PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - No comments from camp

Episode Date: February 22, 2022

On this episode, Jesse and Derek are discussing Derek's first day out at D-backs minor league mini camp, what was or wasn't said, and significant progress being made by MLB and the MLBPA on their collective bargaining negotiations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome to another edition of the PHNX D-BACs podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Montia, officially known as your mayor of PHNX, and I am joined by my vice mayor, the one and only thunderstick Jesse Friedman. Derek, you watched baseball. I am so jealous of what you got to do on Monday. It was like a buffet of baseball, right? And when I say that, I mean it in every sense of the word. I had to stay on the opposite side of the sneeze guard away from it. I wasn't very good.

None of it was very good, but there was a lot of it. So I definitely filled up and got fat and hit that, you know, that soft serve ice cream machine two or three times before leaving. Those of you that are fellow Golden Corral survivors know what I'm talking about. But of course, this podcast is not brought to you by Golden Corral. Thank God this podcast. So much you might hold to around. No, it's brought to you by the fine folks of the Drafking Sportsbook.

Of course, an official sports betting partner of the NBA. And I know we don't cover basketball over here, but we talk about it every once in a while because we love our Phoenix Suns. And new customers can bet just $1 on any team using our code of PHNX and get $150 in free bets should that team win. It's that simple.

Go to the Draft King Sportsbook app now, win yourself some money. I wish I would have last night. night, Jesse, on the All-Star game, I have to tell somebody about this unfortunate story. And my friends are so sick of hearing me win that they'll just laugh in my face too much about this. But last night, I pulled up the Drafking Sportsbook app. And I was going to bet on the MVP of the game before the game started. So you're talking Sunday. You're talking Sunday, I'm sorry. This is Sunday. Yeah, this was Sunday. Excuse me. I forgot where this is a Tuesday show,

obviously. So this would have been Sunday night. And I had made a decision. that I was going to put it on Steph Curry, who was plus a thousand. So I was going to bet $20, which would have netted me over $200. And I just didn't. It's not like I backed out. I just forgot to finish the transaction.

I just didn't finish the transaction. So then me and my wife watched a show and we got in the hot tub and we went to bed early. I didn't even watch the end of the All-Star game to see Chef Curry go off. and win his MVP. But I woke up in the middle of the night, saw some news on the TV, went to check my bet. And that was the most unfortunate thing was it was still up on my phone.

Oh, no. Just hit this button to confirm your bet. And then, like, as I was looking at it, it quickly went to like, this is no longer available. Well, of course it is because that game ended hours ago. So don't be like me. Finish your transactions. Go believe in yourself. when you have those thoughts on who to bet on,

don't doubt yourself. And definitely don't forget to hit the confirm button and walk away and go watch TV with your wife. But of course, I have more interesting stories to tell than that, Jesse. And they are baseball related, believe it or not. Oh my gosh. We're talking about actual real baseball events.

Well, we're going to talk about. What a concept. Baseball still being locked out shortly. But I will say that they made significant progress as far as that goes to. So very good news coming out of the current situation between the Players Association and Major League Baseball. What I got to see today, Jesse, was the minor league players, about 79 of them up at Salt River Fields playing, I guess you should say, taking drills and taking batting practice, taking live BP. It was glorious.

Got to see a lot of our favorites, a lot of the guys that we're excited about seeing in the future, like Patrick Mahomel. his brother, Alec Thomas, twin brother. I was really hoping you'd make a Patrick Mahomes reference. Oh, his hair is going to go. It just looks. It just looks incredible. I mean, the resemblance is. Like, trust me, from a guy that, from a jealous man with thinning hair, that's,

that's a head of lettuce that that man is currently walking around with. It's incredible. It's beautiful. And, yeah, you know, the most important thing is I haven't seen him up close. The one thing that you can sometimes be, I guess, unimpressed by at times is the stature of some of the minor league players until you remember, oh, yeah, that guy's 20 years old or that guy's 22, right? They've got some time to build up some strength for sure. Alec Thomas looks like a big leaguer. He looks ready to go.

Okay. And he's in great shape. And he was hitting the cover off the ball at BP. I didn't know, I didn't get to see him do live batting practice. Hager had a monster home run in live batting practice, but there was all sorts of just fun and enjoyment to be had and seen all around. Guest appearances by Mike Hazen and Tori Lavolo. We weren't allowed to talk to them, but we could wave and say hi,

and they were very nice to us, of course. And the PR department was nice enough to kind of joke with us. said you guys want to talk to these guys you know we can't talk to them stop it of course we want to talk to them we want to talk to them so bad they're right there it was a great day though it was a beautiful day outside it was great to just see baseball happening it's a weird kind of murky situation as far as a lot of this minor league camp goes you know even even the people that are in charge of you know putting it on they're this situation is so fluid.

There's new information coming in. They have to deal with kind of changing health and safety protocols as far as the pandemic is concerned, as well as changes to what this minor league camp is and isn't. We didn't have any media availability afterwards because basically the media department had to tell the players that if they go out there, we may ask about the lockout or this situation. They can't keep us from doing so. They can ask us not to, but they can't keep us from doing so. And players, of course, could just respond and say no comment, right?

They absolutely could. I think the biggest thing with minor league players is they're just not used to this. There's an entire scrum of media out there, including, you know, the TV cameras and us, you know, writers slash podcaster guys. and, you know, the, obviously the Steve Gilberts and other guys that are very well known, and I've covered this team for years. They just, you know, what really what it comes down to is they gave the players an opportunity to say yes or no about if they felt comfortable going out there, knowing that those questions might come up. And nobody really felt comfortable coming out for media availability.

You mean to say, Derek, that if you go up to players and ask them, Hey, there's some media outside. Do you want to go talk to them? You don't have to, but you can't if you want. They're going to say no. Is that what you're telling us, Derek? They're actually going to say no, right. Jesse, I would take that opportunity 10 times out of 10 to say no and happily go get some lunch and not talk to me at all.

Media scrums are weird as it is. I have never been in one as the focal point, but at times like they have to do something with like the cameras. where you hold up a piece of paper and they adjust the white balance. So at times, I've gotten up in front of the podium in the D-BACs press room and just held up, you know, the back of a piece of paper so they could do that.

And just that was terrifying. Like just seeing for a moment what Tori sees when he's asked, getting asked these questions or what these players see, it's terrifying, you know, not to mention the fact that, uh, and I don't know if this is going to change or if we're still going to be allowed to go

in the clubhouse. But, you know, with the clubhouse situation, when you're just kind of like in the safety of your little locker and we invade it with our cameras and our warm breaths and our faith. It's a very, it's a very unnatural like social situation. It really is. It's like a, hey,

here's this group of random people that you don't really know that well who are kind of obligated to be here in your space because they have a job to do. It's a very, very strange situation. So I am, I am sympathetic with players who are not very comfortable with situations. I think I am too. And like you said, I mean, given the opportunity, I don't even think if it was, even if it wasn't this awkward situation, players might still opt out, especially players that are minor leaguers that might not have gone through like any kind of media training like they sometimes have, you know, major league ball players go through. Also just not wanting to do it.

Like I, I just wouldn't want to do it, right? But it makes it even. worse now knowing that there's this very volatile situation going on. Not just with the lockout, but with the minor leagues, right? Like there's a whole other thing about what's going on with the minor leagues and the reduction of players wanting to let players go or reduce the number of players each team, you know, you know, has and pay players for to be at events like this mini camp, to be at spring training, things like that, that are going to come up if these guys come out and take questions from us.

They're not going to come from the local news people. They're going to come from the MLB writers. Those of us like you and me that have been looking for stories to discuss, we're going to analyze what they say unless they say nothing. And even then, the no comment kind of thing still can speak volumes at times, right? Right. No one wants to be, no one wants to be named in an article as someone who said no comment. Right.

Like even that carries some sort of a weight to it. So I do understand from their perspective. It does. I also am not a person that really, just being honest, I don't need to ask questions I know are going to get an awkward response or no comment. Sure. I had no plans personally. It didn't mean that I didn't like deep down inside, sometimes I'm just an absolute coward that is hoping somebody else asks the question that I want to ask. unlike most occasions it happens, which makes me confidence in being a coward when it comes to these situations.

But there has been a handful of opportunities that I've experienced in my years covering this team where the question went unasked. And I started to question myself. Like, did anybody else think of that? Could that have been an exclusive angle that I was only getting? And then by asking that, I would have gotten a great quote. To me, baseball angles and things about games. things about teams, there's a limited number of stories and angles there for you to go to, at least in my thinking.

In reality, there's an infinite number of ideas and concepts there. It's just all depending on your creativity. The team right now is kind of just in a holding pattern. That's really what's going on. That's what I took away from today. They're in a holding pattern. And really what they want to do is give their minor league guys some time under, you know, just at a nice facility

kind of being taken care of by the organization and get some training and get their season started. They would normally be up as part of spring training. They called this minor league camp, a minor league camp that was supposed to happen in January and then just got pushed until now due to Omnichron. I'm not so sure about that.

Yeah, I don't really, that doesn't make any sense. I know that they have a lot of voluntary workouts and other things, that happen like that, I understand that that's part of it. And I'm not questioning, you know, their PR department. But at the same time, this really just seems like what it is, right? They, the minor league guys would be up as part of this, you know, as part of spring training camp before the game started. And a lot of them would stick around and play spring training games, right? So they'll probably see some simulated backlock games, some simulated time, some scrimages against each other. And

then minor league camp would start anyway. Once those guys started getting sent down, they don't actually leave Salt River Fields immediately and go back to Reno or, you know, wherever, right? They'll go back to Amarillo. They go back to like, just a different area of Salt River Fields where they'll train with the other guys that got sent down, but still at the facility, still kind of under the watchful eye of the organization and the big league club for a little while until their minor league season starts, and then they go, that's when they go back to their respective cities, depending on the teams they're on. It's just, I don't know. It just seems like they're trying to make sure that even if the major league guys get rushed and have, you know, a shorter spring training, whatever it ends up being, if it gets too short, if the season's impacted, they don't want to impact their minor league.

guys because they don't need to, right? So that's, that's what we saw today is we saw the exact same stuff you would see at spring training camp just with the minor league guys, getting a little bit more attention. Honestly, though, even during this time, they would probably be working with the exact same coaches they're working with. Like, yeah, some of them, like some of the major prospects might see more time with LaVolo and some of the, you know, big league club guys, but a lot of these minor league guys would still be here working with the exact same people they're working with now. I think that's the thing is they're trying to get back into consistency and trying to get back into the normal season for these guys as much as possible

without being impacted by this entire other situation going on with the lockout. So on the field, Derek, as someone who couldn't be there with you today and our listeners, of course, are among those people as I'm sure there are people out there who love, you know, this time if you're going out to Salt River Fields and watching practice and watching. want to be out there so bad jesse and people are very jealous of you derrick and i am one of those people and so you need to fill us in on like what did alec thomas look like like was corvin carroll just hitting dinger after dinger these are the questions that we have on our minds right now so i saw corbin carroll take some live BP and he actually struggled a little bit uh taking live bp i don't

know if he was working on something specifically but uh he struck out three times and uh uh i you know, they, they don't have an umpire or anything, but they did have like, they have like a strike zone counter, like on a computer right behind. Oh, interesting. Like the catcher kind of checks with the coach to see if it was a strike or not. So if they, if they get, you know, if they don't, if they take a,

if they take a pitch and it was in the strike zone, they're calling it a strike three and he has to go sit down or basically go back to the end of the line until his turn comes back up. Sure. But yeah, I'm not saying he struggled by any stretch of the imagination, but he's still coming off that injury and everything. Yeah. And I mean, you can only read so much from a few at bats.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. You really have to take all this with a grain of salt. He looked very young. Like, that's the thing about seeing him again in person was like, man, he just, especially compared to some of the guys, you know, it's just like the spring training. When you get that mix of the veteran players and the guys that are still in

AA, it just makes some of them still look like kids. and he definitely looked young out there. Our buddy, buddy Kennedy, he had some great at bats. I mean, just took some long, like along at bats, battled in him like he was, you know, playing in a game and came away with a couple of hits and looked really good. I got to see Dan Strelie out there throwing Dan Strelie.

Yeah. They had some complications with the mound that made his like his throwing program. take a little while to start, but it was, it was great to see him. And I think, again, one of those guys that, like we said, he, he, he, especially around some of the younger guys, definitely looks like a major league pitcher ready to go. That's exciting. That's exciting. Dan Staley is one guy that we, of course, have talked a lot about recently, just given the fact that the Diamondbacks actually just signed him. Like, he's a pretty, a pretty recent edition. And it's cool that he was, he was able to be

out there. Corbyn Carroll though, I mean, to be fair, right? Like, this guy is like two years out of high school. Um, and he's 21 years old. And he's listed at 510, 165. Which it's impressive that,

I question both of those. Do you think, do you think, are they under estimates or overestimates? Uh, under, no, over, over. But I don't know. You think he's under 165? No, I don't know. Like I said, I'm a very fat man. And I don't don't think looking at someone like him. I can't judge his weight. Like I said, he just, I think the thing again that struck me was he looked very young,

but I really liked the fact he was so into his at-bats. And he, I know this, this seems like a weird thing to take away. But he like, he had a great attitude. You know, like he was like really interested in what, you know, where the, you know, strike across the plate. And he kind of always had a smile on his. face and stuff. So I mean, you had some guys already taking this way too seriously. And it's, for them, it's day four of this camp for them. So, you know, they've been out there for a

couple of days. They've already been doing some of this stuff. But, uh, I believe, I believe they had three days last week. I'm not sure if they had three or two. Something like that. Yeah. It definitely, today was definitely not the first day. It was just the first day of media availability. Right. Like the first day of media were allowed to be out there. There was a lot of weird, interesting things with that like again still the health and safety protocols and everything make this whole situation so strange you know like some of the media members only had just gotten their second shot not more than 60 days ago and so they couldn't get their or six months more more less than six months ago they couldn't get a booster shot but part of the requirements were for media to all have

booster shots so like they're they're very they're being very strict and they're trying to do their best i think to protect the players and everything, you know, like people were, there was no players going around with masks on. So, you know, they're trying to do everything they can to make sure these guys don't get sick and make sure that there's not any kind of outbreak, you know, there. So, but I'll tell you, man, it was just, it was great. It was great to be out there. It was great to see these guys all at camp. They were all wearing different numbers. None of the numbers were numbers that they'll keep. These are just like mini-camp numbers, but like Alex Thomas was number three and stuff like that. So like there's a there's no cause for concern just yet.

If you see anybody in a different number because I'm not, I don't think any of this will stick. But they did, they did look like they were having a great time. And I mean, that's what it's all about is, is seeing the guy smile. And I think that's part of the enjoyable part of this time of the year is it's not even the spring training games.

It's not really that big of a deal. It's not. Yeah. It doesn't really matter if you strike out three. Right. Like it doesn't matter, right? Like it's way too early to really judge that stuff. There's a handful of guys that matters to, right?

Guys that are on the bubble of making the team that want to make the team that don't want to be sent down. You know, those guys are pretty much the ones that are, I guess, validated in their frustrations when they don't do well or whatever. But yeah, that's that's why like it's just the most enjoyable time of the baseball year. You know, it's beautiful where we as Arizona Diamondbacks fans get outdoor baseball instead of being inside of the airplane hanger. and we get to see guys having a good time. That's what's important. That's what's important. Have a good time.

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Eligibility restrictions apply. See draftkings.com slash sportsbook for details. And Jesse, we also have news not just from DeBex mini camp, but on the lockout. And I mean, maybe we should call it the lock in because I feel like we need to lock all of the players association members in with the owners until the new deal gets done. What we're finding out is today, according to Bob Nightingale, there was actually some very positive news in regards to the lockout. apparently they're finally coming to terms on certain things that they were much farther apart on than previously. MLB raised its pre-arbitration bonus pool from $5 million to $20 million, which is still $95 million. Well, I think they raised it by $5 million.

No, no, no, they raised its pre-arbitration bonus pool from $5 million. Well, I think it was $5 million at the beginning. but I think it's been like, haven't they already raised it to like 10 or 15? I don't know. One point, but right now it's a 20 million. Okay, that's beside the point. It's a 20 million right now, which is still a far cry for what the players want it to be. They spent five hours today in the same complex in Jupiter, Florida, and MLB made modifications to the bonus pool and the draft lottery.

The draft lottery, the first MLB also proposed. a draft lottery for the first four picks instead of three while the union proposed eight. This shit is getting scary for the Arizona Diamondbacks. Let's hope no matter what, this doesn't happen until next year and not this year's draft. You would think it would be a little, a little bit strange for them to apply it immediately because undoubtedly, like, tanking was still a thing this last year. And that was the rule. That's how it was.

And it would be a little weird to suddenly flip the results of that. All of it. Yeah. I think they would probably wait a year. But we'll, I mean, we'll see. I don't think they have to. And we're up from where we're basically now, they're in agreeance that it's going to be a draft lottery. And it's going to be either four, somewhere between four and eight right now is where we're at.

So like I said, this is getting terrifying. I'm not going to be surprised to see them end up on five on that one. The first five or the worst five teams going to a draft lottery. But we'll see and we'll see how that impacts the Diamondbacks because what a nightmare that could be. After all of our tanking, after all of my sadness over them losing that final game of the goddamn year, after all the bad things I said about Josh Van Meter after that game, we could possibly see the Diamondbacks slip down even further from. second place. Is that the, does that spell the end of tank season? Like, is tank season officially over?

Because even if the diamond backs were in a position to tank, like, it wouldn't really be, I mean, you can still tank though, right? Like, even if, even if the top five picks are lottery base, I mean, we still see tanking in the, in the NBA, for example, all the time. And that's been a lottery system for, for a long time. So I don't know, I don't know. I guess maybe that doesn't really changed that much. I'm just sad. This is sad. This whole conversation is making me sad, because now I'm realizing how much more and more this is going to impact the Arizona Diamondbacks and their draft pick. And I hope it doesn't. I hope it doesn't, but it could. Very well could. No discussions yet about the CBT, the competitive balance tax,

aka the luxury tax. The two sides are scheduled to meet again Tuesday, Jesse. They're going to meet today. And they met for five hours on Monday. So, I imagine they don't have much stamina left in them to meet much longer. Hopefully this spells the end of the lockout soon. It really feels finally like they're trying to get something done. Five hours at the same complex, even if they weren't always together in the same room, still feels like progress. Meeting two days in a row feels like progress.

Yeah. Them kind of coming a bit closer together, I don't know what's going to happen. I think that, you know, at least what the players could do with some of these issues, that they're not getting enough money like that bonus pool is they could potentially just take it so that that bonus pool exists and then maybe allow it to increase in the future when, you know, they can make amendments or I don't know. I don't even know how that would work as far as like a new CBA goes or how long this one would be valid for. Do we know how long in general a CBA is good for? Is it a general period of time or?

That's a good question. I feel like it's a period of time that they set in. advance. I think they decide how long the CBA is going to is going I'm not aware of a standard amount of time that a CBA last for but I think this last one was about six years I think something something in that neighborhood will have to look that up and figure it out for sure but but that's the CBT is going to is the big one though right like until until they really start negotiating on the CBT it's hard to it's hard to view this very optimistically. And the reality is, Derek, everything that you're saying, like, let's be real here, none of this benefits the diamondbacks, essentially. Basically, none of it benefits the diamond back.

None of it's going to benefit. Yeah, the CBT, the CBT increasing doesn't help the diamondbacks. Yeah, the CBT increasing doesn't help the diamond backs. It's going to free up big market teams to be willing to spend more money because we all know that the CBT is essentially a salary cap that the teams don't want to go over. And yeah, none of this benefits the Diamondbacks because all of these, all of these things that put more money in the hands of players require owners to put that money in the hands of players. And if you have an owner of your organization that's not willing to put out that money like

other owners are, then all of this is bad news. So just to shed my optimistic take for the day. Basically, the sky is falling. way to be Captain Downer there. No, but you're right. I mean, we've talked about it, right? The thing about the CBT that benefits the Diamondbacks so much is that right now, they can be terrible and it can they can still turn a profit.

And unfortunately, it's the way that the way the system currently works. I don't know if they're so terrible for taking advantage of it. No. I don't know if, I don't know what to say about this team at times, right? Like, because I understand the city we live in. I understand how people can be. But I also feel, because they support the hell out of the coyotes, even with everything the coyotes have been doing, which is straight up tanking,

are they supporting them enough to drive a lot of people that are coyotes fans as long as they, you know, have to go to Glendale? Not when the teams as bad as it is. And when the Diamondbacks are bad, as they were last season, it's really easy for people to just ignore them. It's hard to get that consistent support. So taking this route isn't the worst route. But with that being said, the Diamondbacks are in the position because of the way that they decided to go with the team. You know, not adding free agents and not trying to make this team competitive, the result is that people aren't going to be interested in your team.

and you're going to have an empty stadium when your team gets really bad, which is exactly what we saw. Just like what we saw was, you know, a very thin roster at the beginning of the season, switching guys around and having the same guy be the backup at multiple positions. And then once they started to have injuries, everything just completely fell apart. The house of cards fell down.

Well, it fell down because you didn't even have sufficient backups just for a couple of injuries, you know, let alone the number of injuries that this team experienced in 2021. But I mean, we're already talking depressing enough shit, so I don't know why I need to bring up

the 2021 season and all. I am encouraged. I know what you said. I know you want to be pessimistic. I'm going to be cautiously optimistic. You can be optimistic today, Derek. I'm going to feel cautiously optimistic, Jesse, that I am going to say that I am going to support

something you said earlier was it I believe on mailbag Monday or might have even been last week. You're not going back to February 28th. I'm going back to February 28th, I'm supporting your February 28th idea. I think we will have a deal, a new CPA done in seven days.

That's the thing. Before you make a full of yourself. We're going to be wrong about Chris. Chris wanted to know what we're going to be wrong about again. This one. This is, we're committing again to this not breaking our hearts. Do you really, I mean, like, as much as we're having fun with this and joking about it, it's not impossible, right? A lot of people have looked at this week as the week where things were, where the pace was going to pick up.

Because time is running short and we all know that that's ultimately what's driving this whole negotiation. As time runs shorter and shorter, the incentive gets higher, the stakes get higher, these people want to get a deal done. And as, and as they evidenced yesterday on Monday in, in, in the. their long meeting, they were willing to stay there for a while. And granted, maybe they stayed in a room for five hours. And all that happened is the owners increased their pool by $5 million and added one more draft lottery pick, which doesn't feel like super significant progress. But you could see what people have been talking about.

There's an added incentive right now. I don't think it's impossible that things, could start to move quick. A lot of people have predicted this from the beginning. It's going to be slow for weeks and months. And then all of a sudden it's going to happen. And I don't know, Derek. I don't know. Maybe February 28th isn't so crazy after all. That's the part that pisses me off, though, Jesse, is that people predicted it. People knew they knew they were going to drag their feet on and they knew they were going to take their time. They knew they were going to apply pressure to each other by trying to like stall each other out until we got to the point of no return where they had no choice

but to get a deal done. That's bullshit to me. That infuriates me. That is such childish behavior that it makes me want to tear the little hair I have left out. I can't stand hearing that this business, this multi-billion dollar business is contingent on people acting like infants and waiting until the last minute to make counterproposals and to drag everything out until they finally decide to get together and meet. I'm sick of this situation lasting while people were just taking their holiday vacations and having a good time.

That's bullshit. You guys created a situation. You're going to end up having the fans get the raw end of the deal when it comes down to it. And you don't have the time to get this done to not impact the season and to not impact the local. Like, God damn it, man, the amount of like people that are pissed off about this locally, it's crazy. the amount of businesses that that just simply like need this so bad especially after this pandemic and everything that's been going on Arizona isn't a hotbed of of you know tourists coming in we're not we're not exactly a vacation destination at times don't get me wrong people love

coming here in the winter for our weather and I know we have the snowbirds and all of that right this is different like we were talking about people in maryvale and restaurants and mary Vail that literally make like their entire nest egg for the year off of one month. And that one month is March of every year because of spring training. And these people have had to go without it now for like three, you know, years of it being normal like it was in the past. I mean, it is just such enough. It's such a big effect.

And the stuff that that these owners essentially and I mean, honestly, the players, I hang this on the owners too much. but I do that because the owners could have easily been having this exact same contentious negotiation with the Players Association without locking out the players, without impacting the season. And they could do it tomorrow. They could just end the lockout and still continue to negotiate a new CBA. And that, again, is like the most infuriating part about this, maybe even more than everything else I said. The fact that, like, with the snap of someone's fingers, it could magically come to an end.

and they just refuse to do that because why because it'll make you look weak by acquiescing and i don't want to look weak in front of the players association i mean i don't like it's it just shows how much the plan backfired on them it shows how much that their intention was to do this and hold time and the season hostage you know and then it does it makes them look like well shit we screwed up so we need to undo this thing we did because we were just trying to really put pressure on the players but we don't want to lose that on the spring training money. I think it's kind of gone exactly to their plan. Their plan is working, right?

Like they're super far apart in negotiations. They're not really forced to resolve this because they hold the keys to this whole situation. And the players need them in order to keep playing, right? The owners ultimately have control over the situation. And obviously the owners need the players too. But the owners hold the keys to the situation at the end of the day. And I mean, they know, they've, they've known all along with the consequences of this would be, right?

When, when they said the other day, you know, we regret that we have to postpone spring training and all of this, they know deep down that that's BS, right? They know that they don't actually have to do that. There's nowhere, anywhere where it says that the owners have to, you know, delay the season until an agreement is finally. meant. And the players were smart to point that out. They were like, this is just crap. This is utterly not true. And we all know that too. Everyone knows that. And the owners know that too. They're not stupid, right? They're well aware of that, but they're using it as leverage. And they're willing to take the PR hit of people like us, you know, saying what we're saying day in and day out. They're willing to take that hit because they know in the end, it's probably going to end with a better

agreement for them. Look, man, I want to call the players greedy, you know, just like some people are doing. Yeah, I want to say both sides, both sides. It's just so hard for me, too. Yeah. It's hard for me, too. It's hard for me too because of what MLB is doing to the minor league guys. It's hard for me because it's like the minute that MLB started to do something nice, they had to still be like, oh, no, you didn't think we were going to actually pay for that housing for those minor league players out of, like, our pockets. No, no, no. People need to lose their jobs over this in order for us to afford this.

Don't worry, we're going to make that happen, right? Right, right. That's the part of it that always kind of swings back to the owners or MLB or whatever you want to call this mystery conglomerate as being like this Disney villain that just always seems to want to do

the thing like just just the evil thing for profits and for themselves and all of this, right? The entire time the players have actually made concessions on their demands than the owners have and the owners move in these small increments because yeah like you said this is their plan there and their plan is you know to get the players down there and and like to make it look like they're negotiating but they're just going to continue to stand firm and and allow the players to eventually decide if they want to deal with this and

make this into like a much bigger deal than it is or if they want to be the ones to save the season by just giving up on a lot of things that they're fighting for. I don't know, man. It's tough. I've seen some things recently that made me out a lot of respect for people, for sticking to their guns, for sticking to certain things like us with the journalism and, you know, guys sticking up for journalistic integrity

during all of this entire, you know, situation of teams, organizations, NFL, MLB, everybody wanting to kind of like control the narrative instead of allowing it to just be told by people, you know, writing about it. Especially we've talked about the MLB.com stuff. So we're not going to get into that a whole bag of nonsense and propaganda again. All I will say is I saw enough baseball today that while I was reading these updates, it just, it felt it felt like things were coming together. and I don't know if it was because I was there and it felt right like it's always this time of the year

when I get to be out there watching these guys do this stuff it just it felt like everything was getting back to normal and I almost had to remind myself that oh yeah these are just minor league guys and we can't even really talk to them like I said hey to buddy Kennedy and he said hey back and it's like I don't know if I could even speak to him.

Yeah right. Maybe a person if it's okay. Can I ask him how he is? Right. I just want to know he's okay. I say anything. I'll see if his dad's okay. But anyway, so, you know, but again, we will be having more about this.

I'm going to be writing a piece on my day out there. Just kind of what I saw, the non-comments from the players and, you know, a bit of an update from camp over at go phtnx.com. Of course, you can sign up to become a member if you haven't already done so. Annual membership will get you a free t-shirt over at the phtonx locker.com. Of course, you can also sign up for the month-to-month option, and you will get your first month for just 50. sense. And not just my article is there, not just the ability to get great discounts over at

the PHNX Locker.com, as well as join our members only Discord. And by the way, so much great content. Gerald, Craig, Morgan, these guys are beasts when it comes to content. So so much content for you there. But also, Jesse Friedman's latest piece that he wrote and took like a week's worth of work to put into about Zach Gallen. It was fun. Well, I mean, it was mostly fun. I looked at, I looked at a distressing amount of nerdy spreadsheets and things. But no, I mean, we all know that Zach Allen wasn't himself last year. And I think it's easy to chalk that up to injuries. And there's certainly some truths to that, right?

Zach Allen was on the injured list three separate times. One of them was a UCL sprain, which is, which, you know, definitely can play with the psyche of a major league pitcher. So I think there's a lot of merit to that argument. but whether that was the the root cause of his struggles or not, we should still be able to figure out why wasn't he as good, right? Like it was his fastball, V-Lo lower,

was his change of not moving like it did, right? There has to be some explanation for why at the end of the day his pitches just weren't as effective as they've been in years prior. So I did my best. I dug into some numbers. I wouldn't say there's any, you know, one thing that I would point to. But just to give a slight preview,

one of the things that stood out, Derek, is his change up just was not, I mean, it was one of the most dominant outpitches in baseball in 2019 and 2020. And last year, his, his whiff rate was significantly lower than it's been in the past. I think it was 23% in 2020 and 2021. It was 16%. One of the lower marks out of all of his pitches, actually, he just wasn't getting swings and misses with that change up as much. as he has in the past. He also introduced a new cutter, which was interesting. He's had like a

slider cutter combo that he's thrown for several years, but he introduced a new pitch that was just a true cutter this year. And I think that might have some implications as well. I'm not sure that pitch was, was really all that effective for him. So I won't spoil the full details, but there's some really interesting stuff and would love to hear what people think of it. It's over at go ph andx.com right now. Yeah, we talked a bit about his, uh, his lack of throwing the change up. Was there any correlation between his, uh, I guess his reduction in throwing it and his effectiveness with it? Like was he ineffective with it? So he stopped throwing it or was it just a matter of frequency caused him to not be as sharp with it? You know what was weird is I had

the same thing in my head that Zach Allen totally like there were portions of the year where he just didn't throw his change up. The numbers, kind of said otherwise. He actually threw the change up almost as frequently. It was a little bit lower, but almost as frequently as he did in 2020. The pitch that he threw less more than anything else was actually his curveball. His curveball usage was down dramatically. And that was a good curveball, right? He has a really good curve ball. And it was even, it moved more this past year than it has even in the past. It was, I mean, it's a filthy curveball. So I think maybe using that pitch a little bit more could be part of it. But yeah, just a really fascinating situation of a guy who,

like his stuff didn't really change that much. His fastball velo went up. Like there weren't any super major red flags on the front end. So, you know, there's got to be something there, some small adjustments that he can make. Maybe it's his pitch mix like I've been talking about kind of reworking how much he's using each of those pitches, maybe cutting off that, that cutter from his pitch mix. But hey, Derek, we've got Brent Strom. And that means that Matt Allen is in good hands. That means you don't have to do this work, Jesse. That means that he'll take care of it. Right, right. I can try to poke around and find some potential causes, but it's, it's Brent Strom's problem to fix. Yeah, he's a guy. Now at course. And he'll be fine. I feel pretty, I feel pretty good

about that. Well, yeah, and like he said, you can get over that over at go phnx.com. Sign up to become a member. We love you. We appreciate you for it and help us keep the lights on around here. That's all we got this week. If you guys want to follow us on social media, I am at cap underscore caveman with a K. Jesse is at Jesse N. Friedman. And that's on Twitter. Our show is at PHNX underscore DBAX. Check out the show account, by the way. If you haven't done so, please follow us. Once we hit 2,000 followers on there, we're going to do another shirt giveaway. And I really, I don't mean to to toot my own horn, But beep, beep, I got some good content today.

So go check it out. Hopefully you'll enjoy hearing the sounds of baseball once again. Even if it's not game action, might get you through until the end of this lockout. Of course, all roads lead to at PHNX underscore sports. And that's on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Right now, if you're listening to us on your favorite audio podcasting app, please subscribe if you haven't done so already. And leave us a five-star review.

We'd appreciate you for it. If you don't think we deserve a five-star review, then take a walk, I guess what's what I'm saying. That sounded rude. That's the kind of thing that gets you a one-star review. So I'll say kindly, if you're not going to leave us a five-star review, maybe just no review at all. But also go over to YouTube, subscribe to us over there, sign up for notifications. That way you don't miss any of the amazing content coming out from the PHNX team.

And we are having a blast. So there's a lot of great content. Sun's best team in the league, devastating injury for the time being to CP3, but I think they're going to be okay. And I'm not qualified to give you any kind of comment. commentary on it, but I'm wearing a campaign t-shirt right now, so I figured since you can't see it, I might as well tell you

about it and give you... It's the new starting point card, right? Well, for now, it's probably going to be Aaron Holiday. I think campaign's still injured, too, but it'd be interesting to see how that develops. Maybe you know, maybe we'll see a combination of guys, but we're not a son's podcast, so

go get your information over there. Remember, sign up over at go phtnx.com. Use our code of PHNX over at excuse me, it's a draft king sports book. They're going to be very mad at me for forgetting their name for a minute there, but I'm just going to own it. It's been a long day.

I've been in the sun for several hours. I'm not used to that. I've spent most of the days in sweatpants at my house. I had to wear jeans today. Jesse, it was a nightmare. But it was nice to see baseball, like I said, and feel the sun on my face. So again, we thank you guys so much.

On behalf of Jesse and myself, we appreciate you for checking out the show. And remember, kids, baseball is fun, but it was really, really fun today.