PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Recapping the NL West with special guest Patrick Lyons

Episode Date: October 27, 2022

Jesse and Patrick Lyons from DNVR Rockies look back on their preseason predictions for the NL West. They also preview the World Series between the Philadelphia Phillies and Houston Astros and compare the teams across four categories: offense, defense, starting pitching and relief pitching. Finally, Patrick shares some thoughts on the Colorado Rockies' long-term future.BUY D-BACKS TICKETS HERE: https://gametime.hnyj8s.net/c/3442941/1410622/10874 SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports DraftKings: Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app now (https://bit.ly/3Jl1dMX), use promo code PHNX and make your first deposit of FIVE DOLLARS and get TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS in FREE BETS INSTANTLY! For every leg you add you can boost your winnings up to ONE HUNDRED percent!If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, crisiscounseling and referral services can be accessed by calling 1-800-GAMBLER (1-800-426-2537) (IL/IN/MI/NJ/PA/WV/WY), 1-800-NEXT STEP (AZ), 1-800-522-4700 (CO/NH), 888-789-7777/visit http://ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-BETS OFF (IA), 1-877-770-STOP (7867) (LA), 877-8-HOPENY/text HOPENY (467369) (NY), visitOPGR.org (OR), call/text TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN), or 1-888-532-3500 (VA).21+ (18+ WY). Physically present in AZ/CO/CT/IL/IN/IA/LA/MI/NJ/NY/PA/TN/VA/WV/WY only. Min. $5 deposit required. Eligibility restrictions apply. See http://draftkings.com/sportsbook for details.OGeez!: Enter the “Flavoring Life” sweepstakes. One winner will receive 3 bags of OGeez, an OGeez! Hat, a PHNX shirt of your choice, and a PHNX annual membership. Sign up at gophnx.com or visit https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfIplqDYsxYeiotn5Zc6hRahaX0a5qG99eHVzkhOlGZDRdgUA/viewform. Must be 21 years or older to purchase.Four Peaks: The Yotes’ play their inaugural home game at Mullet Arena this Friday. Join our PHNX Coyotes crew at Four Peaks for our tailgate/watch party. It’s free to enter and you can enjoy $3 beer specials and watch on a 20’ jumbo screen!https://www.eventbrite.com/e/phnx-coyotes-watch-party-and-tailgate-tickets-445688655767Enter to win the “Toast of the Month” sweepstakes to win a $50 Four Peaks gift card, a PHNX shirt of your choice, and a PHNX annual membership. Go to goPHNX.Com or visit https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfOabxo8KQxOWwn9wTilMBuTMAJdrL0CaH9lzfuJqgKN9vfSg/viewform Must be 21 or older. Enjoy responsibly. Bad Birdie: use code “PHNXSPORTS” to take 15% off your next Bad Birdie order! https://glnk.io/7qnq/phnx-sportsMor Furniture: Sit in the same seats we do! Check out https://morfurniture.comUnderdog Fantasy: Sign up for Underdog Fantasy today! Go to the link https://play.underdogfantasy.com/p-phnx and use promo code “PHNX” to receive a deposit match up to $100Liquid Death: Get free shipping on all water and merch at https://LiquidDeath.com/PHNX FOCO: FOCO has you covered with the best Arizona Merchandise. Head on over to foco.com. For all non pre-sale items use the promo code “PHNX” for 10% offWhen you shop through links in the description, we may earn affiliate commissions. 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.

It's the PHNX D-BACS podcast. My name is Jesse Friedman, along with the one and only Patrick Lyons joining us today over from DNVR Rockies. Patrick, how are you today? Doing well. I'm doing well. Today is actually the 15th anniversary of the first ever World Series game played on Denver Soil at Corse Field. We won't talk about the result, just the fact that that... Welcome.

in everyone to the PHNX Devac show brought to you by the Drafking Sportsbook app. America's number one rated sports book app. Patrick, we're going to jump in our first segment here to some World Series chatter. Of course, we've been talking about the World Series here for what feels like an eternity because the championship series ended on Sunday. And for whatever reason, Major League Baseball has the World Series starting on Friday. I guess those championship series obviously ended pretty quickly. So we are where we are.

But first of all, Patrick, we've got. Phillies. We've got the Astros personally. Which, which team do you think is going to win in this series? And do you have an inkling as to how many games it will take? We'll start there. Well, the Astros obviously are somewhat of the heavy favorite. And I think they've been the class of the entire postseason, winning seven straight. It's only the third time in the wildcard era that a team has gone through the postseason undefeated those previous two times, the 2014 Royals and the 2007 Colorado Rockies both lost the World Series. There you go.

I hope that trend doesn't continue. But I think the Astros are the better team, but would it shock me if the Phillies ended up winning? At this point, no. But I'm going to go ahead and take the Astros in five games to win on the soil there in Philadelphia at Citizens Bank Park. As every World Series winning team has done since 2014, that was the last time a home team. won the World Series on their own turf. That's always so disappointing, I feel like. There's something about the moment of a team winning the World Championship in front of their own fans

that I at least personally am always just kind of disappointed when that doesn't happen. It just seems like it could be such a bigger moment. I don't know. There's something about having, you know, being able to celebrate with your fans and have them kind of be part of that moment rather than, you know, having the in stadium celebration and then panning over to whatever city it is that just won and, you know, the fans going crazy in the streets or whatever. So I'm hoping that whatever happens in this series, we do have the home team a win in front of their own fans. I think that would be maybe an ideal outcome. You're right,

though, Patrick, and that I think there's no secret. The Astros are the favorites. I mean, they won 106 games. In the regular season, they had 19 more wins than the Philadelphia Phillies, which somehow, this shocked me, but somehow that 19 win disparity between these two World Series teams is the biggest win total disparity in the regular season since 1906. It has been more than 100 years since we have seen two teams separated by this many wins. And yet somehow, like, I agree with what you're saying. Like, even though we're all kind of expecting the Astros to win this series, we're not necessarily going to be shocked if the Phillies come out on top instead, right? I mean, Bryce Harper has had an absolutely monstrous postseason. You've seen what

Aaron Nola and Zach Wheeler have done. The Phillies one two punch seems to be legit and seems to be able to compete with Justin Verlander and Frambo Valdez, maybe on the Astro side. So it's this weird situation where it's like on paper, this should be super lopsided. And I think, you know, Astros and five prediction is reasonable. But on the other hand, a lot of people are like, yeah, the Phillies have a shot in this thing. Like maybe they don't really have any business being here in the first place. But now that they're here, they really do have a shot to win this series. And when you look back in history, as you pointed out, the 1906 World Series between Northsiders and the South Siders,

the Chicago White So one, 23 games less, actually won that World Series. So maybe history will repeat itself again. But this Phillies team is coming together at the right time. this is, you know, probably one of the first times this year that they've all been healthy. I mean, obviously, Bryce Harper, having missed so much time throughout the course of this year and other guys with bumps and bruises. I mean, Nick Castiano's, I don't even think we've really seen him be the typical Nick Castiano's that they're paying $100 million for that they had signed this last offseason and free agency. So they're hot at the right time. I think the biggest issue for them that could be a big impediment in them winning is their defense.

And we saw, you know, a little sloppy against the Padres. You know, they got away with it just a little bit. But the Astros, I mean, you may have to be damn near perfect in order to beat them. That is if Justin Verlander is pitching like the regular season, Justin Verlander, as opposed to the World Series variety, Justin Verlander, where he has a 5.68 ERA, inexplicable, nearly a double ERA of what he has and all the previous rounds of the postseason. So the Phillies, yes, they're going to, do it like the old school Baltimore Orioles of the 1970s with Earl Weaver with a three-run,

home run. That's how they're going to win games. They just have to make sure they don't lose games with some defensive miscues, which they have been prone to do a lot. You mentioned Verlander's numbers in the World Series, which I think in the postseason at large, his numbers are okay. He has like a 350, 360 ERA, something like that in his career in the playoffs. This postseason, I know he's only made two starts.

he has a 6.30 ERA in the postseason so far, which is not good. But it doesn't really tell the full story. He was basically a disaster in his first start in the playoffs and was actually very, very good in his second start in the postseason. He's only made two starts because the Astros have won every single postseason game they've played so far. So he hasn't needed to make any other appearances outside of that. Let's go position by position here, Patrick. Looking just at the starting pitching of these two teams, I mentioned the one-two punch on both

sides is pretty clear. It's Verlander and Valdez on the Astros side. It's Zach Wheeler and Aranola on the Philly side. After that, it's certainly there's a drop off for both teams. I think maybe the Astros with Christian Javier feel pretty good about how he's pitched. And I mean, he had a pretty good regular season, all things considered. The Phillies have used Ranger Suarez in the postseason with some decent results there overall. How do you compare from a starting pitching standpoint these two teams? Well, I think you nailed it right there. Once you go past the number three starter, that's really where Houston has the advantage,

especially if you're going with a guy like Lance McCuller's Jr., versus what everyone expects to see in-game four is ultimately like a bullpen day. You know, whether it's bigger and no other than a guard and maybe you try to get some length out of those guys, which isn't half bad. But ultimately, I think the Astros just have better pitching all around. but when you look at starting pitching, I would probably give a slight edge to them, if not, if not tied, because I think Zach Wheeler's been a guy that, when I think we look back on it, he's almost in that Max Scherzer class of players who, when their team signed him to be an ace, he provided what he was paid for in free agency and then some. Like that Scherzer deal with the Nationals, I mean, he was more than worth the money that they ended up paying him.

and I don't know if that's a sore subject as a former Arizona Diamondback. But I think Zach Wheeler's put the same thing. The Phillies picked him up in free agency, and he's been worth every single penny. So if you're going Wheeler and Verlander head to head, I might call that a split. Obviously, you want to favor Verlander, but then Nola versus Valdez. Okay, that's probably a split. Suarez, Javier, that might be somewhat of a split. And then I would give the edge to game number four for the Astros at that point.

Lance McCullors is just filthy stuff. I think before it was his curveball, which he used like more than 50% of the time. And now it seems like he's really relying on a slider a lot that is just absolutely nasty. So yeah, I think that's pretty clear. Once you get past the third start of the Astros are probably heavy favorites on that front. I do want to point out with regard to Zach Wheeler that he is pitched 25 in a third inning in the 2022 post-season. and his whip is 0.51. Zach Wheeler has been insane for the Phillies in the postseason

and is a really big reason why they are where they are. I have a tweet here from Matthew, Matthew Brownstein, who said the only pitch should record a sub. 0.6 whip in a single postseason minimum 25 innings was Christy Matthewson in 1905 and his whip was actually a touch higher at 0.519. So I feel like that's maybe flown under the radar a little bit for some people, just how good Zach Wheeler has actually been so far. I think, and I've mentioned this on our podcast, DNVR Rockies podcast, that I think when we go back, I don't even think we need a couple years. I think if you really just go back and look a little bit closer at the 2021 Cy Young Award voting, you might want to redo that and say, you know what?

Zach Wheeler probably should have been the Sy Young Award winner Burns was slightly better in a lot of the rate stats. But the simple fact that Zach Wheeler started a good four or five more games was there for the full 162 and logged a ton of the innings, the likes of which we haven't really seen very much. So the fact that he was able to save his bullpen rather than maybe go shorter and have a slightly lower ERA and a slightly lower whip, he was kind of posting some numbers that we haven't really seen. in quite some time. And I think, you know, we don't really evaluate for that quite as much. I'm sure teams do. I'm sure, you know, there's a, I almost said paywall, but no, there's front-facing analytics that we have publicly.

And then there's what the teams have. I think the teams would probably rather prefer a guy like Zach Wheeler, who's able to do it, you know, for that extra one inning every single start for 32, 33 times a year. And so, yeah, this guy has been, you know, very much underrated. and I think he now deserves to be mentioned in that class of top 10 or top 12, true aces. I don't know how you feel about that term. Yeah.

I think every team has an ace. That's your best pitcher. But if we're talking about aces, true aces in the game of baseball, there's really only 10 or 12 at any given time. I think Zach Wheeler is one of those aces right now. Aaron Nola is probably another one, honestly. I mean, Aaron Nola has a shot to finish top five, maybe, in Cy Young voting in the national league.

I know his ERA wasn't quite as good as some of the other guys in the race like Zach Allen here with the Diamondbacks. But if you look at Aaron Nola's peripherals, they were absolutely insane. His strikeout rate was extremely high. His walk rate might have been the lowest in the National League for a qualified starter. It was really, really impressive stuff. Both of those guys have looked good in the postseason and are a big reason why the Phillies are where they are right now.

Let's switch gears over to the bullpen, which is where I think the difference between these two teams might become a little bit more pronounced. The Houston Astros, I believe, have a 0.81 ERA in the postseason for their bullpen, which is just absolutely insane. The Phillies bullpen has been pretty solid as well, but it seems like it's pretty much Sir Anthony Dominguez and Jose Alvarado doing a lot of the heavy lifting for them, which is big. I mean, you need those back-end guys.

Both of them have pitched extremely well. but after that, it seems like the Astros have quite a bit more depth at that position than the Phillies do. Yeah, and that can be a major advantage in a longer series, which again, that remains to be seen, but in a longer series when if you get two or three opportunities to see the opposing pitcher or relief pitcher, in this instance, that can advantage, obviously, to the offense. But whereas Houston can, you know, they're going six or seven deep where they can give guys rest and say, you know what, maybe we could bring this guy in, but we have somebody else that's just as good that you haven't quite seen yet.

So we're going to go ahead and throw that guy. So I think that gives you, you know, a serious advantage if you've got that kind of depth. You know, they got a couple guys who've, you know, spent some time as a closer here and there. I know Hector Nerris, coincidentally, you know, did close for a little while for the Phillies, has some of that experience. But you're absolutely right. I think just the depth is really huge. And considering that the Phillies may need to have someone.

of a bullpen game for game four, which would be Tuesday night in Philadelphia. I mean, that only further depletes their bullpen at that point here, you know, now seven months into the season. That's tough. Let's let's talk offense here. I believe the Phillies have a higher OPS in the postseason so far. I want to say it's like a 750 for Philadelphia compared to a low 700, something like that for Houston. The Astros frankly haven't needed to hit much, because their pitching has been so incredibly good that their offense just hasn't necessarily really needed to be there for them to win some of these games. I know Jose Altuve has been frankly, horrible offensively for the Astros in the postseason. And yet they are where they are

just because of the pitching and because of Yordon Alvarez, who of course has had some really big hits for the Astros throughout the postseason. This one's maybe a little bit closer, Patrick. Where do you side on the offensive side of things? Yeah, I think they're, they're, fairly balanced, right? I think you've got a lot more power coming from the Philly side of things. Sure. I think in the Houston Yankee series, maybe Houston hit like three home runs. It wasn't very much. And it might have been from, you know, to the guys you probably wouldn't expect it quite as much from in Jeremy Payne yet and Chasman. Yeah. Right. Whereas, you know, Ryan, Reese Hopkins himself was able to hit, you know, four home runs. And Schwerber had three home runs.

And then Bryce Harper, you know, only hit two home runs. Not bad for the NLCS MVP. So I think that power definitely is a lot more advantageous for the Phillies. Now, Altuve is kind of that big question mark, you know, because he did hit 28 home runs during the regular season. And that's fifth most between these two teams. Kyle Tucker, of course, be the only other guy outside of Yordon Alvarez hit more than 30 home runs.

So he's a big question, but I think overall, I think there's a lot more dangerous bats in that Phillies lineup that can do more damage to you. Houston's going to put the ball in play maybe a little bit more than Philadelphia. So I think overall, they've been pretty balanced. And as you said, you know, Houston's been able to get by without their guys kind of clicking on all cylinders. I mean, Alex Bregman, he only hit one home run in that previous series. So there you go. there's the third guy from Houston that homered in that Yankee series. So he's yet to really even get hot hitting 333 in both the ALDS and the ALCS.

So I think Houston could, you know, they might be waiting. They might have been pulling back on the reins before they put out their best foot forward offensively. But I would say they're pretty evenly matched. I might even give a hair advantage to the Phillies right now. Yeah, I think that's fair. The Astros just have so much, they have a lot of depth in their lineup. Like Yule Giulie Guriel has had a really, really good postseason for them. He has a 934 OPS so far in the playoffs.

Like you said Jeremy Pena has been so good for the Houston Astros. A guy as a rookie who's basically come in. And I don't want to say replaced Carlos Correa, but I mean, he's been pretty close, at least in the postseason. I mean, Jeremy Pena has given the Astros really everything they could possibly have hoped for. Jordan Alvarez obviously had some monster hits in the Seattle Mariners series. I'm sure Mariners fans still have nightmares about Yordaun Alvarez and some of the big home run swings he had in that series.

But yeah, it's hard to really pick one side too definitively in this one. On paper, I honestly think the Astros are the better offensive team. But what the Phillies have done in the postseason, I mean, if Bryce Harper hits 417 or whatever it is, you know, the rest of the way, like, obviously the Phillies can, can reach a higher level than what they did in the regular season. And like you said, Kyle Schwerber has also been pretty, pretty good for them overall, at least from a power standpoint. They've got Reese Hoskins. They've got J.T. Romuto. After those guys, the Phillies lineup sort of drops off a little bit. Nick Castellanos, Brandon Marsh, Alec, Alec, Bome. They're not necessarily middle of the order types. But yeah, both teams are

are solid offensively, and that's, you know, a big reason why they made the playoffs in the first place and a big reason why they've had the success in the postseason that they've had. I guess our last category here, Patrick, is defense, and that one seems maybe a little obvious. Blatently obvious. Yeah, I mean, the Phillies did a really good job at the trade deadline, kind of hitting those targets and, you know, acquiring Edmundo Sosa from the Cardinals to play shortstop. And then Brandon Marsh, who just fits in so well. was a great change of scenery candidate out in center field.

So that was a perfect fit right there for them. But yeah, it's just I would take anyone over the Philadelphia Phillies. It's just one of the worst defensive teams in baseball this year. But, you know, hey, you can be that poor, for lack of a better term. If you've got guys like Zach Wheeler and Aranola kind of carving up, you know, the competition with the strikeout rates that those guys have. up looking at defensive run saved in the regular season the astros were fifth as a team was 67 defensive runs saved in the regular season and the Phillies were 25th at minus 34 defensive run saved so yeah

I think it's pretty clear there's a substantial difference between these two teams in that regard uh I remember nick castiano's made an impressive diving play early on in the playoffs and that video was like floating all around social media and you know you look up the guy's defensive metrics and he's like the worst corner outfielder in baseball. So looks could be deceiving at times with diving plays. I do think that was a good play from Castellanos. I don't want to take anything too much away from him there. But suffice it to say, the Astros are the far superior defensive team.

So looking at all of these things, I mean, you put all of this together between these four major categories. The Phillies don't really have a clear advantage in anything, right? Whereas, you know, some of these categories are a little bit close. But the Astros, you probably lean Astros on just to be. about all of these. So yeah, there's a reason why everyone is picking the Houston Astros, it seems to win this series.

And yet there's also something to be said, Patrick, for this 87 win team, you know, one of the first third wild card teams ever in the postseason, right? And they've gone all the way. They've gone all the way to the World Series. And we know that baseball is the kind of sport where if you get in the playoffs, anything can happen, right? anything is possible at that point. And I think maybe for fan bases of the Diamondbacks and the Rockies,

the Phillies kind of bring some hope, right? Like, hey, even if you can't beat, you know, the Atlanta Braves and the New York Mets in your division, like the Phillies weren't able to in the regular season, from the Diamondbacks and Rocky's perspective, even if you can't beat the Dodgers and the Padres in the regular season, there's still hope for being able to have success in the postseason after that. So is it safe to say,

Patrick that Rocky's fans are probably rooting for the Phillies in this series accordingly? I think so. There was a map of the United States showing each state and who they were pulling for and New Mexico. And surprisingly, Colorado was blocked out in navy color for the Astros. So I'm not really sure what that's about. There's not a lot of people from Texas, at least who have flocked here in recent years necessarily. Alex Breggman, of course, is from Albuquerque, so you understand why New Mexico, obviously, bordering Texas being that case. But I think for the most part, you know, the two choices, I think East Coast teams can really bug folks in Denver and in Colorado, especially if you're a native.

And you've kind of been nothing but either people from California or people from the East Coast who have invaded your state and have made it, you know, very costly to live there. That being said, the lesser of two evils is probably the thing. Philadelphia Phillies. And, you know, to go back to what you were saying about edges, I would also give the edge to the coaching staff to the Houston Astros. Yeah. Yeah.

S. D. Baker in his third world series, whereas Philly Rob, I mean, the dude, to my knowledge, I think he still has the interim tag on his name. They still got to figure out they want to come around for next year. I'm sure he will get a nice two or three year extension, but you even have to give that edge to Houston. So, yeah. That's the pick.

There you go. Well, thank you to all of you who joined us yesterday at the Four Peaks Brewing Company. Patrick, we have a fun thing we do around here where the last Wednesday of every month we broadcast from Four Peaks Brewing Company out in Tempe. We love being out there with all of them. And it was great to see those of you, our listeners who were there with us. We enjoyed interacting with some of you who were there. We also have a pretty fun event coming up tomorrow on Friday. If you haven't heard, the Yotes play their enogyn.

year old home game at Mullet Arena this Friday. And you should join our PHNX coyotes crew at Four Peaks for our tailgate and watch party. It's free to enter and you can enjoy $3 beer specials and watch on a 20 foot jumbo screen. Pretty insane. You can watch this game on a 20 foot screen at four peaks. It's incredible. It's hit right there. That in and of itself, like how often does something like this go down?

It's pretty cool. I don't think any of you have a 20 foot jumbo screen in your house. So anyway, come out to Four Peaks and join us for that. You can register through the link in our show notes. Also, hook yourself up with some discounted beer over from Four Peaks. You can get, you can pay $15 for a 24 pack of the fall variety pack. It's pretty incredible. This Saturday only at Four Peaks Wilson Street Brewery from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

The first 50 people there will also get a free October Fest shirt. So you have a big event for you on Friday and on Saturday as well. be sure to take advantage of that. $15, Patrick, for a 24 pack of the fall variety pack over at four peaks. That's a pretty darn good deal right there. $15 for 24, anything is like a steel. I don't even get recent pink par cups for that price. So that's amazing.

You're just be nice and hydrated. They're going to hook you up with a free shirt. That's a great deal they got going on. Of course, must be 21 or older. Enjoy responsibly. I also want to tell you about our friends over at OGs. OGs, if you haven't heard, just did something that totally is going to change the game. They launched their brand new sleep edition gummy.

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You can also find their products at your local dispensary must be 21 years or older to purchase. Patrick, I don't know if, you know, getting good night's sleep at night was ever an issue for you. Being a former teacher, I imagine so, maybe on occasion. And our friends over at OGs are always there, always there to help with that.

Our next topic here on the PHNX DBAC show, we're going to go back. We're going to sort of enter a time machine into before the season started, the 2022 season started when me and Patrick wrote an article over at go phtonx.com, previewing the NL West for 2022. You can go back through our archives on our website. Patrick, I believe this article would be on the DNVR.com as well.

You can go all the way back. This is from April 7th when we released this article. And we basically went through a bunch of different key questions relating to the NOS and gave our thoughts on them before the season started. The first question, Patrick, that we considered was who is the best shot at second place? Looks like I said the San Diego Padres, which turned out pretty well. And let's see, you said last year there was some plausibility to think the Padres could upend the Dodgers in the right scenario, was an even less likely turn of events.

The Giants in their franchise record, 107 wins did the honors to take the top spot. And you said San Francisco could very well be good again this year, but not as good with 87 wins. So anyway, looking back on this, Patrick, how do you feel your initial expectations turned out in the long run here? Yeah, I think the division kind of played out for the most part, and we can get to the bottom of the division, which I'm sure you are very eager to discuss. But the top division played out similarly to how we thought it would. I think the Giants weren't as good as, you know, everyone kind of anticipated that they would figure out how to do it again with smoke and mirrors, with a kind of a rat tag group of guys that really don't really have a star amongst them,

for the most part, at least not guys who are in the prime of their career. You know, I was really impressed. Evan Longoria played, you know, wonderfully at Coors Field. and I was almost mesmerized by how good he was defensively at third base, but he's a guy that's not, you know, in the prime of his career. So they were obviously the biggest disappointment. The first thing that I said to that question was, are we awarding the division to Los Angeles already?

Yeah, actually, that makes sense. So, you know, the doctors were exactly, you know, what we thought they would be. Right. And so as far as the top part goes, you know, that did play out. I was a little bit suspect of the Padres. And, I mean, you were. how things ended up going through the course of the season where you're like, I mean,

they're only the fifth seed there in the wild card and they had their hiccups. And I think, you know, this run in the postseason, maybe that will help course correct just a little bit. But I think there's still a lot of answers for them to figure out as far as keeping this thing going for a few more years before their window of contention closes because they've absolutely emptied the coffers. as far as their prospects go. So they are not going to be another Dodgers where they're just going to pick up where they left off each and every year, find new solutions.

It's going to run out. So they've got to figure this thing out because that window of contention, maybe you got three more years to do that. So they've got to figure it out quickly. Yeah, the next question we considered was also relating to the Padres. It was, is this the year the Padres finally put it together, which is an interesting question, like looking back,

at this now because in the regular season, I wouldn't really say the Padres really put it all together, especially given the moves that they made at the trade deadline, the season that they had, I think probably fell short of maybe what we would have expected them to do given those moves that they made. But the Padres also made it to the NLCS and made it farther than the Dodgers did, right? So in that respect, it feels like the Padres kind of did put some things together this year, even if they didn't accomplish the ultimate goal. Looking back, at my response, I said, I'm not saying they'll win 100 games, but I think they should comfortably make the playoffs. That's what I wrote about the San Diego Padres, which I don't know

if they comfortably made the playoffs. Things were pretty close there. They kind of faded down the stretch, but the Phillies were behind them. They weren't the last wildcard team to get in. So yeah, I don't know. How do you look at this season from the Padre standpoint? Is this like the Padres like kind of despite some regular season hiccups kind of got where they wanted to go or maybe they're still a little overwhelmed by this. I think considering the Tatees Jr. injury, they did pretty well. I think everyone recognized the fact that them bringing in Bob Melvin was just the perfect move to really kind of get things going in the right direction.

And even still, I think you can look, and in that article, I sort of mentioned how they're much better than the sum of their parts to a degree. like you just look at how many former all-stars or even current all-stars. And you look at all the names and you go, holy smokes, like these are some serious, serious players. They only won 89 games. That's a little bit surprising. And so I think there's a lot more in there. And I think just maybe too much roster fluctuation, too many guys coming in and out that it makes it hard to get that chemistry piece.

And I think they might be missing that chemistry piece. and I sit today in the DNVR Rocky's podcast, it'll be interesting to see what happens going forward. Obviously, with them giving Tatis Jr. Statue money, as Scott Boris calls it, a statue contract. It was like a lifetime contract. There's going to be a statue of them outside of Petco. Like a totally new time.

That being said, there's now a 1% chance in my mind that they could trade Fernando Tatis Jr. and hitched their wagon to a guy like Juan Soto. I think we've got a long way to go until it actually happens. But if you're looking at chemistry, Tati's Jr., you know, he might be that element or that little droplet, that little tincture. You drop that into the liquid that is the Padreys Clubhouse. It could become flammable at some point. So they've got to figure out that chemistry situation a little bit because they are far too talented.

If you look at the backs of those jerseys for their actual win output this season. our next question was are the rockies more likely to finish in third place or fifth place Patrick i'm just going to quote what you wrote and then allow you to speak after that i can't hear you let's go to the next question of now go ahead jesse this is your time to dunk on me all youp yourself and then also dunk it i've been waiting for this moment for quite a while patrick wrote no offense jesse but there's no way colorado finishes with a worst record than Arizona seems an impossibility the words of Patrick Lyons on April 7th. Patrick, what would you like to say looking back? Look, when you are an author and you have a lot of people editing

your work, sometimes things can just work their way through and words get changed. Yeah, no, I was completely wrong. The Rockies basically brought back the exact same team from 2021 into 2022. and a half was the over under on draft king's sports book it was the easiest money any of anybody could have possibly made they had won uh 76 games last year and again it was it was practically the exact same team they didn't they didn't do anything at the trade deadline so they all these same guys even minus chris bryant it it looked like easy money that they were just going to kind to do what they normally do with 75 76 wins as each and every season and yet even though they won three consecutive games against the Dodgers.

First time ever, a team had won multiple games in a row against a 110 win team at that point in a year. They still fell one short of the over there, only had 68 wins. And they were, they were boring, they were bad, and they lacked the get-up. They lacked the excitement and the young guys to really carry the team that the Arizona Diamondbacks did have. And so for that reason, I whiff big time. I whiff big time.

I think it's funny that, I mean, the Rockies had 68 wins. The Diamondbacks had 74. It's only a six win difference at the end of the day. And yet I feel like at least on our show and just hearing from our listeners on the daily, it seems like people in the Diamondbacks world have just been looking down on the Rockies all season long as being this vastly inferior team. But in reality, the records are pretty close. But I guess the reason for that is that the debacks just seem to have a plan in place sort of moving moving forward, right? And I know there are still a lot of questions, a lot of things that have to go right.

But the Diamondbacks this year were powered by a group of young players that figure to stick around for a long time, like Jake McCarthy and Dalton Varshow and Zach Allen having, you know, the type of season that will put him in contention for the Cy Young Award. A lot of things went right for the debacks this season in that regard. lot of those pieces that had that success are going to be here for a while. Whereas with the Rockies, it seems like that young core has not really been found yet. And I don't know, Patrick. Maybe it's on the way. I mean, we've seen Zach Veen look insane in the Arizona fall league.

The guy rakes and runs twice as fast as everyone else on the field as far as far as I'm concerned. But it seems like there are some questions moving forward facing the Rockies about what the plan is moving forward that the diamond backs, they haven't figured out everything, but it seems like the debacks, their plan is a little bit clear at this point. It would piggyback on your sentiment about a six-game difference. Really, it's three more wins for the Rockies, three less wins for the Diamondbacks. And so you're talking about three wins in 162 game season. They're really close.

But you hit on that main thing about the pitching really coming through for the Diamondbacks, and that's really been a strength of the Colorado Rockies, at least during the Bud Black era, under his administration, he really helped so many young guys, even someone like John Gray, who was still early on in his career, Kyle Freeland, Antonio Sinsettella, Erman Marquez, like that's the only manager that these guys know. And the rotation really took a major step back, and that was a disappointment. You know, there was apparently a play in San Francisco, like in the last week of the season, where something got changed into an error.

And so because of that error, Herman Marquez's ERA for the season went from 5 to 4.95. Before that, Calphreeland was the only guy to have his ERA under 5 this entire year for the Rockies, whereas last season, all five starters were under 5 in their ERA. So I think that was something of the six-win differential difference for the Rockies is that the rotation really just was bad. and the power that they were hoping to have, besides just Chris Bryant, they didn't really get it anywhere else. Nobody else really took that step forward that they were hoping to make. So pitching and power hitting is obviously the key in MLB right now in 2020, and the Rockies

really didn't have either of those two things. I don't really want to go down this rabbit trail, but I'm going to anyway. in Arizona, it's no secret that Ken Kendrick, the Diamondbacks owner, a lot of fans have questions about his willingness to spend and his commitment to winning in the long term in Arizona. And, you know, maybe some of these young guys pan out and the Diamondbacks find their way close to the playoffs, close to making something big happen. And I think there's a concern with the fan base of whether he would be willing to pony up and pay what would be necessary in that moment to put the debacks over the time. top. I know that's a struggle that is not just in Arizona. From what I can tell on the outside, Patrick, it seems like the ownership group in Colorado is not necessarily well regarded among the fan base. How does that play into things for the Rockies moving forward?

Well, the Rockies spend some money. Like they, that's a common trope or a narrative in Denver, if you're paying attention, that no, Dick Monfort does spend money. He spends good money for a small market team. They're never like in the bottom five or six in payroll. I think they're typically in the mid to high teens. So, you know, they spend money. They like to spend it on their own guys, too, a little bit with extensions. And you saw that this last off season.

But I think the key word, and you said it previously, was plan. And the Rockies don't really seem like they have a straightforward plan in place. It's almost to hope that 2007 will repeat itself, that you put together enough good players that know each other that are from the same group. They're not mercenaries. They're not free agents or players that you brought in from trades all over the place. No, if it's a group of guys that know each other really well and I've been together long enough, they'll find magic in a bottle to go to the postseason, win every game in the postseason, win, you know, 22 games and 23 contests and go to the World Series. that worked once before. So I think they want that to happen again.

So they have the core of those veteran guys. Now they spent over 400, or rather I should say, they invested over $400 million on the roster this last offseason. That kind of went under the radar. Obviously, Brian, close to $200 million. But then, you know, you had big extensions for Freeland and McMahon and Sinsettella,

even during the season. Daniel Bard, you know, got some money. So they put all of this money out for these guys to keep them around because free agents don't really want to come to Colorado. So they're thinking is let's at least keep the guys that we do know and that we do already have, keep them around a little bit longer. And then maybe, maybe the young players in the system, which are starting to get some notice, they're in and around the 10th spot in a lot of farm system rankings.

They will come up. So the debacks are a little bit ahead of the Rockies year, at least a year, maybe even two years ahead for those young guys to come up. But as you said, Zach Veen, Drew Romo, really big catching prospect. Pitching, they don't have quite as much of those, but they do have some young hitters. Benny Montgomery is another one of those guys that they're hoping could be impactful, just like Michael Tolia was in the final month of the season. And as Ezekiel Tovar showed, in flashes hitting his first big league home run at Dodgers Stadium against Clayton Kershaw.

Not bad for a 21-year-old kid. Not bad. I mean, Chris Bryant wanted to come to the Rockies, right? Is that like sort of a counterpoint to free agents don't want to go there? I mean, I don't know the Diamondbacks, I don't think remotely pursued Chris Bryant, but it seems like a pretty big signing for them in the long term, right? I think so. You know, I mean, I know he hasn't played well.

He sort of was a disaster this last year. I don't know how much of that you guys attribute to injuries looking back. But, I mean, at the time, it seemed like a pretty big move, right? When he's healthy, he was really good. He only played in 42 games. And I honestly think, you know, in the next two or three years, he's going to win a batting title at Corse Field. Like, that's the kind of hint he is.

And, you know, you've seen enough games at Corse Field to know that there's a bunch of dinks and dunks. There's a lot of ground to cover in Coors Field, the largest expanse of outfield grass in all of the National League second and Major League Baseball only behind Coffman Stadium in Kansas City. So a lot of extra base hits fall in there. So I think he'll win a batting title as far as him wanting to come to Colorado and be with the Rockies. Look,

Mike Hampton, you know, signed a mega deal to play baseball here. And the reason why wasn't because of the money. He said it was because of the Denver public school system, which I was a teacher.

It's a good school system, but it's not a reason to sign and raise your family one city in particular, right? I mean, let's face it. He's sending his kids of private school anyway. And that's fine.

But let's be honest about it. The Rockies, you know, paid, I think, head and shoulders above the next best team. Chris Bryant likes Colorado as a state. It's a beautiful place to be. I think there's a lot of veteran guys who wouldn't mind finishing up their career in Colorado and planning some roots down in this state. But as far as a guy who's already won his World Series, and, you know, it's just very interesting. You can pair him with a Kyle Schwerber, and you see what kind of deals

of those two guys went for. And you see Schwerber leading the Phillies. And you know that he has an attitude where he wants to win multiple rings here going forward in his career. I'm sure Chris Bryant would love to win a few more, but I don't know that that factored into the decision as much as the $182 million. I know DeBack's fans are jealous of that ballpark. That's for sure. Coorsfield and Chase Field, at least in my mind, there's a pretty wide gap between those two places when it comes to a facility to play baseball.

But anyway, our last question here that we wrote about way back at the beginning. of the season was if the four major awards stayed in the NL West, who are the winners? It looks like, just quick glance through for me, it looks like I said Bob Melvin for manager of the year, which maybe that has legs possible. I wanted to say Zach Gallen, it looks like I ultimately chose Julio Urius. And I said, I'll take him narrowly beating out teammate Walker Bueller. So I was sort of torn between those two. Julio Urias had he led the National League in ERA. So I guess I feel all right about that.

I picked Mookie Betts for MVP, which is probably not going to happen, but he's at least in the running for sure. Rookie of the year, I think I said the best, I said the best candidate in my mind is Joey Bart of San Francisco, who I think kind of recovered a little bit toward the end of the year, showed some good signs toward the end of the year, but did not have a good rookie season overall. I mentioned Diamondbacks outfielder Alec Thomas, but said it might take some time for him to adjust, which of course it did. I also threw CJ Abrams name out there, which of course, he is now a Washington National as part of that deal with Juan Soto. So Patrick, I feel all right.

It seems like in retrospect, I don't know how I don't think I was being particularly bold with any of these things, but I guess I did okay in the end. I think it's bold that you went with Giuseppe Bartholomew over your own guy, Alec Thomas. I went with Alic. Thomas. That was my rookie of the year pick. I did stick with the D-Backs MVP. Freddie Freeman. Okay. Again, not going to win it. But it will be interesting to see if he finishes a little bit higher than Mookiee Betts. Walker Bueller, unfortunately did get hurt. So that pretty much took him out of the running for that. And then Dave Roberts. So we'll kind of wait and see what happens with that. Obviously, what's 19 games? Is that 19 games better than the Dodgers finished than the Padres,

which is interesting because the Rockies finished 21 games worse than the Padres. So think about that. Actually, 20 games better, I think was the Dodgers, and 21 games better. The Padres finished than the last place, Rocky. So, yeah, we did okay. We didn't embarrass ourselves. It's all right.

We can do this again, I think. I think we were both definitely. of the belief that the San Francisco Giants were going to take a step back. And I was especially doubtful that the Giants would really be good that year at all, this year at all. I think Pocoda had them finishing with like 78 wins or something like that before the start of the year, which ultimately proved pretty accurate. So I think in that regard, we were both pretty spot on that the Giants weren't going to win

107 games again, especially with Buster Posey no longer in the organization. We have some incredible merch over here. at PHNX. If you haven't heard about it, you should go check it out. Go over to pHNX Locker.com. Our son's crew just dropped an incredible new Suns t-shirt.

Sort of looks like the Valley shirts that, of course, were very, very popular last year. So that one is hot off the press. So go check that out at ph. And check that out at p.mx locker.com. And be sure to get a membership. If you haven't done so already, you can head over to our website

at go ph-NX.com. Today and become a member of the family, you'll either get a free t-shirt from that PHNX locker, or you'll get your first month for just 50 cents just for signing up. By signing up, you get access to the writings of myself on the Arizona Diamondbacks. I released an article just a few moments ago about why you should root for the Phillies. If you're a Diamondbacks fan, there's some fun connections there with McHale Bridges and whatnot. So that piece is over at go phnx.com.

You can check that out now. And of course, you don't just get my writings. you get access to the writings of the one and only Craig Morgan, who does a fantastic job covering the coyotes, as well as Gerald Borgay covering the Sons and all of our other incredible writers over at go p h and x.com. So be sure to jump on that if you have not already. Patrick, our final topic for today is giving a draft king's pick of the week.

And I know you are something of a draft king's sports book aficionado. So with the World Series on the horizon, We are just over 24 hours away as we record this from first pitch. What are some bets that fans might be looking to make over at the Draft King Sportsbook app? There's actually a ton that you can go ahead and go through all throughout the postseason where there's just series props. I mean, you can even bet on the final score of the game. So if you're going, hey, I think Phillies are going to win game one, five, four, that's plus 2,200. So you can do stuff like that.

They've got head to head for players, like who's going to, to have the most hits, who could possibly have the most home runs. That's my favorite one is you got Jose Al Tuve or Reese Hoskins. And I mean, do you need to see anything? I've even sleeping under a rock to know how much pop Reese Hoskins has been showing and how little pop Joseo Tuve has been showing. Incidentally, that should be his nickname Little Pop. But minus 155, Reese Hoskin to hit more home runs than Jose Al Tuve.

throughout the World Series. That's kind of, that's a gimmy. You can do Alvarez versus Schwerber, Bryce Harper versus Cal Tucker, but this is kind of easy money. My draft king's sports book pick of the week, Reese Hopkins, Reese Hoskins,

minus 1.15 over Jose Altuve. Come on, that's easy money right there. You don't view Jose Altuve as something of a sleeping giant with his 296 OPS in the playoffs so far? I think to a degree. Yes, I think that's true. That wouldn't totally shock me,

I would rather have the hot player than the guy who's overdue. And so that's where I'm going to go with that one. You can be bet on like stolen bases for game one. Like Kyle Tucker had the most stolen bases between these two teams. He stole 25 bags. He's plus 600 for game one. So that's six to one odds right there. Yeah.

That's pretty good. And even if so, Jesse, if you're saying, well, I don't know, Altuvae, Hoskins, maybe they tie, maybe Al-Tube gets more. How about a game one home run for Reese Hoskins plus 425? That's still a pretty good payout. Wow. It's a really good payout. Yeah.

I'm looking at Jose Altuve's just like career stats. And honestly, it kind of blows my mind how many home runs the guy manages to hit. I mean, he had 28 this year, the regular season for the Astros. He had 31 last year for Houston when they also, of course, made it into the World Series. So the man has a lot more pop than you would. I don't know if I can get behind the little. pop nickname given that the guy is banged 59 home runs in the last two seasons. But I do see where you're coming from when it comes to how he's looked in the postseason. He's honestly

looked pretty lost. There have been a number of it baths where Jose Alteuvae, who doesn't typically swing and miss very much, has just been chasing all sorts of breaking pitches out of the strike zone. So that is absolutely a bet you should get down on over at the Draft King Sportsbook app. Be sure to download the Draft King Sportsbook app. If you haven't already, you can use our code of pH and X when you sign up. Minimum age and eligibility restrictions apply. See show notes for details. Patrick,

do you guys have any big plans over the off season over at DNVR? Any big crazy things you guys got going on over there that you want to tell all of our listeners about? Well, we're not going to talk too much about the Broncos. Although we do have a group of our folks that work for DNVR who are in London right now covering the Broncos, you know, that's been absolutely amazing. In fact, today on Ivaka TV, which is something that I don't know if anyone who subscribes

or listens to the PHNX Diamondbacks podcast is able to get in Arizona. But there's a documentary actually airing tonight all about Nikola Yokic and I see this relationship with Serbia. It's called 100 Invisible Threads. It's an hour and a half documentary. we had our DNVR Nuggets crew over in Serbia. They went over to Serbia for like 10 days in the middle of the summer and I just heard so many stories of like behind the scenes.

You know, you think about the great players of the game and in any sport. And when they come from another country, you might not have those same stories of, oh, man, when they were in Little League or when they were 10 or when they were in high school, those stories don't exist quite as much as it does for American ballplayers. Well, they got all of that scoop. So that's going down.

Avs are defending the Stanley Cup, which is fantastic. And, of course, Rockies, we're probably going to cover, you know, a couple waiver-wire transactions. Minor league pitchers. And hopefully there's more than that. We'll kind of wait and see what happened. Brandon Nimmo is the name that's been the biggest plus. We're center field for the Rockies. He's from Wyoming.

So obviously, you like that connection just north of all. There you go. Colorado. Yeah. We're only a little over a month out from the winter meeting. So the hot stove season is not too far away, ladies and gentlemen. So keep it locked here to the Ph.NXD Back show as well as the DNVR Rocky show. Patrick, is it 11 a.m. Monday through Friday?

Is that when people can catch you guys over at DNVR Rockies on YouTube? Pretty much the DNVR sports channel on YouTube, 11 a.m. Mountain Daylight Time, 10 a.m. If you're in the Phoenix or Arizona area, one through or Monday through Thursday, and then Friday, Susie Hunter at the Susie Hunter on Twitter. She does a fun show on Fridays at 5 p.m. She's having a little unofficial watch party. The big baseball game.

Can't officially say it's the World Series. But she's going to be watching unofficially the big baseball game down at our bar. We have a bar. There you go. We're very jealous of it, too. That's a big thing. That's a lot of fun. Had a renovation over the summer, so it looks fantastic.

We got some new studios as well. We know you guys did. So, yeah, we're having a lot of fun in Denver. Be sure to give our man Patrick Lyons a follow on Twitter, everyone. You can get him at Patrick D. Lyons. You can follow myself at Jesse N. Friedman. Our PHNX debacks account you could find at PHNX underscore Dbacks. But of course, all roads lead to PHNX underscore sports on Instagram,

Twitter and Facebook. Patrick, this has been fun. Thanks again for hopping on with us today. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. It's fun. Thank you again to all of you for being here with us. We really appreciate your time here on this Thursday afternoon. The World Series, everyone, is just a little bit more than 24 hours away, maybe even less by the time you're listening to this show. So we're all excited about that. Thank you all again for listening and remember kids. Baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun when you're talking about. it with Patrick Lyons.