PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Passan the buck

Episode Date: January 6, 2022

On this episode, Derek and Jesse are discussing Jeff Passan's article from ESPN on MLB's labor negotiations, what experts are saying we will see changed, and how his recent comments on Hall of Fame nominees has shaken Derek to his core. 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 the PHNX DVax podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Montia, officially known as your mayor of PHNX, and I'm joined by my vice mayor, my friend, my co-host, Thunderstake Jesse Friedman. Derek, how are you, my friend? I am great, Jesse. I'm done building IKEA furniture, which I have been doing for the last six days straight. I found out I'm very good at it, by the way. Oh, that's a very marketable.

skill, Derek. That is one of the most marketable skills. Let me tell you. It's like Legos or puzzles. It's like once you get in the groove, you know how it works now. You can just bang it out, right? But I'll tell you, the minute, it's when I'm on the fifth and

sixth Lego set for my daughter, then I really start moving. But those first four, oh man, those are three-hour builds each, you know, the Encanto Casino, some of those other things. But of course, this show is brought to you by the fine folks at the Drafking Sportsbook app. go download the Drafking Sportsbook app now use our code of pHMX and simply for betting $5 on any NFL team to win their game.

Actually, excuse me, not just NFL, college as well. So any football team to win their game, you will win $200 in free bets should they win their game. Wow. That's a big number for us. $200 in free bets. And that's on top, Jesse, of whatever your winnings are. So that's a minimum of $5 bet. You can bet whatever you want for as a new customer.

And again, you will get $200 in free bets. Yes, it's back. It's back to big money. We've had its ups and downs, but the season is almost over. So they want to end things with a bang with $200 free offer. And do that right now on drafting sportsbook. Jesse, I don't know what we would do for content at times. If it isn't for our fellow reporters out there creating content.

And I say this because Jeff Passon recently appeared on the Chris Rose situation on John Boy Media. And by the way, shout out to John Boy. What an absolute stud for the empire that they have created over there. Something you and I would much like to just have a small piece of the success of what they've been doing. No, they look up to us. I'm pretty sure, Derek. They're looking over what we're doing. and they're pretty jealous.

I'm really enjoying this side of you, Jesse Free. I don't know what's gotten into you lately, but the confidence levels through the roof and I dig it. I think it's because you're not in the blank void anymore. You have some decorations surrounding you. Yes. You feel powerful. But I will say

that I have taken the position at times of being the morality police when it comes to who I feel should and shouldn't be in the Hall of fame. So with one small appearance

on the Chris Rose I think I'm going to get this wrong. I think I already said it, but it's the Chris Rose rotation, excuse me, on John Boy. They he, he

Jeff Passon single-handedly convinced me that I have been wrong this whole time. So I have a clip here and this is exactly what I'm talking about. I voted based on what a guy did on the field. I think the character clause is complete garbage and needs to be extricated from the entire process because I think the notion that sports writers are going to be the moral arbiters for baseball players is positively laughable. We don't know these guys. And there are some, especially those of us who are around for a while, who actually do get to know the human beings and hear stories about them.

But in reality, there's so much about players that I don't know. I'm never comfortable sitting there and using that as the criteria to keep them out. I find personally Kurt Schilling's opinions on almost everything in life to be completely abhorrent. I still would vote for him. And because this isn't a museum about who's a scumbag and who isn't, this is a museum celebrating best players in baseball history. And he was one of them. that part at the end like don't get me wrong i i he started saying some things that i understood

and agreed with right off the bat but the more that clip went on the more i felt the the the the the the the the the mental turn for me personally uh happening right i felt myself kind of feeling a bit shameful for being one of those moral arbiters that he talked about. Yeah, it makes you feel icky inside if you've put yourself on that pedestal before, right? Right, and not only that, not only that,

right, but it's more so as he goes on, right? He has to directly use Kurt Schilling, somebody who I personally can no longer stand, but have an amount of respect for

still, based on what he did for this franchise, this city, you know, in this state, right? Like, this is somebody that you can't completely hate as an Arizona Diamondbacks fans. However, he does sometimes make you try to hate him with his opinions and his hot takes. And Passan had to use him directly as an example. Somebody who I probably would say I would keep out of the Hall of Fame. But again, for not just not just for his views, but probably just personally at times for how much I've hated

like everything about him over the last like 15 years, you know? So, and then, but then he has to go on to say the thing that really got to me, Jesse. It is the, it's not a, it's not a hall fame

of, you know, of scumbat or, you know, Who's a scumbag and who's not? Yeah, that's not what it's about, right? It's about who was the best baseball players, and he definitely was one of them, and so was Barry Bonds, and so was so many of these guys.

I feel like generations from now, people are going to ask, what the hell were you guys doing in that time period, right? Like, they were going to be like, what were, like, they kept these guys out of Hall of Fame. This is crazy, you know, so that part, I definitely took, to heart and I think I think I've changed my view a bit on this I've never had a hard stance on it but

there are a few players that I did take a hard stance on and again picking and choosing is problematic as well because then you're deciding what is a law and a rule against being in the Hall of Fame and what isn't and what you stand for versus what someone else stands for what you believe in versus someone else it's it's definitely one of those things that that you really can't start picking and choosing. Jeff Passon is really one of the most compelling communicators. I mean, whether he's writing or, I mean, he's just, he's a, he's a blessing to all of us, really.

really especially in a time like this where there's, there's really not a whole lot going on in the baseball world. Any content that you can get your hands on from Jeff Passon is certainly worth your time. But, but yeah, I'm totally with you here, Derek. I've thought for a while that the, um, you know, the case against players that, you know, based on their character, um, is used far, far too often, uh, when it comes to deciding you should be in the Hall of Fame. Um, and I, I will point out, I think there's a difference between a Barry Bond situation and a Kurt Schilling,

just because, you know, using steroids is kind of another matter in itself. I mean, that's directly enhancing your ability to perform. Uh, I still personally would not hold Barry Bonds out of the Hall of Fame for that reason. But I think it's a little bit of a different situation. With Kurt Schilling, as far as I'm aware, there aren't really any accusations out there that Kurt Schilling took any kind of performance enhancing drugs throughout his career. And the issue is more about, you know, political stances. And I understand where people are coming from. I think a lot of the things that he says are quite egregious. But, but, yeah, again, it's not, it's not really for us to

to judge, right? But even that, right? Like, even that, even the whole cheating thing unless someone, you know, and even that, with steroids, with performance enhancing drugs, that's been a factor in baseball, unfortunately

for a very, very long time. That is not something that's new. It's just the substances have changed, but there's always been performance enhancing substances in some form or another. And part of the problem is is that baseball never did anything to police it.

So how can you really say someone broke the rules or was a cheater when it wasn't really against the rules and they're not cheating? I don't know. The Astro situation, that's kind of much different, right? Again, that's one of those situations that you could say, like, I don't know. How are people going to view members of that team?

How is, how are, how is, how are, how is Al Tuve going to be viewed when his time for the Hall of Fame comes up? Who knows, right? I think that maybe points of view could change between now and then. Right now we seem to be really focused as a society at times on trying to put a spotlight on who are terrible people, you know, who are secretly terrible people, who are kind of known terrible people, all this stuff. And, I mean, don't get me wrong, it's a very good thing.

A lot of good things have come from it. And I feel like people have, unfortunately, for them, as much as they hate it, they had to kind of change their behavior because you just can't get away with things anymore. Lo and behold, in 2021 and 2022 with 4K cameras and social media where people can literally talk about something that just happened moments ago and have it spread like wildfire across the internet. it's, you know, it's, it brings me back to like Pete Rose, right? You know, this podcast is brought to you by Draft King's Sportsbook app. Draft Kings, along with so many other sports books and things have, have integrated into all of the sports, right? And we're enjoying it.

But Pete Rose was essentially banned from baseball and is no longer a part of this entire fraternity due to his association with gambling. Is there going to come a time where we can forgive that? Again, that's part of this whole morality stance. And, you know, again, we don't know if Pete Rose cheated and, you know, did things gambling-wise that affected the sport. But we know that he did bet on the team he was on. And that's not obviously something that, you know, can coincide when you're a player on the team. Right.

So I get holding him accountable for his actions, but again, is there going to be a time where he can be forgiven, especially considering how common gambling is now becoming as part of our normal lives and especially as part of our sporting lives. So I don't know. I'm not, and I'm not trying to attack our sponsor by any stretch of the imagination or any gambling related things. I'm just saying now it's okay. It's like a lot of things that maybe were illegal at one point and aren't. I mean, shit, man, when I was in the late 90s, when I would watch SportsCenter, it felt like every other day somebody was being busted for marijuana that was a pro athlete, you know, sneaking it through in the lid of a water bottle or something like that and onto a plane or whatever and getting caught.

And it's like now it's, you know, it's nothing. It's legal. It's legal. It's nothing. If someone got caught with it, they'd probably be asked to throw it away in the trash can and keep it stepping, you know, except in certain, sure, there's certain, you know, states that still haven't legalized it, that would still maybe prosecute people or make a big deal about it. But for the most part, most of the country, things on that have changed drastically over the last 20 years. That would have been a headline that potentially got someone suspended from their team and maybe even kicked off their team for doing something like that. And these days,

it wouldn't even make the news because it wouldn't have even become an issue. Things change. I think with that change, we have to look back on past transgressions that might be associated with it and maybe be a little bit more forgiving about it, you know? Yeah, you're very right. I mean, the goalposts of morality, just like as a society are changing every single day, right? Like what's okay and what's not okay. And yeah, based on that, I mean, if the Hall of Fame is going to be something that, you know, transcends generation after generation, it doesn't make any sense to judge players based on,

you know, a sense of morality that seems to change, you know, from one day to the next. So yeah, I couldn't agree with you more, Derek. Leave it, leave it to Jeff Passon to change, to change minds about just about anything. That's the kind of guy he is. I'm the kind of person that I have no problem admitting when I've changed my mind about something. I have no problem admitting when I was wrong or I wish I may have been in the past. I make you do it on the show all the time, all the time. I'm just, I'm faced with it every single day.

I just know that, again, it's, I wasn't, I definitely wasn't one of those people that stood up and wagged my finger at every player that's had any kind of, uh, negative or a moral thing happened with their career,

uh, or, you know, no blemishes, uh, or blemishes on the record or anything like. that. But like you said, there are certain guys. And Kurt Schilling was definitely one of them. And to be honest, he definitely doesn't deserve it because as much as you might hate him as a

person now or for his views or anything else about him, he didn't do anything to cheat baseball. And all he has is like really important views on things. So I don't know, man, I guess. You know, things like that definitely make me feel like it was more of a personal grievance than me being like, yeah, let's keep them out, you know, because we got to keep the hall a place of dignity and respect. Sure. Yeah. It's good stuff. You know. But I'll tell you, I'll tell you this much.

I will say that the Hall of Fame voting situation, I think at times is ridiculous from the writers that choose to, you know, not vote, not use all of their votes because they want to make some sort of stance or something to, you know, someone like Dan Lavitard losing his vote because he decided to sell it off to the public for them to vote instead of having someone like him vote because he felt like it was a vote for the people. So I don't know. Hall of Fame's weird. A lot of things in sports are going to have this weird fraternity thing. but I credit Passin for definitely changing my view, at least on a few guys that I probably would still feel the otherwise about

or before hearing is his point of view. But just as a reminder, go download the Drafking Sportsbook app since we're talking about gambling and use our code of PHNX because remember, we love it now. Everything's good with it. Get Pete Rose in the Hall of Fame. Let's stop all of this nonsense. And you, whether you feel like you agree with me or not, can still go bet $5 on any football team to win their game.

And if they do, as surprised as Jesse was earlier, you win $200 in free bets instantly. So let's wind down the season with a big win. Draft King's Sportsbook, which is the official sports betting partner of the NFL. You guys can get in the same game parlay game. At one time I was Mr. Parlay, but I've relinquished that. nickname. There are better nicknames out there and better people at nailing parley's. However, I might start calling myself Mr. First Touchdown, because I've hit a couple of those this season, and that's pretty great. It doesn't quite have the ring to it.

Mr. Parlayed, but you'll get there. You'll get there. I'll figure something out. We'll never be as good as Big Papa Parlay, but we'll figure it out. If you don't know what a parlay is, you obviously have not been paying attention to this show. Combine multiple bets from the same game, and you will get a bigger payout. The more legs you add, the more money you can win. And again, pro tip, when you get into the Drafking Sportsbook,

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Remember, our code is P-H-N-X to bet just $5 or more on any football team, college or pro, and you will win $200 in free bets if they are victorious. That promo, again, was P-H-N-X. 21-in-over-only, Arizona-only gambling problem, dial-100 next step. New customers-only, eligibility restrictions apply. See draftkings.com slash sportsbook for details. And Jesse, that wasn't the only thing that Jeff Passon had to blow our minds with, right? Because he wrote a little article about our feelings on this whole CBA situation.

He did. Yeah, this is an article over on ESPN.com. You do have to have the ESPN Plus subscription in order to read this yourself. But we'll give you a little slice of it here today. Yeah, this is a really good piece on just the entire labor negotiator. negotiation situation, which we've been talking about a lot lately. And yeah, I mean, he emphasizes how the situation is kind of broken and the relationship between the players and the owners couldn't be worse in many respects and how in some sense it starts to feel like politics, right?

It starts to feel like Republican and Democrat where they're not, they're just not interested in sitting at the same table and working out their differences, right? They'd rather hide in their corners. So yeah, I mean, that's the that's the vibe that we're getting here in these in these negotiations. But for me, the most interesting part of this piece is a section a little ways down where Passon actually talks with a group of a few people. He calls this. He says it's a dozen major league sources, a mixture of one owner, two league officials, two GMs, one assistant GM, four players, one union official and two agents. And together, he consulted all of those people.

and he put together basically what they think the agreement between the players and the owners finally will look like. Just a couple days ago here on the show, we kind of set forth what we thought the final agreement might look like. I think that was on Mailbag Monday. But this is from some sources that certainly are a little more plugged into this situation than we are. So there's seven things, Derek.

You ready for these seven things? Hit me with them. All right. So number one on the last. is raise minimum salaries to around 650K. So that's a 14% bump. Okay. Pretty reasonable, right?

Nothing seems like that of the ordinary. Right now, the league minimum, I think, is in the high 500s, I want to say. So yeah, 14% increase there. Number two, out of performance bonus pool for pre-arbitration players. So this is basically for guys before they hit arbitration, there's a way for them to make a little bit more than that league minimum. or slightly above it, which is normally what they wind up making. And this would be like an incentive-based bonus, right, where they hit certain criteria.

And then why not? I mean, if you, if you're a guy that's making league minimum and you hit 20 home runs, don't you deserve to make more than league minimum compared to your peers? Maybe if your war hovers at two plus, maybe you deserve to make a bonus and make more than league minimum considering how good you've proven to be. I don't know. I don't think that any of that is outrageous at all. I'm a big fan of incentives.

Yeah. I think so far. Sure. Yeah. No, incentives. I mean, at the end of the day, I guess it's, I mean, it's really just trying to get more money in the pocket of players early in their careers, right? Sure. Sure.

So, yeah, that's certainly what accomplished that. Number three on the list is one that we predicted implement the universal designated hitter, right? No surprise there. That's going to happen. Number four. Yep, that's going to happen. Number four, another one that we also pegged is very, very likely expand the postseason from 10 to 14 teams. I think you can pretty much, pretty much lock that in. No pun intended. Number five, remove indirect draft pick compensation for free agents. So this is the issue where certain players on the free agent market are not as attractive because they're tied to draft. pick compensation. So in certain situations right now, if you sign a player that's tied to draft pick compensation, then you have to forfeit a draft pick in order to sign them. So that's been a big

gripe lately from the player's side of things. So also no real surprise in something like that being done. Number six, make significant changes to the draft to disincentivize tanking and reward small markets. Derek, I want your take on this one. This one is almost a little confusing in a sense because oftentimes the small markets are the teams that are doing the tanking if there are any things doing it. So I don't really know how exactly this would be accomplished

but it's number six is interesting. I'm not, again, as much as we have been fans of tank season on this show, I don't think either of the two guys that host this show actually think anybody does tanking in 162 game season. I think there. At least not the Diamondbacks, not the Diamondbacks last year.

Well, and it's, you know, it's kind of like what's going on with the coyotes, right? You can field a less than competitive team comprised of youngsters or guys that are cheap and guys that aren't stars. But it doesn't mean necessarily that you're going to lose. You're just trying to, you know, maybe you save some money for down the road and you're deciding at this point,

you're not going to invest, invest heavily into this season. That's something I felt more than half of baseball did this year. You know, with the uncertainty, the financial uncertainty, even a team like the Chicago Cubs, that doesn't really have to worry about the financial uncertainty of a situation

like this still decided early on. It seemed like that they were going to just hold off on spending this year. and let the chips fall where they may. Sure. Yeah, no. So I don't know exactly. There aren't really specifics here. But yeah,

I guess we'll see exactly what that would look like. But if there's a way to reward small markets in the draft, I mean, of course the Diamondbacks would benefit hugely from that. Maybe the flip side is that, you know, maybe they're not picking second overall. Maybe there's some sort of a lottery system there. But yeah, we'll have to just wait and see on. that front. Number seven, here's the last one. This is big. Raise the CBT threshold. So the tax, right,

the luxury tax into the $230 million plus range and remove other restraints, including non-monetary and other forms of penalties. So this is big. So they just, they just want this to get out of control with the spending, huh? Yeah. Yeah. And I, and this is the part where I kind of wonder, how in the end, how is this really going to benefit the diamond backs? It seems like there's probably more, more negative than, than positive here for them. But yeah, I believe the luxury tax threshold right now is at 210. So moving it up to 230 would, you know,

just kind of continue a trend from the, from the last several collective bargaining agreements. So yeah, yeah. But it's, I mean, it's, it hasn't been going up that much. you know what I mean like it's it that's that's a pretty big jump compared to the two million that it's been going up per year currently oh has it only been going up two million per yeah oh 206 and 2019 2019 208 in 2020 210 and they had like a they had like a natural build built

into the last CBA now they want to jump up 20 million interesting they do yeah absolutely uh interestingly enough, the New York Yankees, do you want to take a stab at how much they've paid total due to luxury tax? Oh, man. Like total, like all time? Well, let's put it this way. The years they surpass the luxury tax, the CBT, was 2003 through 2017, all of them in 2019.

Oh, man. mean, it's got to be up into the billions. No, no, it's not. It's not. It's not. Their total tax paid is $348 million. Okay. So it's actually pretty reasonable, but still a shit ton of money to spend on luxury tax.

Yeah. I mean, that's like five years worth of Diamondbacks regular payroll. So that's a lot of money. Yeah. The Dodgers, 2013 through 2017, paid. 150 million total. Okay. So the Dodgers paid almost half of what the Yankees did that entire time frame for

It is surprising how, like how well that actually works. It's not a salary cap, which I know a lot of people want it to be. But it is effective. Like, for whatever reason, these filthy rich owners of big market teams are actually a little bit scared of the luxury tax threshold. They don't like it. They don't want, you know, if they're going to be over it, for a couple of years, they want to get out of it the third year to avoid the increased penalty, right?

They try to reset the clock every once in a while. I mean, if I were in in those shoes, my first inclination would just be like, well, let's just pay whatever it takes to win. You know, I mean, I don't think there's any chance that, you know, the Dodgers or the Yankees aren't going to be doing well financially enough in order to, in order to justify spending the money. So I guess it does work in the favor of small market teams in that way that the bigger market teams actually are a little bit concerned about the luxury tax threshold. They're spending a whole lot of money. And I think oddly enough, everybody wants that to be okay. I think that's something that the players are going to be okay with and the owners are going to be okay with.

the owners don't want to be taxed for spending money and the players don't want to do anything that's going to prevent them from getting paid. So the entire idea of the luxury tax is ridiculous. And, you know, again, either have a salary cap or just stop. Yeah, it is kind of a silly in between. Yeah. I mean, because even a salary cap, you could set a salary cap at $350 million, let's say. I mean, that's just trying to be progressive for the future. considering how his salaries and some of these teams spending is going to go, right?

But it doesn't mean that teams like the Diamondbacks are going to spend over $100 million, right? So you're still going to have this gap between the Dodgers maxing out at the salary cap at $350 million and the Diamondbacks still spending like $96. I felt like the idea of the floor was a best. better idea than, you know, than a cap necessarily. You know, getting the teams that aren't spending as much to spend more kind of seem like a reasonable idea as crazy as it sounds. But we will have.

The one thing I will say real quick in favor of the luxury tax is that there's a revenue sharing model built into it. So, you know, teams like the Diamondbacks actually get a share of the luxury tax money that is paid. Whereas if you have a hard cap. then there's no competitive balance built into that where some of the smaller market teams are benefiting from that money. So I guess that's the counter argument that is in favor of that.

But it's just weird. It's just it's just an odd dynamic to have. I completely agree. Well, over on go p.nx.com, we have some great pieces, including Jesse's piece that we talked about examining the big trades of the Mike Hazen era, as well as some recent information on the coyotes unveiling a new digital sports betting platform and some other information. Coyotes, we talked about it today. Well, they unveiled digital sports betting platform Sahara Bet.

So you're going to have to go read Craig's article for more information on that. I cannot confirm or not. I will go read Craig's article. Go check out Craig's article. Don't miss anything Craig does. He's an amazing human being and we are lucky to have them. Go over to go p.nx.com. Become a member if you aren't already.

Get that annual membership. You will get the free t-shirt from P.HNX Locker.com. $2,9.99 normally free for you as an annual member. Not to mention, you'll get all sorts of discounts at the PHNXLocker.com throughout the year as a member. If you're not interested in the annual membership, get that monthly membership and you'll get your first month for just 50 cents. Check us out. See if you like what we're doing over here. And then sign up to become an annual member and stick around.

We have lots of stuff coming. to the website as well as all of this content that we're turning out for you in our shows and our podcast we appreciate you guys uh joining us for those of you that are our family members already you know about the members only discord i'm going to continue this uh how do i say it jesse how do you say is it discord discord i don't know those are both wrong both very wrong all right well i'm on there i'm getting messages people are asking where i'm at i'll tell you when i'm not doing podcast or not planning for podcast. I'm making IKEA furniture

is what I'm doing. That's what I've been doing. But I'm very happy to be done with that. I'm retiring from the IKEA game. I'm going to go out on top, hang my little plastic turny knobs that you stick into a hole and have it turned to lock a screw in place

thing in the rafters, baby. And my Allen wrench, because I'm done. I built my daughter a room and I built myself an office. this. These rooms, Jesse, they don't even look like the rooms they were before. It's kind of crazy now being in this house after this transformation, but I don't ever want to build IKEA furniture again as long as I live. I will have a new piece up on go phnx.com about those new year's resolutions that we talked about for the Arizona Diamondbacks. We'll cover some of those in a little bit greater detail as well as have some new ones for them as well for 2022. Hope you guys are sticking to yours as well. We appreciate you guys checking out the show. So another thing, by the way, is you can go over to phnx locker.com and get a t-shirt even if you're not a member. Again, those t-shirts are $29.99.

They are the talk of the town. We love them. I have an entire drawer full of them. Jesse, I have so many that are in the drawer that I have to like, I don't have any more room in the drawer. I have to like find new places for them. But obviously, one of my New Year's resolutions was to wear PHNX merch all the time. You can do that too. You can look great, feel even better in 2022.

Forget any of those resolutions that we talked about this week. Don't set those. Make your New Year's resolution that you're going to go to the PHNX Locker.com and buy yourself one of these sweet, sweet shirts. You know, the best thing about it, Derek, is that Phoenix is one of few places in the country where you can literally wear a T-shirt almost all the time. God, you are not wrong, Jesse. Because even in Denver, you know, I mean, DNVR, don't get us wrong.

They've got some slick shirts over there. But nobody wants to wear a shirt, a T-shirt right now in Denver. It was like negative four degrees the other day. You have to wear like two layers underneath it and then a jacket on top of it. Not here in Phoenix, baby. I went to IKEA again. I promise you this podcast is sponsored by Draft King Sportsbook and not IKEA. But I did wear a lightweight hoodie zip up on the way.

to go and a midway drive i was dying i had to take it off and that's in january so uh again phoenix we can brag about it being t-shirt weather all the time so of course you need to make sure you have some killer t-shirts not to mention when you go over to phnx lockery.com don't don't forget to grab yourself one of the sticker packs i did i did forget to grab it is what i'm saying and i've regretted it ever since the worst part about it is that i made two separate orders. And the second time I told myself to throw the stickers on there, didn't do it that time either. Don't be me. Get your $5 sticker packs because they are incredible. Whether it's the Arizona Diamondbacks, whether it's the Suns, the Cardinals, it doesn't matter. They are all

incredible. They all have some special edition stickers in there. And again, they are limited edition. These stickers are going to rotate. And once they're gone, they're going to be gone forever. We'll get some different designs in and some new sticker packs. All of these tend to be. t-shirt-related pack. So get them for your laptop, get them for your house, get them for your meat shack. That's where I put my stickers

is on my meat shack. And don't make me have to tell you what a meat shack is. That's a whole other episode that we would need to record. But again, we thank you guys for the support. We thank you for being members.

We thank you for buying the t-shirts. We thank you for going over the Drap King Sportsbook app and obviously using our code of PHNX to sign up. We appreciate all of that. You can follow us on Twitter. I'm at Cap.

underscore caveman with a k. Jesse is at Jesse and Friedman. Our show is at PHNX underscore DVax, but of course, all roads lead to at PHNX underscore sports. And that is on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Also, if you're listening to us right now in your favorite audio podcasting app, be sure to subscribe, don't miss an episode of the show, and leave us a five-star review. We've talked about who is and isn't a five-star man on the show. But again, And one of us is. The other one may not be. We'll let you decide who is.

You let you decide. Yeah, I'm not naming names or pointing fingers, but, you know, whatever. But drop this a five-star review. Also, go over to YouTube, subscribe to us, the PHNX sports channel there. Sign up for notifications. That way you don't miss any of this content. We're trying to make too much content for you. So that way you get sick of us a little bit, but then, you know, you might take a day off

and then really miss us a lot and then come back and just never leave us ever again. That's really the pattern that we're hoping for. But we are here for you at all time. So make sure to subscribe and don't miss out on any of this content that we're putting out all week long. Jesse, did you have something to say about us suffocating people with our content? I mean, I think you said it well the other day that we just want people to use PHNX responsibly. There you go. Yeah.

In time with family. You know, don't. Don't be watching us on YouTube the entire day. You know, maybe you get to a reasonable day. Don't drive. Don't drive and watch us. Drive and listen to us, but don't drive and watch us. Yeah.

No more than seven hours of pH, yeah, that's the range I like to, you know, you need to have reasonable boundaries in life, Derek. So just try to help the people out here. You're right. That's why I have you in my life as my co-host and my vice mayor, Jesse. You keep me grounded. And I appreciate it.

But again, we thank you guys so much on behalf of, my vice mayor and myself, we thank you guys so much for checking out the show. And remember, kids, baseball is fun, but it's much more fun when you consult with Jeff Passon for all of his opinions on the game.