of the ones that are no longer with the team get their 2020 to season grades. And it is time for another edition of that as we are grading our friend and Young King, Alec Thomas's 2000 and 22 season. I guess you could say that he had a very hot debut. I don't feel like that first month was very exciting. It very much felt like Alec Thomas was going to stick around.

Starting point is 00:15:55 And even as the season progressed, he went through his ups and downs, still felt like he was going to just stay a part of the Major League roster. That doesn't happen very often. Just due to options, initial playing time, trying to work on some things. Minor league players don't typically get to like come up to the major league roster and just stay. It's a normal thing for them to go through the progressions of being sent back down and coming back up and all of that. I am not really worried about how Alec Thomas ended his season, particularly I think that they really did just want to try to get him some more work and try to get some of his approaches at the plate maybe corrected.

Starting point is 00:16:31 But there were some things to talk about with his 2022 season. And Jesse, I will let you have the floor first. Okay, all right. Yeah, we can put my grades up there for our young king, Alec Thomas. As far as his hit tool is concerned, I'm going with a C-minus here. I think it's interesting that, you know, you can look at Alec Thomas's numbers for the season, and you're like, oh, man, this guy kind of struggled in his rookie year, right? You know, he had 231, 275 on base, 344, slugging percentage.

Starting point is 00:17:02 Those numbers aren't great. but as you just said, Alec Thomas was actually pretty good for quite a while. It wasn't just, you know, a couple weeks or something. His offensive numbers were average or above, as far as I can tell, through about August 7th. And he made his debut on May 8th. So for about three months,

Starting point is 00:17:22 Alec Thomas was a league average, actually above league average hitter for the majority of that time. And then, you know, from August 7th on through the end of the season, you know, that's when he got sent down and the wheels just kind of came off. But yeah, I'm going C-minus for the hit tool here. Alec Thomas does put the ball in play a good amount, but he hits a lot of ground balls.

Starting point is 00:17:46 And that was sort of the main issue there. His power, I'm going with a C-minus as well. He kind of showed it early on. I think it's always going to be a little more gap to gap for Thomas than maybe home run power. But that's certainly a tool that he has that, you know, hopefully will develop over time. one of the better base runners on the team not necessarily stolen base wise but i'm going b plus uh on run

Starting point is 00:18:09 he was a gold glove finalist in center field so can't really go anything other than at least an a as far as his fielding goes durability i'm going a um he was durable the entire season hasn't really had any major injury issues so far in his young career and then dogging him derrick i'm going to b plus because that just that just feels that just feels right why are you saying that's like are you saying low? Yeah, I'm saying that's low. I want you to justify giving him a B plus. I want to know how he missed.

Starting point is 00:18:37 I think that the dog in him was clearly A plus out of the gate. Like it was, it was clearly there from day one, you know, that sweet, like opposite field double off the wall. That was his first big league hit. You definitely saw it there. Some of those gold glove plays. Some of those gold glove plays. And then as the season went on, you know, I think that the dog in him, you know, it turned

Starting point is 00:18:57 into a puppy. I don't know. Does that make any sense? Wow. But I, but I think it's, you know, I think there's. a Great Dane deep, deep down in there somewhere that is, that is going to come out in the 2023 seasons. Great Dane's might be big, Jesse, but they're very docile.

Starting point is 00:19:10 So I'm going, I'm going, there's a chow inside of that man. There's a chow. Okay. But let's throw my grade up there because I'm not too far off from where you were at. B minus, I think, for his hit, just because he did show a lot of promise. He had very high maximum exit velocity. But like you said, with the power, I can't go higher than a C. overall his average exit velocity was below league average.

Starting point is 00:19:36 He struck out a lot, a high strikeout rate. So just a couple of things there. Things that he could clean up, though, things that, of course, with experience, Michael in the chat says Alec Thomas is a player, but I look forward to seeing how they handle a world with no shifts. That's something very much I'm looking forward to when he comes to Alex Thomas. I don't think the power is really there. I don't think he's going to be a power guy,

Starting point is 00:19:58 but I think he is going to get on base a lot. And that's a lot of the reason why you see A's all down the rest of that card after the hit, hit tools and the power. Run 95th percentile for sprint speed. And, you know, fielding 92 percentile for outs above average. We saw him. The only thing that he gets graded lowly on is his outfielder jump, which Dalton Varshows was just incredible by comparison. I think it still shows, though, that like even with him not. being ranked very high on his jump, that he can still make some plays.

Starting point is 00:20:36 He's got some range. If he can improve that, like, that's a reaction thing. That's a, you know, knowing off the bat where the ball's going and how quickly to get started on your horse to get there. But I think he can get there. And he just shows his natural ability to do so. Durability A didn't have a lot of injury issues. And I'm giving him an A plus for dog in him.

Starting point is 00:20:55 And the reason why is, I think, the reasons that you stated without saying he fell off at the end. I understand that, again, there's some concerning numbers here for Alec Thomas, but he's still 22 years old. And I couldn't imagine him having the season that he had last year at 22. I still think he was a guy that we even questioned if we might see him. I think we projected to see Alec Thomas more like we saw Corbyn Carroll late in the year, maybe an addition. But But he ended up being a vital part of this team last year. Yeah. I think also his ability to go out there and, you know, play center field in a way that makes him, that won him the job pretty easily.

Starting point is 00:21:42 Pretty quick. Obviously there's going to be some guys that fill in for him, especially with the outfield that they've put together this season. But I feel like that job is going to be his. And I think he earned it. I really do think that he earned it. I'm excited to see his progression this year, like Michael said. there's just a lot of things there that I feel like he's still learning about the game and improving on. I think that Corbyn Carroll will probably see some similar things this year.

Starting point is 00:22:09 I mean, not everything's going to go great with Corbyn Carroll in 2023. And not everything's going to go great without Thomas either. I mean, his future still seems very bright. The fan graph projections aren't great. What do we got? We got a line of 262, 320. 420 with a 0.8 wall 11 home runs and 65 rbi i that's honestly a pretty decent batting i mean that's a really not terrible right that's a substantial step forward from where we're out i mean

Starting point is 00:22:39 if alec thomas does that and he plays center field the way that he did last year he's a lot more than a what did it say 0.6 war zero point eight zero point eight well yeah i mean he was he was worth uh at least according to baseball reference, he was worth like 1.5 war last year already because he's, I mean, he's one of the best center fielder's in baseball. So if you could even get just like league average offense from Alec Thomas with his defense, he's, he's a three war player, I think at least, just based on that. They don't, they don't need Alec Thomas to, you know, bat 300 or have an 850, 875 OPS or anything like that. He could be a really good player if he's just able to, you know, maintain what he was for the first three months of the year, really.

Starting point is 00:23:22 If he just stays that player, he's going to be one of the better centerfielders in baseball just by virtue of how good he is defensively. And I think, like you said, everybody's going to have a role on this team to play. You know what I mean? They don't really necessarily need him. They'd probably like his on-base percentage to be higher. You know, that's probably one thing that would be great. Less strikeouts, more walks.

Starting point is 00:23:44 He actually, I think his strikeout rate wasn't actually bad. I think 18% was his strikeout rate, which is a little bit lower than league average. I think Michael mentioned in the comments that his chase rate was 33%. So there was some chasing out of the zone. But he generally has pretty good bat to ball skills. The issue, as I alluded to earlier, is that a lot of times the ball ends up on the ground. He's in the 14th percent off for walks too. So that's another thing.

Starting point is 00:24:11 He doesn't walk much. He doesn't walk or strike out much. He's putting the ball in play. But he's not making super hard contact, as you talked about earlier. and he had a 58% ground ball rate, which among players who had 400 or more played appearances last year, that was the second highest in baseball, trailing only Christian Yellich,

Starting point is 00:24:34 which is interesting. If you're wondering how Christian, yeah, I mean, if you're wondering, like, how did Christian Yelich go from being a superstar to being kind of a mid-level offensive player, it's because he's hitting the ball on the ground way too much. And that's kind of what Alec Thomas' biggest flaw was last year as well. And honestly, he's not the only one.

Starting point is 00:24:56 I mean, when you look across the board, there were, you know, that was a running problem with several guys that were struggling offensively. Yeah. Citell Marte is another one of those guys. So let's see what another season does for these guys. And honestly, I don't know. There's not a lot of changes here, but I feel like what, you know, what we really could see is young guys like Alec Thomas,

Starting point is 00:25:17 you know, improve past these projections. And if we could get a return for guys like Marte, if we could even get Melanson to be a bit more of what he was, not necessarily the closer, but somebody that can be of value in the bullpen. Like it's weird, but just those two guys kind of getting back on track for the type of players, we've seen them be in the past,

Starting point is 00:25:37 could single-handedly set this team up for more success in 2020. Yeah, Jim makes a great point in the comments. Alec Thomas is an anti-3 true outcome guy, which is sort of refreshing in some ways, right? There's a lot of baseball players who are all about, you know, the walks, the strikeouts and the home runs. Alec Thomas is, is none of those things. And I think there's also, you know, with the pitch clock, with the restrictions on disengagement

Starting point is 00:26:03 for pitchers coming in 2023, we could maybe see Alec Thomas run a little bit. It's not something he's done a whole lot of in the past. But, I mean, you mentioned his 92nd percentile sprint speed or whatever it is before. That's the kind of sprint speed that could. probably play on the base paths. So it'll be interesting to see if Thomas is a little bit more aggressive in that regard in 2023. And if he does,

Starting point is 00:26:28 we're taking him to Mavericks for some bowling into Octane Raceway to race some go-karts. How many stolen bases does he have to have in order for you to take him to Octane raceway? One more than he had last year. One more? That's all any improvement on last year's. Wow. You're actually setting the bar pretty low. How many is he got?

Starting point is 00:26:44 I think he had four, I want to say. Come on. See? Get your shit together. Get five stolen bases. and we can go ride some go-carts. Let's get it together. He had four. Yeah, see?

Starting point is 00:26:52 This is how you reward people. You do it by taking them the Mavericks and Octane Raceway. You dangle that carrot out there. Watch, he'll have eight. We'll see. But anyway, you can use that yourself as any kind of motivation for your kids, for your spouse, whoever you want to get out of the house. Whoever you want to do something, tell them you'll take them to Mavericks.

Starting point is 00:27:11 And that's the reward because, especially on Wednesdays, which is the day that we're talking right now, it's winning Wednesday. And it's half-price arcade games all day long. What better day to go than on Wednesday? So make sure to check them out. It is the only full year indoor, outdoor racetrack. So where else are you going to get? Not to mention it's a great place to spend the Super Bowl.

Starting point is 00:27:33 There are Super Bowl packages, including food, game cards, laser tag, and more. They have gigantic screens everywhere you look. There's so much fun to do. If you want to watch the game, but you know the people that are coming to your party aren't, they're just going to talk and eat stuff and whatever. It's a further place to go. Let them go do their thing and you watch the game.

Starting point is 00:27:50 But enjoy the Super Bowl experience at Mavericks. Book in advance right now at mavericks.com backslash the big game. And also take your kids there. It's a great place to take your kids and have a blast. Take the whole family. Friends.

Starting point is 00:28:03 It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. If you want to have a fun time, you can do it at Mavericks and Octane Raceway. Jesse, we're all about having fun too. We are. We don't do it just when we go to Mavericks

Starting point is 00:28:13 and me and this guy play zombie shooting games together. We have fun. on the internet because fan graphs. Dan Zimborski has way too much fun on the internet and we just get to laugh at his hijinks. But of course, we talked about his fan graph projections. That's the numbers side of things. But on the AI side of things, Zimborski is a delight. He loves artificial intelligence as we've talked about in the past.

Starting point is 00:28:37 And just recently, he released an incredible list of baseball click bait headlines, created by AI. And the list is incredibly long. We wanted to put it up on a graphic. You wouldn't have been able to see anything. No, there's way too many of them in way too little space. But the point is, is that Jesse and I want to click on every single one of these headlines. They are the clickbaitiest clickbait headlines.

Starting point is 00:29:03 And the thing that makes me sad is that there is no article attached to a clickbait headline like every baseball bat ever. What does that even mean? Just every bat. How long is that article? That is the long article. Oh, my God. Yeah, the most important reason you should always put condoms in your baseball cap.

Starting point is 00:29:25 What? I don't know. That's terrifying. Like, of course, of course, we are not without Arizona Diamondbacks-related headlines. And we have this one. Let me ask you this. Can you not click on an article entitled Why Madison Bumgardner is literally the life of every part? Ah, why? I need that. I need an answer to that.

Starting point is 00:29:51 I just love that like the neural network somehow, somehow new to come up with that. And it's like the most perfect thing ever. The neural network knew enough about Madison Bumgarner to know that that would be a hilarious headline. If you plug in a lot of players there, that's not nearly as enticing of a headline. Here, well, let's try it. Why Zach Gallon is literally the life of every party? It's not as interesting. But why Madison, Bunmore?

Starting point is 00:30:15 Madison, imagine if it said Mason Saunders. Holy shit. Oh my God. We have, let's see, we've got Aaron Judge

Starting point is 00:30:21 could punt for the Mets. We have, every Oakland-A's starter is better than your team's ace, which is a hot take. Very much a hot take. We have three shoulder surgeries, one team,

Starting point is 00:30:35 one prediction. Ooh, three shoulder surgeries, one team, one predict. Tyler Malley looks like an accountant. Which is fair.

Starting point is 00:30:44 That's true. That's just subjectively true. These five players are most likely to murder a goat. Yeah. You tell me, Michaela Perkins isn't going to click on that headline about murder and murdering a goat. That's a surefire way to gain her interest. But of course, we thank Dan so much because between his AI images, his AI clickbait headlines and everything else he gives us from the neural network. He's just great with robots in general.

Starting point is 00:31:11 He is great robots. He knows how to program a computer to do some great things. He should be involved in the umpires, the robot umpires, right? In some way? I don't know. Yeah, we need the neural network to call balls and strikes. That would really be something. What would they even call them?

Starting point is 00:31:24 I couldn't even imagine what names they would come up with them. But we do have an update to a previous story that also we find hilarious. Our friend of the show, Jack Ramsey, Mets blogger, officially doesn't have to eat a Rav4 anymore due to the Carlos Correz. I mean, I am an advocate for Ravs. But I did really want to see how this would materialize for me. I still think the cake was the best way to go with it. But again, Jack, I don't know what to say. You know, he said he said he would eat a Ravre for if Carlos Cray has signed with the Mets.

Starting point is 00:31:57 And he is in fact not signing with the Mets. So I guess, I don't know. I don't like the fact that he really lucked out, honestly. I'm kind of bad. I'm kind of bad. I'm pretty sure, like, we were dumbfounded on yesterday's show. Why are the New York Mets even backing out of this, right? Like if Steve Cohen is willing to spend all this money, it just seems odd that, you know, for whatever reason he, you know, he wanted to be able to negotiate more than he was actually able to.

Starting point is 00:32:22 Curry winds up with the twins instead. I'm pretty sure that the actual reason the Mets passed up on Carlos Correa was just so that Jack Ramsey would no longer have to do this outrageous thing that he promised to do. Steve Cohen saw that. And, you know, he had some sympathy. And he was like, you know what, for the betterment of Jack Ramsey, we're going to back off. We're going to let Carlos Crea become a twin. Did he do it for Jack or did he do it on behalf of Ravours? That's fair.

Starting point is 00:32:48 Yeah, yeah. Ravours are the other big winner. Ravre four is the real victim here. Let's be honest. And a completely innocent Ravreya was going to be eaten by a human over, you know, a signing of a free agent. Like, that's not fair. I mean, in my mind, it depends on what generation of Ravore we're talking about. Because, I mean, the third gen, which is the one that I have, we can't.

Starting point is 00:33:10 There can be no destruction. There will be no harming of any third-gen. I will not have any of that. Which one is going on the fire? Which one are you putting in the dump? I mean, I think the first-gen, I wish we had screenshots of these. The first-gen-Rab 4 is really cute. It's very adorable.

Starting point is 00:33:24 It is. My mom wanted one back when it first came out. Yeah, it's the kind of SUV that can only be described as cute. Adorable, if you will. Adorable, yeah. Which is a conflicting place for an SUV to fall in the spectrum because they're supposed to be like kind of, you know, like the tough guy car. And the first gen is not that.

Starting point is 00:33:43 There aren't that many first genes that still are capable of driving around. So if we have to burn something, I guess that's probably the one that would make the most sense. Brian McDowell asks out better, Rabs, Rabs fours or baseball teams? Who backs out? Interesting, interesting. You drive one. Does the rap four? I mean, it works.

Starting point is 00:34:03 Yeah, the reverse does work. But it tells you why it's backing out instead of it just. being a mystery. Usually you're behind the backing out of it, right? So I'm going to go with the RAV-4 backs out there. The RAV-4 backs out better. It listens to instructions better than some baseball teams probably do. So there you go.

Starting point is 00:34:23 Of course, tomorrow we have so much more to talk about. The odds are out for awards on Draft King's Sportsbook app. And we are going to talk all about Corbyn Carroll and being a favorite for the rookie of the year as we knew he was. We already knew that. We didn't need an app to tell us. us that. But make sure to join us. In the meantime, you can follow us on Twitter. I'm at Kap underscore KVammy. Jesse is at Jesse and Friedman. Our show is at PHNX underscore D-Backs. But of course,

Starting point is 00:34:50 all roads lead to at pHNX underscore sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. We thank you guys. Again, so much for joining us here in the chat. On behalf of Leah, Jesse, and myself, we always appreciate your time. And remember, kids, baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun when Dan Zimborski makes things with the artificial intelligence network.

PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - MLB Hot Stove moves continue to improve the Arizona Diamondbacks’ outlook for 2023

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