PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - MLB Insider: D-backs CANNOT Add Alex Bregman Without Trading Ketel Marte

Episode Date: January 8, 2026

As we count the days until Mike Hazen shuts down trade calls on Ketel Marte, Bob Nightengale reports that the Diamondbacks will not be able to add Alex Bregman without first moving their All-Star second baseman. We break down the financial reality behind the report, why it actually makes sense, and why we’re perfectly happy moving forward with Marte still in a D-backs uniform. We also dive into The Athletic’s report on the growing uncertainty surrounding local TV rights for nine MLB teams in 2026, ESPN delaying carrying local broadcasts until 2027, and how these television deals could dramatically impact payrolls across the league. Plus, we explain why Brandon Pfaadt is poised for a breakout season in 2026, and why we might never be able to watch the latest Knives Out mystery ever again.JOIN THE SUPPORTERS CLUB ➡️ https://tinyurl.com/yc6km2r4An ALLCITY Network ProductionSUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsportsMERCH https://store.allcitynetwork.com/collections/phnx-lockerALLCITY Network, Inc. aka PHNX and PHNX Sports is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by the City of PhoenixPHNX Events: Get your tickets to PHNX events and takeovers here: https://gophnx.com/events/Phoenix Raceway: Get your tickets now for March 5-8! https://www.phoenixraceway.com/march-cup-weekend/?CID=PIR_DI_TP_BA_PHNX26Spring_251120ALLCITY — including us here at PHNX — is teaming up with Big Brothers Big Sisters of America for an exciting three-year partnership. To learn more, visit https://www.bbbs.org/allcity/Branded Bills: Use code BBPHNX at https://www.brandedbills.com/ for 15% off your first order!Husband & Wife Law Team: If you’ve had a serious injury, Call The Husband & Wife Law Team first at 602-783-8841 or visithttps://husbandandwifelawteam.com/?utm_source=allcity-padcasts&utm_medium=digital-phx&utm_campaign=allcityShowNotesbet365: https://www.bet365.com/hub/en-us/app-hero-banner-1?utm_source=affiliate&utm_campaign=usapp&utm_medium=affiliate&affiliate=365_03485317 Use the code PHNX365 to sign up, deposit $10 and bet $5 to get $150 in bonus bets!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/Gametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply.Shady Rays: 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.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!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 pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Well, according to reports, we can't have both Alex Bregman and Catele, so we're going to have to talk about which one we want more. Just kidding. Catell, you're not going anywhere. Don't you guys go anywhere? We're talking about this situation and a messy situation with the TV rights deals in 2026. On the other side of this, we're starting in 30 seconds. And welcome in to another edition of the PHNXD Backs podcast,

from Studio K, presented by our friends in Circle K. It is I, your mayor of PHNX Occasionally known as Derek Monta Thrilled to have you guys here Thrilled to be here For another day of Of course, Catel Marte and Alex Breaker rumors I'm thrilled to be here

With our guy Damon Dog AK. Damon Farrell On the ones and twos, Damon, I know in this case, you're not strong arming me to talk about Cotel Marte rumors But I do know that overall

We still can't seem to avoid them. Are you all right over there? Yeah. Well, of course, this show is brought to you by me right now. Being excited about the Diamondbacks, hopefully doing something soon, and we're hoping that that thing is not trade Cattel Marte. We also have some news on Alec Thomas, agreeing to a deal to avoid arbitration, as well as this whole situation with the Cubs still being very active. The Cubs acquired Edward Cabrera from the Marlins, who had himself. an incredible year, one of the best years of his career, going 8 and 7, 3.533 ERA in a career high,

137 and 2 thirds innings pitched with 150 strikeouts. The Cubs gave up quite a bit for him. They gave up prospects outfielder Owen Casey or Cassie. I'm not sure exactly how to pronounce his name. I'm probably blowing that. That would be the Chicago Cubs top outfield prospect. Infielder Christian Hernandez, the one they're hitting prospects, and another young infield prospect in

Edgar de Leon. So again, maybe not a haul, but quite a few really good prospects. And again, Marlins, who are a young team that are still building what they have going on over there, tradeaway one of their better pitchers here, one of their best pitchers, in fact.

Just interesting to me how the dynamic shifts a little bit. Again, we've been a little worried about what teams in the National League are going to improve and caused the Diamondbacks even more problems getting into the playoffs. It would appear that the Marlins, with the acquisition of Pete Fairbanks, taking him away from me and Damon, was a move to make that team even better and kind of help out with some of their bullpen issues that they had in 2025. However, you know, again, trading one of their better starters away kind of is a little bit

of a confounding move, but the Cubs get better, and that's still a problem for the Diamondbacks here in the National League. Again, when you take a look at some of the trades like this being made, it's almost like some of the free agent deals where you got to wonder if you want to give up this much for, you know, for someone like Edward Cabrera. I feel like the Diamondbacks, you know, the focus has been on the idea of trading Catellmarty, but the Diamondbacks have plenty of good prospects when it comes to their system. And perhaps, you know, some of these, I guess, you know, some of these position shortages or positions they still need to. Phil could come via trading those prospects. I just don't know how fans would feel about that. I don't know how I'd feel about that with a lot of guys in our system, especially some of

the guys that we still haven't had a chance to see very in a Diamondbacks or more importantly a Reno Aces or Sod Poodle's uniform for very long, like Cole Drake. Really like that guy. Interesting to see. But the Cubs apparently are still very much in on other free agents, including Alex Breggman and the Diamondbacks also as you may have heard a million times on this podcast are one of the teams that are still also in on Alex Breggman it would appear the Toronto Blue Jays they are now out and so we have a final four standing here for for Breggman services we have Red Sox

Diamondbacks, Cubs and the Tigers who are still apparently in on Breggman as a speculated landing spot. But overall here, we had Buster only floating out the possibility that the Red Sox might be willing to do something similar to a six-year, $171.5 million offer, which the Tigers made to Bregman last winter. And there's no firm reporting at all about the Red Sox and what they have put on the table. Only the notion that the Red Sox could go long-term. And again, that's only seems speculative overall, right? We do know that the Red Sox got aggressive when it comes to making a push for Breggman. But now what we're being told, as far as the Diamondbacks are concerned, that that Breggman move cannot happen without Cotell Marte being traded. Now, there's more reasons to this

than just payroll, right? It's more that the huge addition of Alex Breggman is going to cause the diamondbacks to not be able to spend another dime in free agency. So the idea here is that a trade for Cotell Marte would need to bring in the other pieces that this team feels will make them competitive in 2026. And that's proving to be difficult. Bob Nightingale had two blurbs about the diamondbacks this week. The first one was on Monday. This one, this is not, we got a quote graphic here, but this is the other one. Or this is the first. Let's do this one first. No, it's my bad.

The Arizona Diamondbacks have expressed interest in Bregman, but club executives make it clear that he'd be an option only if they're able to trade All-Star Second Baseman, Cattel, Marte. They want to lower payroll this season and simply don't have room in the budget for both players. I don't like the way that's worded because I feel like my, again, this is just me speculating, but I feel like my idea here is probably more the reason why they would need to trade Catele Marte. It's not that they don't have the room in the budget for both players. They can simply say yes and make that decision and have the room in the budget for both players.

The Diamondbacks are just in a unique position financially specifically, right? They are one of six teams who have their television rights currently held by Major League Baseball. and we are going to talk about that mess here shortly. But again, that revenue sharing model that the Diamondbacks are currently part of due to the MLB holding their rights is different and does not guarantee them money to spend in the same way that a television contract that other teams have in place would guarantee them money to spend. But overall, I don't think that this is, like I said, about Alex Braggman's contract and Cotel Marte's contract, considering Cotel Marte's contract, considering Cotel Marte, the hit on the payroll, again, if I'm not mistaken, is less than $15 million. It's more about the fact that they would need to move Marte to fill the rest of the roster. To complete this team, make it a competitive team.

And if they don't make it a competitive team, then what's the point of going out there and spending this kind of money on Alex Brigman? Right. There's like a series of things here. It's also the reason why this team with Corbin Burns still as a part of it can't really just blow off this season and consider doing some sort of rebuild with this team or with this franchise. It's because you already have money invested in a guy who's not going to be here very long and you want to try to maximize his performance, his time here as a starting pitcher. That was cut drastically short, unfortunately, by an injury that makes them miss a year of time. But the Diamondbacks will get Corbyn Burns back.

They will get Justin Martinez back. They will get AJ puck back. In the meantime, though, they have to. figure out what kind of bullpen they're going to put together. They have to figure out what they're going to do for positions that they don't really have players for right now, like first base or DH. Not to say that they don't have guys for that role, but those options just don't seem to be stellar options at this point. And again, the reason why is once they commit this kind of money to Bregman, they cannot, you know, go out there and they cannot add any more, right? So the article from Monday, though, has something in it that I don't like.

and Damon's going to probably hate more than more than me. But in Monday's article, Bob Nightingale said the Arizona Diamondbacks have been aggressively shopping, but are now pessimistic about trading All-Star Second Basement, Cotel Marte. No one has come close to meeting their price. And if Marte is still aboard, Bregman is definitely out of the DeBack's plans. I honestly can't wait for all of this to be over. I really can't. But a lot of this explains why the Diamondbacks have yet to be.

make moves. And we talked about this earlier this week, but free agency overall is kind of at a standstill for a number of reasons. One of the biggest reasons being that the big spending clubs aren't going after the guys. The bees are all still available. Bregman, Bichette, and who else? Who else? I'm drawing a blank on it. But there's just so many, oh, Bellinger, Bellinger, that's the other one. So many free agents still available. And here we are, a January 8th, right? We are a one month and like three days away from pitchers and catchers reporting for the Arizona Diamondbacks. So there's still a lot of work to be done.

And as we saw last year, there was work that was done all the way up until opening day with the addition of Jalen Beaks to the roster. But again, it feels like there are these, you know, financial decisions that need to be made and the Diamondbacks still just don't know what their budget is or what they're going to have to spend or who they're going to have to spend. it on until they've given up the ghost on the idea of trading Cotel Marte. And that really is the biggest game changer right now for this team. Most of us in this room and most of us watching this podcast right now probably want that

day to come sooner than later. We want to hear that the Diamondbacks have shut the door on the idea of trading Cattel so that they can get their offseason business settled, which they still need to do. I'm thankful that they have the starting rotation settled because that was the biggest question mark for them. It was the biggest, how do you do that with only having 35 to 40 million dollars to spend? They did it and they only spent 27.5. So they still have money in the bank for them to fill some of these other roles. But it doesn't change the fact that the idea of going after Bregman does signal, as Jesse said on yesterday's episode, that the Diamondbacks do have the money

to spend if they want to spend it. That's what it comes down to, wanting to spend it. It feels like this organization wants to spend it on Breggman, but they don't want to spend it in a, I guess, a more valuable way where they could spread it around a little more and make this a more complete team than it currently is. I don't know, but they did settle their business as we discussed when we opened up the show. There was breaking news about a half an hour ago, according to Mark Feinson in this tweet, Alec Thomas and the Diamondbacks will be avoiding arbitration. they have agreed to a $1.9.625 million deal to avoid arbitration per a source.

So this is great news. And again, it still makes me wonder about, you know, Alec Thomas's future with this team. And if the Diamondbacks are, in fact, still looking to shop Thomas or Jake McCarthy. But again, it's good to have one less player have to go through the awful, awful, process of arbitration, which, Damon, I think I'm going to put you through. I love it. We should do that for a day.

We should. When the hearings happen, be like, and we're going to take a little bit of your salary away because you didn't have that graphic ready at the start of the show. Oh, God, yes. I have a list. I've been compiling just in case you decided not to agree to a new deal. I'm sure you do. We're going to the Renaissance across the street.

We're going to go find the finest banquet room we can find, and we are going to say very mean things about each of them. It is funny how we talked about how it's not in a courtroom. How it's just in a hotel room. I love that Archie said that. I love that Archie said that he thought it was in a courtroom. I thought. I would have thought so too.

It's one of those naive times where you have a baseball player admit to you that they themselves thought something that you thought. But like when you find out it's not, you're like, of course it's not in a courtroom. How silly of me to even think that. But to hear Archie say, yeah, I thought it was in a courtroom. I was like, yeah, me too. I did too, but no. No, you just go down to the local fancy hotel and you find yourself an area for you guys to go into and have an arbitrator listen to you.

Tell your player how bad they were this season and how much they don't deserve money. Yeah. Don't love that process. That is odd. That part of it is very, very odd, Derek, where, you know, it's just like you're going up there and being like, hey, guy, that we want on the team next year. we also think that you're not worth any good amount of money. But also, I just wanted to say, Derek, like I saw this dollar amount. And my first reaction was, oh, my God, Alec Thomas is bad.

1.9625 million for Alec Thomas. If you told me this in like 20, 23 before the season started, like in that off season, when I first started on this show, I would have been like, what a disaster. Clearly, Alec Thomas didn't work out. Clearly, Alec Thomas is kind of a bum. Yeah. And honestly, that's what that dollar figure tells me. Ryan Thompson just got over $3 million, Derek.

Yep. According to Largaillando here, Ryan Thompson has reached a deal for 3.95. Oh, yeah. I didn't even see that. Yeah. To avoid arbitration. He was projected five. He got 3.9.

But that's more than, or not more. That's twice as much money than Alec Thomas got. Yeah. And that's Alec freaking Thomas. And he was supposed to be an absolute. Monster. And here I was yesterday prepared to offer Ryan Thompson free tickets to a pro wrestling show. He can pay full price.

Yeah, he can pay full price. In fact, maybe he should pay for your wrestling shows. I'm thinking maybe he can help us out. The two of you should get. The two of you should yell. Look, how fun would that be? I'm planning on managing Ryan Thompson's pro wrestling career after his baseball days are over. We talked about it.

Just a six-eight guy. Oh, he's going to do the best choke slam as this finisher. It's going to be so sick. Yeah, today is arbitration day, so I'm sure we'll have other news trickling in. Landau, thank you so much for your updates. And we appreciate hearing about them as Damon and I focus on jabbering about this team. But yeah, I mean, hopefully that's the case. Hopefully we hear the Diamondbacks are able to settle all of their arbitration eligible players out of that terrible process. And have a better idea about how much money they can spend.

In most cases, this isn't important to teams with the ability. to spend. I mean, obviously, they want to save and obviously teams and players want to avoid arbitration, but I also think that when it comes to the Diamondbacks, it's like every dime saved is important, right? Because this team definitely needs to try to find ways to creatively fill the remaining roster holes. And again, as we approach opening day, as we approach more importantly, the start of spring training, the sense of urgency is going to be created for the players that are still available as free agents. Not necessarily for the teams. I mean, the teams want those guys, but again, this kind of swings in the favor of the organizations, the closer we get

to spring training and opening day. Players want to be in camp by the time camp starts, especially this year where camp starts so early on February 11th for the D-BACs, for instance, and then you have spring training games being played before the end of the month in February. So this is a this is a year where spring training is earlier things are moving faster and players don't want to miss out you know i think that uh there are cautionary tales about that there was the entire you know jordan montgomery situation where he felt like not having a normal spring training camp really impacted you know his entire season so again we have uh watched watch short montgomery be good this year oh it'll make it'll make me so it's gonna make all of dbacks nation just

disgusted. He cost us the playoffs almost single-handedly. It costs his organization a lot, that's for sure. But again, we'll have more updates as the show goes on on arbitration. And I, uh, I plan on definitely, uh, reserving that room for me and Damon to go do our arbitration hearing across the street at the hotel. But we're going to take a quick break on the other side of this break. We're going to get into the ugliness that is the TV deal, uh, market for baseball in 2026 and why things got, I, I guess more complicated and also maybe a little less complicated, at least for one year for us watching Dback's fan. So we're going to do that in two minutes.

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At NASCAR and NTT IndyCar Series weekend at Phoenix Raceway, March 5th through March 8th. Secure your seats now at the link in our description. It's amazing the impact, the long-term impact, a mismanagement of a situation can have, right? We are still experiencing the fallout from basically what was Valley Sports. Are we not? It's crazy. According to a report on Wednesday from the Athletics, Evandrellage and Katie Wu, great, great pickup by the athletic, we're there with Katie Wu, by the way.

They published a piece. Katie Wu came and spoke in one of my classes and master's. She's amazing. She's amazing. She's cool. They published a piece detailing the uncertainty that nine Major League Baseball teams face next year regarding their local rights as part of the Main Street Sports Group struggle. And the Main Street Sports Group, they are the owners of the Fan Dual Sports Networks.

And the Fan Dual Sports Networks are the RSNs that used to be Valley Sports. So the Diamondbacks who are not controlled by an RSN in any way, their rights are controlled by Major League Baseball. They could have been part of this mess if they were still part of Bally's, if the Fandual Network included Bally Sports. here in Arizona did not. So according to this report, the nine teams, which I have here, and I promise I do have here, are now facing themselves a situation where they do not know if they're going to have those regional broadcasts next year, if they're going to face financial uncertainty. Those include the Atlanta Braves, the Cincinnati Reds, the Detroit Tigers, the Royals, the Angels, the Marlins, the Brons, the Brons, the Bruns.

the Cardinals and the raise. All the teams that you would expect to be part of RSNs and all the teams that, of course, financially are largely impacted here by, you know, this RN, RSN situation and the money that they're supposed to receive for these television deals. Included in the report also was a nugget regarding the eight teams, which right now are six, that are currently under league control, which were expected to ultimately land on ESPN direct-to-consumer streaming services next year for ESPN by them acquiring MLB.tv. But while the MLB.tv deal is finalized and was finalized last year,

it does not appear that it will impact the 2026 season. According to this report in the athletic, ESPN likely won't actually carry local MLB telecasts on its services until 2027. Oh, what a mess. a key detail that had up to this point been previously unreported. So many people that were Diamondbacks fans were wondering when they were going to watch on ESPN, how this was going to impact them if having an ESPN, the new ESPN app subscription, which you pay $30 a month for, includes local coverage, doesn't include local coverage.

There's already some people that feel put out by this because they subscribe to ESPN, hearing that this deal was done back in November, and now they're finding out that their subscription might be meaningless if the intent of subscribing to it was to watch Diamondbacks games, right? But this is all kind of wrapped up together because essentially there are the six teams, which Diamondbacks are one of, that already are under MLB control. There's two teams that are going to soon be under MLB control. And then you have these nine teams right now who are facing this financial uncertainty due to the, operator, which is Main Street Sports Group, having financial struggles. They have lost significantly money. They lost significant money in 2025, according to reports. And according to the loss of money,

it was these teams' local TV revenue that apparently impacted their ability to operate. So it's kind of weird because it's almost like they're blaming the baseball teams a little bit, or at least their inability to generate revenue from these broadcasts. There was a point in time where the broadcasts to, the broadcast rights to baseball teams were seen as an absolute, you know, moneymaker, right? But that was before these contracts with these television providers and streaming services became such an outrageous

amount. You factor in consumer fatigue with streaming services where people are fed up with the fact that they have to have eight different streaming services to watch all 162 baseball games of the regular season and the postseason that they're just opting out, right? There's lots of things in life that I miss out on now. I'll give you a perfect example. I never going to pay for a wrestling pay-per-view ever again. I'm just not. I'm not paying for a UFC pay-per-view. I'm not paying for any of that. There are 12 pro wrestling programs on TV during the week, most of which I already have access. to through streaming services I already pay for.

You mean to tell me I'm going to shell out another 50 bucks a month for these pay-per-views and such because they want to go back to this model of having them be pay-per-views, right? Like, that's just a small thing. But I love pro wrestling. I just got neat in the face being a part of it, not too long ago.

This is something that I've sacrificed simply because I am not going to continue to pay out for all of this stuff. And baseball fans feel the same way, right? So they're just kind of rejecting missing. You know, You're tantalizing fans with it and saying like, ooh, get out, you know, we're going to have TV on Apple TV. You got to get a subscription.

But we're going to have it on Friday nights and such. People are like, I'll just miss that game. Like you're not, it's not enough to get me, entice me to go sign up for your app. So what's happening is maybe these deals with these streaming services, with these RSNs, they're proving not to be worth the amount of money that you thought people were going to, that was, it was going to be brought in by, you know, by owning these rights. you know. So now here we are where they are probably going to end up folding financially in a similar way to what we saw with Valley Sports RSNs. And those rights for those nine teams

are going to be turned over to MLB who will probably by that point have eight other teams under their control and Major League Baseball will have the local broadcasting rights to more than half of the baseball league. Doesn't seem great. Doesn't really seem fair either, considering what the Dodgers are able to do financially with their television deal and what it pays them instead of this revenue sharing model

that now 17 teams are going to be a part of. Or you also have like the New York Yankees with Yes Network and other things like that. Like it's never going to be equal. The amount of money teams receive from these television deals greatly impacts their ability to go out there and spend. So there's no way you can tell me that Major League Baseball is ever going to be on equal footing from one franchise to the next when you're going to have half of the teams in baseball

with their rights controlled by the league. Like it just doesn't, it doesn't seem right. It doesn't seem fair, right? Elise says in the chat, don't you miss the simple days of regular old cable and being able to just what you watch, what you watch, what you want. want there. Yes, Elise, I feel so ancient and old saying that. I remember when we were told how bad the cable model was and how it was going to die out because people simply wanted an alicart option where they could watch what they want to watch and order what they want to order,

which was fine for a period of time until the costs of these apps on a monthly basis started to supersede what you're paying even for cable. Hell, I don't want to get rid of DirecTV because of Diamondbacks is a big reason right now for me. but I also don't want to deal with the fact that I have like three other apps that I get for free simply because I'm a direct TV subscriber. No matter the ridiculous amount I'm paying for that stupid satellite dish to be on my house, I still feel like overall it's easier for me because I don't have to do this crap. And it's also just like not that much of a cost saving measure overall when, you know, you have like all these other apps tied into this. And I would have to get 10 additional streaming services that I don't currently have. right so i don't know but overall this is a problem i think i don't love the idea of major league

baseball being in control of the television rights and it feels like this was rob manfred's main objective and goal the whole time i know other podcasts and other shows are talking about it and it would feel very much like somewhat of a monopoly uh if major league baseball was able to get all of the teams under their control it also doesn't feel fair if they're only controlling you know two thirds of the leagues and that other third is allowed to essentially successfully make money on their own by having their own television deals and such in place,

right? This kind of goes back to the free agency, the spending thing, everything when it comes to teams like the Dodgers. It's not that it's not fair. I mean, they are doing it. They're the ones that put these deals in place, and they're the team that, you know, figured out how to defer payments and pay Shohei Otani

a billion dollars over time and all of that kind of stuff. But it's still like, even though they were the ones to figure it out and they were able to do it within the confine of the rules, it doesn't feel fair to the game of baseball. And it doesn't feel fair to major league baseball. Other leagues have all of these, you know, systems in place to prevent one team from having huge advantages over other teams. And it still happens, right? Like, you still have some teams that are far more popular than other teams. They're going to sell out their stadiums more. They're

going to have more season ticket holders. They're going to have lots of things that other teams don't have. I say that being a Cardinals fan, very much understanding that this is not a fair situation, right? I mean, if I'm not mistaken, the Cardinals just started paying for players' meals not that long ago, don't even get me started on that. That's a whole other sport,

and I don't want to scream about that, because I easily could. But overall, this is, again, a situation where it's just like the ghost of Valley Sports continues to haunt RSNs. And, you know, this, I don't know how you fumble the bag so much

on having regional sport network rights for a local team, but they have, and they do. I think about what the sons are doing, right? The sons put their, and everybody wants that, right? Everybody just wants the debacks on free TV. Everybody says, hey, just put the debacks games on Channel 3.

That's not going to work for the Diamondbacks for sure. But what I will say is the sons are doing a very smart thing with having that team, especially right now playing the way they are on, free TV. They are rebuilding a fractured fan base that kind of got, that lost. I guess it's faith in the organization. They're doing that not only with the games being free on TV, but they're doing that with a good fun basketball team right now. In a few years, they could turn around and put the sons on some sort of paid for app, and all of us will pay for it to make sure we watch that team if they continue to

be as fun and good as they've already been in this young season. Right. So that's different. That is an investment in the future of that organization by Matt Ishbia. But the Diamondbacks are just in a different position, especially having, you know, this many baseball games. Like there's just so much opportunity here for teams to, you know, make money. But I just don't know how fair it is when the Diamondbacks in these other, at least five teams right now are under the control of Major League Baseball. And what they get is, you know, revenue sharing versus, you know,

a guaranteed amount of money. But overall, this whole thing kind of sucks. the TV deal stuff sucks. It makes baseball feel harder to watch and it makes it feel once again like it's having an impact on the sport. Not only is there a fairness concern, which could very much have people kind of tune out and not be fans of the sport as much. But again, just in general not being able to watch your team at times makes people give up and it makes them just kind of be like, okay, whatever. I'll just watch another sport or watch Netflix. I have 90 episodes of different shows I need to catch up on anyway.

So again, there's just a lot of things going on here with regional sport network rights. But it all sucks, Damon. It all sucks. It's all terrible. And again, I don't, like I understand why it's so valuable from a, you know, financial perspective for everybody that wants to be involved in it. But it also seems like people that step into the arena with broadcasting local. games end up not being able to make money off of it, not end up being successful with it for some reason. Yeah, it's a, I mean, it's, it's like everybody keeps saying in the chat. Every time

we talk about television broadcasting, I can't help but think about the Dodgers and just the discrepancy of, of which we are talking about with these organizations. It's an unequal playing field. It's in every sense of the word. And that's not the way that I guess American professional sports have always been is that there's supposed to be a level playing field between everybody. And it's not as if like the Lakers don't make the NBA more money with their television broadcasting deal, but they have equal revenue sharing. Whoa. A concept that just you can absolutely just not comprehend if you're Rob Manfred all of a in particular.

I don't know how you fix this. I don't know a world where the Dodgers ever say, yeah, we're willing to. have you guys take our money and split it equally between all the other teams in the league. Like that just doesn't feel realistic. But something needs to change or else the sport will die off because people will lose interest because of television deals, truly. Like that is the crux of the issue. Well, it just feels like especially when you look at this list of teams, you know, it feels like this is all like the middle of the pack baseball teams, right? where we all just kind of get lumped together

and the teams that can figure it out and have their own, you know, TV deals in place. They'll be the elite teams that are able to spend and win and make money. And every once in a while, one of us from the pack can eke out and make the playoffs or cause some noise or whatever. But, you know, you look at these teams.

And, I mean, the Braves, it's actually surprising that the Braves are part of this because I feel like the Braves are one of those teams that would have a regional, local deal in place for themselves. You would think, especially with, and this is something like, go look at a map of baseball teams. The Braves own the South. Yeah, right.

Like, it's not even just that it's Atlanta. It's the fact that they own like five states and like northern Florida. Like it's, it feels like the Braves should be one of those teams that's like dominating a television deal, doesn't it? Yeah, I would think so. I mean, like I said, the rest of these teams make a lot of sense. The Reds, the Tigers, the Royals, the Angels, the Marlins. the Brewers, the Cardinals and the Ray's, maybe the Cardinals being in there is also a little surprising. For sure.

They have an amazing fan base in St. Louis. And again, it's not to knock them as an organization for being part of this. It's just, again, you feel like they would be one of those established teams that would also have their own independent kind of television deal in place that is thriving and flourishing. Right. But we got our, we got our guy, Justin. Justin, we're talking about boring TV rights stuff. Sorry to get you lost here, but we're just basically talking about how

there will be probably 17 teams soon under MLB's control for their local television rights, which will just feel like the distance, the margin, the divide between the great teams and the teams with all the money and the rest of us is going to widen. Maybe it won't. Maybe I'm just being doom and gloom. But as Elise says,

sounds like another reason there's going to be a lockout in 2027, just in time for ESPN to air those games. Can't wait. I'm already trying to... I've updated my LinkedIn, by the way. So around December 2026, I'll appreciate anybody who might have any job openings because Lord knows there might not be much baseball around here.

So who needs old Derek, right? But we're going to take a quick break. And on the other side of this break, we're going to talk about who might be the biggest breakout for breakout star for the Diamondbacks in 2026 and why that man's name is big game brandon we're going to do it in two minutes don't you go anywhere you're watching the phnx dinaback show well whatever the moment it's never ordinary at bet 365 now is a great time to get down on all of the NBA and NHL action over at bet 365 of course you know you are an early winner or

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there were a lot of people that seemed confused, by the way, as far as where the Diamondbacks are actually going to be with this news in 2026, where you're going to be able to watch Diamondbacks games. I just want to reassure you, since I didn't cover it in that last segment, Diamondbacks games are going to be exactly where they've been. There's not going to be any change. And if you are a cable provider or if you're a cable subscriber, if you are a satellite subscriber, it's still going to be on the channel. I think it's still going to be on Channel 34. It's still going to be on 686. I don't think that's going to change even when ESPN does start broadcasting these rights. But I do believe that there will be your MLB.tv subscription.

If you are subscribing through the web, it'll be through ESPN. I don't know where you are watching it through, but I do think that all of this confusion is going to lead people to find other ways to watch baseball. And that's what baseball might be doing to people. So anyway, that's just that. but Damon made a great comparison. In fact, like, you were saying American sports, right? Yeah, I purposefully said American sports.

What were you meaning by that? Like Premier League, right? Yeah. So if anyone's familiar with like Premier League soccer and that's not, it doesn't exclusively mean like in England, but that's just the best example that I can speak to is there is a big six is what they call it. And there are 20 teams in the league, but there is a conventional big six.

And it used to be kind of more of a big five. They added city, Manchester City got really good and has kind of since been added to that group. But Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham. And those six teams have throughout history had more money, had more resources, just kind of been the bigger clubs. And the kind of like the salary cap, if you will, in English soccer is called financial. fair play and it essentially is is like you can't outspend the money you're bringing in but the but the teams that's that are the bigger teams yeah bring in more money of course which allows them to then go out in the transfer market and spend more money on players and buy more more players if a team that

is in 15th goes and spends the exact same amount of money as say a chelsea does they get relegated because they get a points deduction because that is considered like not financial fair play. So I feel like we're kind of heading down a pretty dark path here. And listen, I love Premier League soccer. I'm all about it. I think like it really brings out the hater in me in particular. And that's why I'm so in love with it. But like I can also say as a Chelsea fan, like it is an unfair system for these other teams. Like my dad's a Newcastle fan. Newcastle just got new ownership, Saudi Arabians. And they have a little bit of cash. But they can't spend all of it because they're not allowed to or else they'll receive like big time things that kind of push them back,

drop points, you know, relegation, that kind of stuff. So I think this is kind of a dark path. We're heading down where like we're looking at Dodgers, Mets, Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs, all these like really big market teams that consistently make the most moves being the only teams that can go out there and make these moves because the other teams just can't afford it. We are kind of in that right now, but it feels like the gap is almost widening. Like the middle class of baseball is is being is being killed by the day. It's a it's it's it's akin to what's happening in society right now. Yeah. It honestly is richer and the rest of us are distancing ourselves. We got to flip the bill.

I'll tell you a big a big event that is going to occur is going to be the lockout. And December 2026 is going to be a dark period of time for baseball. The problem I have and the concern I have is how far apart these. sides are. I just can't imagine these issues being figured out. And the only thing I could imagine is that time will put enough pressure on both sides to figure a deal out that they'll just concede on a lot of this. Maybe they won't fix baseball entirely, but hopefully they'll be able to do something with the new collective bargaining agreement that fixes a lot of these issues and brings parity back to baseball. It's also, it's also weird because

you know, we're talking about baseball being so unfair on a year where we didn't even have a hundred game winner. So it doesn't really feel like teams, at least record-wise, are running away with, you know, the division or the league. However, it just still feels like the impending doom of the Dodgers is going to like be hanging over us for God knows how long. Like just with how good they are and how, you know, how set up they are. they they the we're just we're just in a in a bad situation we're in a bad situation being in their same division but the dodgers absolutely would have won 100 games if they had edwin dyes on their team let me just say that right now yeah or tanner scott worked out and tanner scott was as good as he was supposed to be they they they went 98 like they they got damn close and they didn't have the best

reliever in baseball in fact they had one of the worst bullpins in baseball and they went and they fixed that. So unfortunately, I think the years of Dodgers winning 100 games are upon us now, Derek. It seems like every single time they have like one hole, they go flex seal. And they smack it on the thing. And they go, now you can put this boat in that lake. No. And it won't even. Flex seal is what I do, Damon. Flex seal is how I fix stuff. No, no, no. They have the money to go get the new boat. They got a new boat. They bought a new boat. They bought a better boat. They went back. They had it refurbished. We used flex seal. I don't know what I'm talking about.

It looks brand new. It's like when you take your car to the mechanic to get bodywork done on it and you're like, man, look at how great it came out. Like that's exactly what the Dodgers would have done. We would have used duct tape to figure things out. But our guy Justin in the chat says, Derek, can you answer me? What is Justin asking me go up? He said, why would they give Brighman?

Why don't they give Brighman a longer contract? And on less money. I don't. And less money. Less money. Well, because. Longer contract and less money. I'm sure on an annual value.

Right. Because one, the Diamondbacks don't want to be committed to an old player that they're still paying a lot of money to at the end of his career where they have to figure out a way to do something with him. So that's really talking pretty long term. It feels like at this point. I mean six years, five years, six years. Isn't he 31 years old?

Like how much longer of a contract do you want to give that guy? You're not going to give him a 10 year plus contract, right? You don't want a guy that's 41 still under contract on your team. This organization right here. Not that organization. We can't afford that. We can't afford that. Bryce Harper can be on the Phillies when he's 41, and the Phillies probably can field a competitive team around him. But if the Dinembacks are going to be paying Alex Brighman 30 million at age 37 when he's hitting probably 245, like that's a disaster waiting to happen. Yeah. Yeah. Katie in the chat says, can we agree to follow baseball somewhere else in 2026 when the lockout happens independently, Women's League College, we need to still follow baseball. NC Dinos, baby. NC Dinos. The NC Dinos of the KB is who we wrote for ride ride and die for we will go out we'll get merch we'll do this podcast about them I'll do my best to get players on we'll we'll see what we can do I feel

like also I'm a I'm a me personally I'm a Nahara Naara Neharo's team Eric okay of course they're bitter rivals with the yaki's which of course I despise the yikes we hate the yikes we hate the yikes but someone we don't hate Brandon Fott we love Brandon Fought We loved big game, Brandon. We wished better things for him in 2025, and unfortunately, he had his struggles over the year, which was weird because, you know, you can take out the yes hitter, for instance, which was a disaster. You could take out a few other games, as you probably could with a lot of starting pitchers. And suddenly Brandon Fott's numbers start looking incredible.

But I get our friends over at Talkin Baseball and some other promotions or publications I've discussed. Brandon fought having a breakout season, something that Damon and I both. think is going to happen and hope happens because we think that the Diamondbacks drastically need it. They need a guy like Fought to take a step forward and they need Eduardo Rodriguez to somehow get things back to where he was at one point in his career. But with Fought, it's more about seeing the progress in his young career. And up to this point, you know, he's always had good stuff. He's always gone out and given this team good performances, especially in the postseason in 2023. However, at the end of the day, his numbers have never looked

very good. When you look at his 2023 season, Brandon Fott posted a 5.72 ERA with a 5.18 FIP. In 2024, his best season, he had a 4.71 ERA with a 3.61 FIP, which is very, very good.

His expected ERA in 2024 was 3.76. And in fact, up until last year, his expected ERA was always substantially lower than his actual ERA, suggesting that factors outside of his control played into obviously what what his final numbers ended up being.

But last year, last year was interesting. Last year, Fott posted a 5.25 ERA with an expected ERA of 5.36 and a FIPP of 4.22, right? So none of that really suggests that it was bad luck that much last season. Like a lot of this is Brandon Fod struggles. For instance, he did lower his walk. rate, but his strikeout rate per nine inning was also lowered substantially as well, right? He pitched 176 and two-thirds innings last year. And, I mean, again, he definitely had some highlights, some moments that were good,

including starting in 33 games. But there's a lot of things that you feel like Brandon Fogg could take a step forward with. When you take a look at his expected stats for 2026, both steamer and fan graphs project him to take a step forward here. And these are usually fairly conservative figures. Well, I think that that goes to show exactly where Brandon fought is in his career. And that's that he is so underperformed what everyone thinks that he could be and who he is. And that's what that's what they're trying to tell you with those projections is like, well, he's not going to be that bad like again next year. Yeah. Like last year, he had a 1.7 war. They're projecting him to have well over a two war next year. Hopefully it's

higher than that. He produced even with a 4.71 ERA at 2024, a 3.1 war, right? So projections have him at a two war. They have his ERA at 4.33 for next year and his FIP at 4.09, which is just a little bit better than league average. But overall, you just feel like he did take a step forward in durability, right? You felt like Brandon fought with all of the injuries and everything going on to this team last year, that him making 33 starts and logging, uh, logging, uh, logging, uh, 177 innings, or nearly 177 innings, gave the Diamondbacks at least a healthy body, and it shows that he is able to handle a starter's workload as far as durability is concerned. He just needs to find stability in his performances, and he needs to find some consistency.

He also just signed a five-year, $45 million extension that begins in 2026, and that's a commitment that signals the Diamondbacks are, believe he's part of the long-term rotation and the core of this team. So Brandon Fott would factor in there, and you figure anybody that's been extended also would as well, Justin Martinez, Peraldo Pardomo, Corbyn Carroll. It's the reason why we feel like Gabby Moreno is important. You had Cotel Marte being extended twice.

These are, you know, guys that are the core of this team, and the team has seen that in thought. And again, that financial stability and that extension, it's meant to offer a starting pitcher like Fought, the security, right, so that he can settle in to his best years and just kind of focus on baseball, not have to worry about how his performances are going to impact his contract, his standing with the team, what he's going to do in the future. It's supposed to give him that, at least that peace of mind as a starting pitcher. As far as what he can do better, I mean, if his sweeper, which is such a good pitch, can become reliably effective, it gives him a true out pitch to generate more swings and misses in 2026. And the projections are right now that his strikeouts per nine are going to go up, but not much. And they still don't have them at the same levels that they were in 23 or 24. They also have his home runs allowed per nine innings going down next year,

meaning that God, I would hope so. They project to see him stop giving up such hard contact. And the sweeper could be a key to that. It could be one of the keys to lowering his ERA, could be the key to increasing strikeouts. And more importantly, it just, you know, it could develop really into a nasty pitch that could give him, like I said, that that out pitch to pair with everything else he's doing.

But you also have, you know, like the Diamondback's commitment to defense factoring in here, right? There has been this thing that in the past, some of the expected stats for pitchers were worse than what their actual stats were because the Diamondbacks defense behind them were so good. And it could increase or help his batip and drop his ERA and everything lower to the, to closer to those FIP and expected FIP levels that he is currently expected in 2026. But again, surface stats in 2025 to show a drop and strikeout rate and increase in hard contact.

And, you know, overall, you just see him hopefully getting better with, you know, knowing Brian Kaplan, having Brian Kaplan be able to help him more now that he knows Brandon Fought more. You also have Jeremy Blyke, the executive, the pitching development executive that is now the assistant general manager that should hopefully help this team as well. So you just feel like overall Brandon Fought has always been a guy that not only has the organization believed in, but fans have believed in, we on the show have believed in. And we've seen how good he can be. I think that's it. I've said it time and time again, though, the difference between good players or even guys that have good seasons or good performances, and the great ones is consistency. So if he can just harness better command, reduce that hard contact, get his strikeout levels back. up to where they were and maybe benefit from a good defense behind him and not bad luck

necessarily as much as he's had in the past. Fought could easily be a solid, you know, mid-rotation guy, two, maybe three guy in your, you know, starting rotation. But again, he's, he's very valuable to this team and this team very much believes in him. So it feels like more than just wanting him to have a breakout season or projecting him to, it's like we just need it. The Diamondbacks need it. They need stability in their starting rotation. They need their pitching staff to start producing in a way where it can help this team win games and not be bottom five of the league in both starting pitching and in relief pitching. That's what they need.

The key to that now is guys that weren't able to do it last year. So hopefully these guys can take a step forward. improve their game and again you feel comfortable with the one and two out there in Ryan Nelson and Merrill Kelly and what they did last year start to your next with Brandon Fought and Erod and then Michael Soroka could be just such a wild card as far as the starting rotation is concerned but you guys are not do you want to look at this this baseball savant here for a second on Brandon Fott I just thought it was interesting yeah this is 2025 numbers some really good red and then just a lot of blue awful blue yeah

running value. You see that fastball run value is so good. And again, if he can develop that sweeper into an outpitch that that can complement that fastball, you feel better about it. But his breaking run value is at one, his off speed run value and cold in the 32nd percentile. You got basically his chase percentile in the 74th percentile. That's pink. We got his extension, 69th percentile. Nice. And then you got his walk percentage in the 95th percentile. So he was very good at not. walking batterers last year. That's good. It hurt a strikeout rate though.

But it did hurt his strikeout rate. Yeah, you can see, I'm looking at his 2024 on my screen right now. He was at 87 walk percentage last year. And with that, his K percentage was at 60. His whiff percentage was at 49. His chase rate was at 59, which is a little bit lower. But I think that it just goes to show, like, and Jesse has always had this conversation with baseball savant stuff like you sometimes you need to sacrifice a little bit to get into the

red in the other areas and brandon fought is it seems like he went too hard on trying to not walk guys last year and it hurt his aggressiveness a little bit but i don't know i mean i i i just i can't imagine a world where brandon fought is that bad again no i can't either and uh let's let's hope we don't live in that world but we're going to uh talk here in a moment about uh an infamous Diamondbacks game being featured in one of the, or not one of, but the best Knives Out movie that just dropped on Netflix. Before that, though,

I do want to tell you guys to make sure to sign up to become a diehard in 2026. We can't thank you that are diehards enough for already joining us here at PH&X, but we're going to have some exclusive great stuff coming this year, and we hope that you guys all enjoy it. We're also going to be having some exclusive events. Hopefully we'll be having a, eyehard party around this office somewhere soon. But for now, you get access to the PHNX lounge on Discord, which is the best place to talk about Arizona sports with PHNX personalities and

fans. You get that free t-shirt from our locker. You get 20% off merch and 20% off events. And of course, you just get to be part of this thing that we're doing here at PHNX. So we thank you so much for your support, for those of you that have signed up. And if you're ever, if you've ever been curious, now's a great time to do so. Head on over to go phnx.com and prove your fanhood by becoming a pH and X diehard today. Damon, I love the Knives Out movies. I recently watched them. This was not something that I was like caught up on, but I got caught up on all of the Knives Out movies. And they are incredible, big fan of what they have going on with those films. But the latest Knives Out movie apparently has a notorious moment for you and I included in it.

I say notorious because even though it happened in April of 2025, it might have been the moment that broke the Diamondbacks entire season. For those of you that may have not heard about this, in the new film, Wake Up Dead Man, a Knives Out mystery, director Rion Johnson, used the April 18th, 2025 baseball game between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Chicago Cubs. And if you don't know what that game is based on a hearing, date. You'll know when I tell you it was the 24 run back and forth inning that ended in

extra innings where the Diamondbacks came back. I believe they scored, what was it, 13 runs, Damon, or 11 runs, 10 runs late in the game, only for them essentially to lose to the Cubs in extra innings. I did the post game show for that game from Circa in Las Vegas, where I was originally supposed to do a pole side, and it was far too noisy outside for me to do that. And so instead I did it inside of their incredible sports book where I watched this game on a giant television. I don't even know if you call it a television.

What is it? It's a screen bigger than God, right? Yeah, I don't know. It's just... Television is insane. It's crazy to call it a television, right? It's a jumbotron inside of a sports book, basically. Correct.

And I had people literally come. over and putting their hand on my shoulder and telling me I'm sorry while I was doing that show. Wow. According to an interview about this, the reason why, and I don't want to give too much away about the movie, I suggest you watch it, enjoy it. It is a plot point, though. It is a game that is recorded by one of the characters. And according to the director, they filmed this movie in 2024 long before the game actually

took place. But when they were done filming and editing, and getting ready to push it along in the process, they were specifically waiting for the actual day in the movie where a baseball game took place so that that actual game could be used as part of this plot. And so not only did this game fit the bill because it was on the right day at the right time of the murder in the film,

but it also happens to be this particularly heartbreaking game for us as Diamondbacks fans that now, we never get to escape because it has been encapsulated in a film for generations to see until the end of time. And it's going to become a trivia question. And there's going to be people that watch it in the future. And they're like, what's this game about? And then they're going to look it up. And they're going to be like, holy hell, Diamondbacks.

What did you do? That's what we are. That's the fate that we have before us forever. Thanks to Rion Johnson and this movie. So just want to throw that out there. Also, go watch all of the Knives Out movies because they're incredible. And again, it's just no spoilers, but there it is. There it is in the background on the TV.

They had to go back and digitally enter it in, like, you know, use special movie effects and stuff. Because apparently this was a Dodgers game, according to the director originally. Glad we at least got that out of there. But did it have to be a game that I'm going to forever regret seeing as part of a movie? Yeah. Elise in the chat says,

I still remember when Damon said that that was the kind of loss that could ruin a team, and boy, was he right. Yeah, I mean, we had a lot of those losses last year. Damon says that a lot. I mean, last year in particular was like that. There was like five games that were like, man, how do you manage to lose this one? And it's just immoralizing. Yeah, it really is.

Because those were momentum builder type wins, you know? And wins that, especially early in the season, like, we were like pretty 500 and we were choking games left and right that we easily should have been winning. Imagine if those games go different what the rest of the season looks like. You can't even, you can't even go on to say. I was wrong. I thought it went into extra innings. It didn't. The Diamondback scored 10 runs in the top of the 8th and the Cubs came back to score six runs in the bottom of the 8. That's right. That's right. To win 13 to 11. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the bullpen. That was the worst game ever. So hype, just going for being so hyped to just so Ipe to just the pure sadness pure me and Derek go and do we have to do a podcast

yeah gino hit a huge home run in that inning yeah four rbi day for him oh anyway well we appreciate you guys we love you for sticking around tomorrow is friday we will be back with another 12 p.m. show make sure to join us for that in the meantime you follow us on twitter i'm at cap underscore caveman with a k of course damon is at damon dog with a da wg and we are all day diamonds dogs. Bark, bark. No, I said bark, bark. There it is. Our show is at PHNX underscore D-Backs, but as always all-wrote's lead to at pHNX underscore sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. We thank you guys so much for stopping by. We appreciate you. We'll see you tomorrow. Until then, have yourselves a wonderful evening. I hope that we maybe have some news

on Diamondbacks, on the Diamondbacks doing something other than arbitration between now and tomorrow. And until then, behave yourselves, especially you, at least. But, most important thing, as always on this program, remember kids. Baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun when your team has its exclusive TV deal and isn't part of MLB's revenue sharing model.