PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - REPORT: D-backs Pursuing Kyle Tucker, But Where Do They Find the Money?

Episode Date: January 6, 2026

The Arizona Diamondbacks are once again lINEXPLICABLY inked to high-dollar free agent rumors. This time, the D-backs are one of the teams in on All-Star outfielder Kyle Tucker according to a report from Marc Feinsand. We break down why this move makes very little sense, whether Tucker is worth a massive contract, and what $400 million could buy if not spent on a single player. Plus, we dive into how trade offers for Ketel Marte have shaped Arizona’s offseason plans and whether the D-backs may have already missed out on better options while “waiting to pick a lane.” Finally, we attempt the impossible: building a functional Diamondbacks bullpen if the front office stands pat.JOIN THE SUPPORTERS CLUB ➡️ https://tinyurl.com/yc6km2r4An ALLCITY Network ProductionSUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsportsMERCH https://store.allcitynetwork.com/collections/phnx-lockerALLCITY Network, Inc. aka PHNX and PHNX Sports is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by the City of PhoenixPHNX Events: Get your tickets to PHNX events and takeovers here: https://gophnx.com/events/Phoenix Raceway: Get your tickets now for March 5-8! https://www.phoenixraceway.com/march-cup-weekend/?CID=PIR_DI_TP_BA_PHNX26Spring_251120ALLCITY — including us here at PHNX — is teaming up with Big Brothers Big Sisters of America for an exciting three-year partnership. To learn more, visit https://www.bbbs.org/allcity/Branded Bills: Use code BBPHNX at https://www.brandedbills.com/ for 15% off your first order!Husband & Wife Law Team: If you’ve had a serious injury, Call The Husband & Wife Law Team first at 602-783-8841 or visithttps://husbandandwifelawteam.com/?utm_source=allcity-padcasts&utm_medium=digital-phx&utm_campaign=allcityShowNotesbet365: https://www.bet365.com/hub/en-us/app-hero-banner-1?utm_source=affiliate&utm_campaign=usapp&utm_medium=affiliate&affiliate=365_03485317 Use the code PHNX365 to sign up, deposit $10 and bet $5 to get $150 in bonus bets!Disclaimer: Must be 21+ and physically located in AZ.  If you or someone you know has a gambling problem and wants help, call 1-800-NEXT-STEP, text NEXTSTEP to 53342 or visit https://problemgambling.az.gov/Gametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply.Shady Rays: Head to https://shadyrays.com and use code: PHNX for 35% off polarized sunglasses. Try for yourself the shades rated 5 stars by over 300,000 people.Circle K: Join Inner Circle for free by downloading the Circle K app today! Head to https://www.circlek.com/store-locator to find Circle Ks near you!When you shop through links in the description, we may earn affiliate commissions. Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The Arizona Diamondbacks are reportedly in on Kyle Tucker? How? And where are they getting this money from? We are going to talk about this. And if the Cotell Marte trade situation is what's freezing up the Diamondbacks making any more moves this off season. I have all of this in 30 seconds. Don't you go anywhere?

And welcome in to another edition of the PHMXTbacks podcast live from Studio K, presented by our friends at Circle K. It is I, your mayor of the H&X. I'm actually known. Is Derek Montaia. thrilled to have you guys here. Filled to be living another day of this dream we call being a Diamondbacks fan. Am I right?

Am I right? It feels like a dream because every single day there's some new rumor that somehow doesn't feel real, despite it being reported by a very reliable source. And we have so much to talk about today, including the athletics, not being allowed to call the athletics. And Damon and I are going to do our best to figure out how this pool pen is going to work if they don't make any additions to it. Speaking of which, we got our guy, Damon Farrell, aka Damon Dogg, on the ones and twos today. He's back. I know that a lot of people were worried Damon that after fans in the Lydon through trash at Geraldo Perdomo over a controversial call that had nothing to do with him, that people were worried you were going to be out there in the Dominican Republic.

Like back in your homeland, you know, essentially taking care of business and protecting our sweet baby boy. Yeah, I was kicking ass and taking names. Don't worry about me. It's underground business. I don't need to get into it too much. I figured as much. I mean, like people. Don't touch Jerry.

People speculated on your whereabouts. Don't even look at him. Yeah. No, I mean, that's the bigger thing. Why was he playing outfield? I don't want him out there. He's too close to people, you know? I need him on the infield where people can't throw trash at him.

But, of course, great to have you guys here. And again, like I said, great to be hearing yet another. weird rumor about this Arizona Diamondbacks team that makes absolutely zero sense. According to a report from Mark Feinson, the debacks are now officially part of the Kyle Tucker

conversation after today's report, which lists Arizona is one of the teams in on the star outfielder. I don't really know what to say about this. According to the financial, I guess, projections, Kyle Tucker is going to get a lot of money.

A lot of money, Damon. Some are speculating $400 million. And this is the first time a nationally connected MLB insider has specifically named the debacks among the clubs showing interest. It doesn't mean anything, I guess, but this does move the idea from pure speculation, which we recklessly do on this program, the time in the legitimate rumor territory. And like again, Kyle Tucker is one of these guys that

is still available on the market that any team would like to have. So I don't think that there's much of a discussion as to if we would welcome Kyle Tucker to Arizona with open arms, right? He's widely viewed as the top position player on the market. And any deal for him would be a huge addition to a team and a huge addition to that team's payroll. The expectations here is that his next contract would land well north of $300 million with some believing it could push closer to $400 million, depending on the term and market, how the market dictates it. $400 million. Jacob Franklin's right. If they have $400 million, they certainly have $13 million for Pete Fairbanks. That's a guy that I'm still mad about missing out on.

And part of the reason why it could be the fact that Kattelmarte and the trade is causing things to kind of gum up the works here. But it doesn't seem to be getting in the way from the Diamondbacks being part of these huge free agent rumors that they really have no business to be in. Stone Cold Shot 2 says to play left field DH with three lefty outfielders. Nah, he passes on that. I mean, let's, if we have a Kyle Tucker's numbers here, we can take a look that from, I think we have 2025 stats here.

He was a great player, right? 266 batting average, 841 OPS, 73 RBIs, a 282 bat BIP, and a B-war, baseball reference war there, a 4.6, which is incredibly good. he was an outstanding defender as well as outstanding at the plate for the Chicago Cubs. It was the biggest, it was the biggest priority of that fan base, for that fan base was to bring this man back. And unfortunately, it does not look like the Cubs are going to be able to afford him and bring him back, which makes me wonder what the Diamondbacks are doing as a part of this.

His career stats are outstanding. And he has put up some tremendous numbers over the course of his. career, including a ridiculous 27.3 baseball reference war for his career, 273 batting average, an 865 career OPS, and a bat pip of 284 throughout his career. So, I mean, again, a guy who definitely is one of the best players in baseball, there's no argument about that in regards to his career and his, you know, and what he's given to any team that he's been a part of. But again, the reality immediately raises questions for the debacks.

The reality of how much he's going to cost immediately makes me wonder how they're even in on these conversations, right? Teams like the Blue Jays and other big market clubs, they definitely have a clear financial path to completing a deal of the size. They have no, they have no restrictions, no financial restrictions. the same way the Diamondbacks do. And as I've said before in the past, the financial restrictions the Diamondbacks have are purely, are purely man-made, right?

They are purely set by the owner of this team, our beloved Ken Kendrick, who said that the payroll is going to be smaller next year than it is this year. That's all we're going based on any of this. When I sit here and say, where does the Diamondbacks have, where do the Diamondbacks have money for this? I mean, they have money for it because it's just a decision that, needs to be made much like these big market clubs are making that decision. Right. And let's not forget the diamondbacks had no money. They had no money. They had no money. And then oops,

Ken got aggressive. Right. So what makes this interesting is the pattern. The fact that there has been multiple reports linking the diamondbacks to some of the highest priced free agents on the market when we sat here thinking that they were going to stand pat and do very little. To be fair, Mike Hazen has been balling on a budget. And for him to go out and get two starting pitchers for $27.5 million for next season was a huge success. It still remains to be seen what Michael Soroka can give this team if he can be his former self, at least close to what he was at one point in his career. He could be a stellar addition to this team and we know exactly what we're getting at Ameri Kelly. But again, there's additional, there are additions that

needed to be made and those additions weren't necessarily adding Kyle Tucker. to this team, right? Again, the front of office appears to be getting aggressive at the top of the market, even if the financials of it are unclear, the financial mechanics, how it could work. There's deferrals, there's structuring the contract where 2026 might be a light year for anybody they add through free agency. That's totally a possibility. Contracts don't have to be even year by year. So just to maybe kind of get themselves out of the financial hole that they see themselves for this season and maybe the uncertainty of 2027, perhaps they can structure a contract in a certain way. But again, the Diamondbacks here, I mean, overall the Diamondbacks are in this conversation and the cost, much like the Alex Breggman situation, seems to be the biggest obstacle. You can't sell me on needing to trade Cattel Marte and his little annual value.

on his contract and tell me that that needs to be done in order to make way for a contract of this size. So again, until there's clarity on where the money would come from, Arizona's involvement here looks more like monitoring. That could probably be the catchphrase of the offseason for the Diamondbacks, monitoring and positioning themselves rather than an actual full throttle push. I feel like we haven't really heard a lot of the financial financial. actual direct financial, I guess, offers for Alex Brighman. There was a rumor going around that he got four years, $160 million, offered to him by the Red Sox,

but that really wasn't confirmed by anybody. I do believe that Buster only did say that the Red Sox got aggressive with their offer. So those two things would kind of coincide, considering how much money Brighman was going to make from the Red Sox before he opted out of his deal that actually would make a lot of sense. However, it would still be essentially the exact amount he was making just for a longer term. I feel like he'd be fairly satisfied with that. And if that is what the Red Sox offered him, I would not want to see the Diamondbacks beat that offer, nor would I want to see them offer even the same amount of money.

But it's just crazy here because, you know, you have this Diamondbacks team who are linked to Tucker, rumored to cost $400 million, link to Bregman, rumor to cost $160. and I've been sitting here trying to figure out how to divvy up $35 million amongst like six different needs, right? Why am I over here shopping at the dollar store when you obviously might in fact have like Wagyu beef money? What are we doing? And there's a lot of things, by the way, that you could spend $160 million on or $400 billion on. And it's not a single baseball player. Damon, I think we could sit here and put together a list of things. In fact, I have put together a list of a few things that we could perhaps buy instead of spending it all on a single baseball player.

In fact, for $160 million, you and I could get 30 private jets that basically cost $5 million a piece. And then we start our own private jet airline, right? Like with a fleet of 30 jets? That sounds electric. I mean, we're going to turn this 160. million into 500 million dollars in no time we're printing money i mean yeah if you want to be if you want to just be silly with it with 160 million dollars you could buy a real working submarine wow i don't know about paying a crew to run it like a submarine doesn't seem like the kind of ship

you want to take on the the responsibility of piloting yourself by any stretch of the imagination so i do feel like you would have to have a crew there. But you could also instead of a submarine buy a small private island with enough money left over to populate it entirely with actual diamondback snakes. Also, I found out you could buy a private island, a small private island. It's not very big big, but it's still big enough. I mean, it's still big enough for you to like live off the grid and not have to ever see your in-laws ever again. And then you'd have enough money left to populate it with actual diamond back snakes. If you want it like a Diamondback Island?

Diamondback Island. It's a good new reality show. Wow. See, now we're making money once again. Snakes on a plane? Snakes on an island. Sequel. Small island, nowhere to go.

You don't like water and neither do the snakes. Good luck. You could have the rights to your own holiday where like you actually could pay for a holiday, believe it or not. It doesn't even cost $160 million. In fact, you could take the rest of the money that you have remaining from purchasing your own holiday

and buy like a song, get somebody to make you a song, like maybe a series of songs like they do for Christmas. You can even have a holiday mascot. I don't know, throwing it out there. You could also buy every seat in every movie theater in America so that you're the only person to watch the Avengers Doomsday upon its release. Just eating up all those seats, all those tickets, all these people just seeing sold out across AMCs across the nation

just because you bought all the tickets. I'm just saying there are things that you could spend $160 million on. I found out you could probably buy the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, and the White House, all for $160 million. But meanwhile, for $400 million, I'm bringing back the idea of the airline, but we're doing luxury yachts now. We're doing like a luxury yacht thing, renting, I don't know, business. There's something there. You could buy for $400 million a minor league baseball team, and you would have enough money left over to rename every single player on that team legally to have the last name Montia. You could build a fully functional death star that wouldn't be the size of the moon,

but it would be fairly close to the actual working size. You might be able to lowball Elon Musk on X, and that way we could turn it back to Twitter. And also, here's a fun one. For $400 million, you could actually end homelessness in the state of Arizona. Now how do you feel about spending that on a Major League baseball player? I hope I've heaped enough guilt on you to rethink this and not want to spend $4 million. hundred million dollars on Kyle Tucker. But yeah, that's all I got.

Damon, checking back on the stats on those, what would you prefer to do with the money here? Is it, is it, do you want Kyle Tucker? Yeah, maybe I kind of want, I kind of want Kyle Tucker. Oh my God, you selfish jerk. You're a bad person, Dan. I'm playing. Don't cancel me.

That's a joke. Everyone, that's, that's a funny. I made a funny. But yeah, no, it actually is crazy when Derek, when you think about kind of just how all of these, you know, like how much money we're talking about playing around with here. And you're like, and you're like, the world could be a better place. Yeah. Like, though, like it's, that's, it's actually not even a joke. Derek, the world could be a

better place. And, but instead, we play sports ball. We play sports ball. We play sports ball. It's crazy. And, and listen, like, I'm Mr. Sports. I love sports more than literally almost anybody on planet Earth. I am in the top, you know, 0.001% of sports lovers.

on earth. I mean, it's your entire life, literally. I've never seen anybody that, like, lives and breeds sports more than you. It affects my mood. I wake up in the morning. If my team lost yesterday, I'm just depressed, sad. If you're parlay, it doesn't go away. One leg.

100%. The parlay is even, it's a difference in a situation and it hurts even more. But yeah, I mean, like, this, it is crazy when you think about, like, man, we could, like, we could really, like, we could, we could end homelessness. We could solve child hunger. Like, we could do all of these things. Instead, it's Kyle Tucker ball. It's Alex Brighman.

Yeah. But can we get one of them? I mean, can we get a fully functional submarine? I'm just saying. I can also get that. I kind of agree with punk and punk in the chat there says I would pay Brighman, not Tucker. Yeah, when you're talking about these outrageous amounts of money, I mean, overall, Alex Brighman now seems reasonable by comparison. So hearing that the Diamondbacks are in on Kyle Tucker, I'm like, yeah, let's just save some money and go with Brigman.

Maybe you have some money left over to still add to your bullpen. which you haven't really done. Oh, we're going to try to fix that later. And in fact, if they don't add anybody to this bullpen, Damon and our eager and try to figure out what we're going to do. But I mean, that's really what it comes down to. But that is nuts, no. Like Kyle Tucker, I mean, like, listen, he's a really good baseball player.

Absolutely. But like when you had me, Derek, put these stat graphics together, is this is career stats here. 273 average 865 OPS, 147 home run. his bat bip is 284 and his B-war is 27.3 phenomenal player all-star caliber player absolutely but is he worth this contract I mean this is eight years for the course of eight years $400 million Derek for this guy like he like he's great but that's not Aaron judge yeah you know like that's that's who I'm paying $400 million dollars to otherwise I'm kind of like get lost bro I don't

really need you. I know you're going to hate to hear this, but Shohayotani, right? Yeah. That's a guy I'm paying that much for. It's a guy I'm paying $700 for it because he's a pitcher too. Yeah, right? But I don't know. I think this once again just comes back to like the amount of needs Diamondbacks have that they haven't addressed yet and them just suddenly wanting to be all in on, you know, somebody that's going to essentially destroy their budget, like just skyrocket their budget far beyond what it was last year. I do know that, and you know, at least unless it's deferred. And there's that, right? There's there's ways to structure it, as I said earlier. But like the fact that Brighman wants to

play here, that that also feels, you know, like a little bit more of a situation that makes me want him a little bit more rather than Kyle Tucker just going to the highest bidder. I don't know Tucker's feelings on Arizona. I'm sure he likes it here. Did you see, uh, did you see the, the news this morning of Alex Brigman working out at ASU? He's out there at Fiener. He's out there at Phoenix Muni taking ground balls with Mark Viantos. He and Terek Scoobel were like down the street from us. You and I could have gone and played catch with them. They were just outside of Chase Field.

So it does feel like like like scubel and Bregman and are like just Arizona. I mean, obviously scoble's from here, but like they're Arizona guys. And like I'm not saying we can get scoble or even that we could get Bregman. But I do like the Diamondbacks like consistently going after the star players who are like, I really like Arizona. Right. Okay. Corbin Burns? How much

do you like Arizona? Let's find out. You know what I mean? So Michael Dixon in the chat says Gambo already turned it down. This one's a little different though because again Mark Feincent is a fairly respected MLD insider and this isn't like a mistranslation situation like

it was with Akamoto. I don't know but again, you know, I feel like Gambo just literally texts Hazen and Kendrick and is like, is this true? And they're like, nah. And it's that simple for Probably Tori. I mean, again, Gambo, like, I respect the hell out of Gambo. And I will also say that Gambo is the only man I've seen come out of the press room after Tori's done his press conference and then walked back to Tori's, like office with him.

I was going to say, Gambo might actually be at Tori's Sunday dinner. Oh, yeah. Like genuine. Yeah. I mean, and he actually brings much better food than you and I would. He brings pasta. Yeah. Yeah.

He brings a dish. We just bring our, we just bring our personality. We bring like garlic bread from Walmart. And we expect that to fly with Missa Lovolo. And it's Gambo and the entire Lovolo family. And we sit down and we break bread. Yeah. Well, Ryan, is it Pedersen or Peterson?

I don't mean to be screwing that up. But he makes a great point. He says, we've been a top offense the last two years and it hasn't worked. We need pitching, not one position player. That's it. I mean, again, we have been a bottom five pitching staff. And it has not worked. And it cannot be that going forward.

That's what they need to address. They need to address the bullpen. And quite frankly, I would still love to see him add another starting pitcher, even though that seems like a luxury that we might not have at this point. But again, we've seen what happens when you have seven starting pitchers, so I don't feel the utmost confidence about only having five going into this season. But excuse me for being a little, having a little PTSD after 2025. Derek, I have to ask you because we haven't spoken on this podcast.

Obviously, I was off yesterday since. the, you know, the entire situation played out. Tatsuya Imi being debuted at the Texans game on Sunday and just taken in Houston. He might be the king of the city, despite never playing a game for them so far. And I tweeted at you because you were like, I'll never get over him.

And I said, rumors are swirling that Tatsuya I was a diamond back. He was as good as a diamond back until he realized, he looked up online, He said NFL team Arizona, and he saw the disaster that was the Arizona Cardinals, and he said, I cannot go to that city. Now, what are our thoughts on that situation the way it played out? I watched his press conference, and he spoke in English off of a translation that he had written down. And I, like, I respect players no matter where they're from, and I respect players, like, speaking.

the language of, you know, I don't mind the interpreter thing or anything like that, right? But it just, it once again reminded me of Jerry P. Right. Where Jerry made such an effort to do interviews in English. In fact, we had that funny moment where he straight up said he was American and he does it in English when trying your... John, John. John. In English next time, John. Right? So it's like, that's what I immediately thought of with Tetsuya Ma at his press conference. And I just, I love everything about him. I love everything about him. I mean, I'm going to be rooting for him. as a member of the Astros, and I adore this man already. I think he's a winner, and I love the fact that he, like, welcomes this challenge so much.

He's embracing it. And, you know, again, he's embracing Houston. It's his home now. He's out there at Texan games. He's out there throwing up the H everywhere he goes. Like, it's freaking awesome, man. And I mean, again, I just, I knew he was going to be that kind of player. That's what made me so miserable about the Diamondbacks missing out on him.

You're just like, this guy is a game changer. And like he is just the kind of player that whatever city he was, was lucky enough to get him, he was going to come in and embrace that city the way that we've seen him do it with Houston. I knew it. I knew it with the energy that he was bringing about not wanting to play for another team that had like other Japanese players on it or not wanting to go to the Dodgers. Like everything about him just spoke to me.

And Katie's right. He's eating all the brisket and he deserves all the brisket. Make sure it's the good smoked brisket. But he should be eating all the Mexican food. I should be. I know. I know. Carnia'sada fries. Let's talk about it. Can we talk about it? Like, that would have changed Katsuya in my's life having Karniazata fries for the first time.

Yeah. And you're right. Like even I'm thinking about abandoning the Arizona Cardinals, by the way. That's how bad things are right now. They're really bad. I'll show you the text messages later, but Tony Kahn's trying to recruit me. To the Jags. We got a Jags thing going on. Me and Tony Kahn. I mean, it's literally the owner of the Jacks. I know. Derek's texting the owner of the 13 and 4 Jaguars going hey water's warm in Jacksonville buddy yeah I mean it's I've been there before it's a good time I watch we got exploding ring match I'm kind of sitting here and I'm like can we get out there for like a game yeah like can they would hey hey to ball hey Tony can Derek and can the pH NXD back show take over Duval we made

somebody angry we've got thumbs down in the chat It's understandable. We deserve that. I apologize. But anyway, we're going to take a quick break. On the other side of this break, we're not going to talk anymore about what we would do with $400 million. But instead, we're going to talk about if Cattel Marte and the trade situation involving him is what is really holding the Diamondbacks up this off season. We're going to do it on the other side of this break. Don't you go anywhere? You're watching the pH next Diamondback show. You know, Bet365 already has you covered for all sports.

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whatever the moment. It is never ordinary. At VAT365, must be 21 or over and physically located in Arizona. If you were someone you know is a gambling problem and wants help, call 1-800 next step. Text next step to 53342 or visit problemgambling.az.gov. And it is 2026. And in the big 26, we are renovating our homes. Again, it's something that I have made a metaphor about when it comes to the Diamondbacks going after Alex Breggman. Do not spend $5,000 on a fancy door. Spread the love around and get all of the problems fixed at your house and a great place to do that at is the window depot and yes you might hear that name and think i don't need windows well they got you covered because they have way more than just windows you'll find everything you need all in one place they got doors skylights cabinets countertops sinks

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We should have like a debacks offseason excuse generator going on for reasons why the Diamondbacks haven't made more offseason moves. We've talked about it. We know they don't have a lot of money. I'm being realistic. You know, I could see this team maybe having Damon maybe $15 million left to spend. I mean, you got to take into consideration. Even James McCann and his $2.75 million as far as eating into the budget.

When you only had somewhere in the neighborhood of $30 to $40 million to spend in the first place, every cent counts. And again, that's part of it. They did save quite a bit on starting pitching by getting Michael Soroka on such a deal. It was going to be hard to find a starting pitcher, I think, for less than $15 million anywhere in this league. It felt light without them having some atrocious numbers. But, again, not a lot of money left to spend. The money is a factor here.

I think the Diamondbacks are probably waiting closer to the start of the season for guys to get desperate and be willing to accept shorter-term deals and less money. But there could other be other reasons, right? Like maybe Mike Hazen doesn't know it, but maybe his cell phone connection or his, like his account was closed or something. Maybe he's maybe there was a mix up. Maybe he's sitting around looking at his phone wondering why he's not getting any calls and he doesn't know that his number has been disconnected. Right. That's something I would do as a competing GM.

I wouldn't put it past the Dodgers to call, you know, like Verizon and cancel Mike's account. just to keep us, you know, just to have another edge over us. I don't know the reason why the Diamondbacks haven't added more to this team, but a big reason why could be Ketel Marte trade, the fact that the Diamondbacks have been taking offers, they have been expecting to maybe get blown away by some big offer. They don't know what that offer is, right? So without knowing what that offer is, they do not know

what they would need to still go out and add to this team, right? We have the Diamondbacks adding two starting pitchers and a backup catcher. There's been some other moves made that were minor league deals, but nothing significant. And again, the Diamondbacks have a lot of needs. Right-handed bat, first baseman, DH and outfielder. More pitching. Another starting pitcher would be great.

It would feel great in case of an injury to add some depth. It would be even more. It would feel a little bit even better if Michael Stroke. was the depth piece and the diamond back somehow added, you know, a really good starter here to this rotation, right? I still believe in Soroka and I think that he's going to end up being the fifth guy in the starting rotation. But again, just the diamondbacks don't really have that depth and they don't have the depth really in the minor league system either for them to turn to. Right. So what Michael, or Michael Dixon in the chat says, I think it's all about hoping they could get the moon for Marte and hoping that would work and it didn't.

teams were not willing to give what he was worth. The same could be said about Zach Gallen at the trade deadline when the Diamondback stood pat on him and did not trade him, right? They knew that they could get the qualifying offer if they, or the compensatory draft pick, they offered him a qualifying offer and he turned it down and signs for a team for over $50 million. But again, it's, it still was about not receiving what they felt like Gallen was worth. and they still needed him as a starting pitcher in the rotation after trading Merrill Kelly. So again, with no offer coming through for him, Gallin stayed a part of the debacks until the end of his contract.

Now what we have is Catelle Marte, and this trade, which again was never framed as the Diamondbacks shopping Marte around. Again, this was framed as the Diamondbacks once again, receiving offers on Cotel and hearing teams out. Yet, as we've discussed time and time and time again, as Damon has made me discusses, on this show. He's literally attacked me in the pre-show meetings about not talking about Cotel Marte trade rumors. And

it's because he literally is the talk of the off-season. I mean, these free, even some of the high-priced free agents have been overshadowed a bit by Cotel-Marte trade rumors. At least for a period of time, those seem to have died down. It feels like the Diamondbacks are

moving very close to making a definitive decision as Mike said and shutting down the trade rumors, simply saying to Steve Gilbert or the media that the Diamondbacks will not be trading Cattel Marte. Right. But again, that trade and what they could potentially get in the hall for him is what has held them up.

It is what has gummed up the system. The Diamondbacks offseason is frozen here a bit due to that, right? The value of his contract and the value of him as a potential MVP candidate it makes him a very high price. So if the Diamondbacks are listening to teams, it should be an enormous cost to those teams. And again, like what we're seeing, even with some of these free agents,

who might not get what they're projected to get, no team might feel like they are worth what they're asking. And that might be the same thing here with Catelle Marte. As much as it feels like the, you know, locker room, the clubhouse situation, the him missing time, was a big part of this, it might also be something that causes another organization to,

you know, not want to make that move, right? That could add to it. Not to mention the fact that Kattel will be in his later years for the majority of this contract. You know, so there's that.

But again, this all comes down to Marte being a special player that should just be a diamond back for the rest of his career. And unfortunately, due to the, position they are in, I don't think that they had a choice but to hear offers on him. There wasn't anybody else on this roster that has done as much as Marta as that would get the offers back that he would. It would be a remedy potentially that could fix the entire team simply by

losing one of our biggest superstars, right? So that cost, that sacrifice of trading him could be worth it if the offer was obscenely big. You know, one of those offers that we've discussed that's going to just infuriate the fan base of the team that traded for him because everybody on that side is going to feel like their team gave up far too much for simply for one player. Right.

But again, really what a Marte decision impacts is apparently the pursuit of Alex Brighman. And really, as many of us, I think, have discussed, the cost of Bregman and his production don't really seem like it's a you know like a like an equivalent like it doesn't seem like it's worth it it doesn't make much sense uh it makes sense to add Bregman to this team without trading Marte that makes sense other than the finances which still blow my mind but again really a Marte decision doesn't really impact the payroll flexibility much So it's not like they need to trade Cattel no matter what you're hearing.

They do not need to trade Cotel to make one of these other deals happen because his contract simply isn't enough for it to have a huge impact on signing a guy that's going to get $160 million for four or five years or a guy that's going to get $400 million for an eternity, right? But what has happened here is because they still at the end of the day offer for a Marte that would come from a team randomly, the Tampa Bay Rays or the Boston Red Sox could involve any number of players that they're looking to add to their roster. They can't go out and add those players. Like they couldn't stand around

and let Merrill Kelly go to another team. And when they got a chance to sign Michael Soroka at such a good deal, I think that made sense. Right. But again, if a deal comes through that gives the Diamondbacks young controllable starting pitching that Mike Hazen has been seeking, then again, they can't, they can't go out and add any more to this team. They can't really even add to the bullpen because at that point there would be a good chance that Soroka, for instance, could slot in as a long reliever and then some of your bullpen is figured out and other pieces can fall into place

based on having that need fulfilled, right? Or maybe he even is a high leverage arm for this team and later innings in the game. So and Ernesto agrees with me. Ernesto first says, let's bring back Gallin, Walker, and Goldie and make the most deback team of all time. that I'm not entirely against, but you can't have Walker and Goldie at the same time. I guess you could have a DH and then Walker playing first base, so that would work.

I mean, there were rumors about the Astros like being interested in maybe trading Christian Walker. If they ate some of that money, I would for sure be interested. Like without a doubt. Yeah, I mean, it's Christian Walker. So, of course, I'd be interested. He was one of the best defensive first baseman we've ever had, if not the best defensive first baseman. He's not Pavin Smith. that's another positive pro put another pro on the christian walker walker walker walker walker

walker walker that's another one right i mean listen derrick we need him back i i mean this show took a hit when christian walker walked out the door oh yeah i mean without the walker song we're nothing the vibes have not been excellent 100% right but um i don't know i mean this seems silly that it could tell martay trade would be holding things up this much but it also seems to make sense like really when you think about it. The reason why at the end of the day is that the front office has no idea what package a team could offer them that would blow them away. That would be substantial enough that you would feel comfortable moving Marte. And again, that package could include any one of these needs.

However, that is the reason why shutting down these Cattel Marte trade rumors and focusing on what you need to focus on seems to be the rational move with not a lot of, lot of time left, right? We got January and then we have half of February until we have pitchers and catchers reporting. Then not long, not very long after that, the season starts. In fact, this spring starts, feels like earlier than ever, right? So, I mean, the, the clock is ticking and we have to get started on the other moves. We have to get started on fixing this bullpen. We got to get started on what this team is going to do to fill the many needs that they still have. So again, that's that's the reason why Marte is essentially freezing things up. And again, there's there's a lot of moving pieces to a trade of that size and that magnitude.

It's going to impact everything they do going forward. So hopefully we can just move on because that I think is still the smartest thing for this team to do. And I think at the end of the day, they need to just. simply address pitching and maybe bring us Paul Goldschmidt back. But we're going to take a quick break on the other side of this break. We are going to talk about the Diamondbacks bullpen being a major problem this offseason. And I'm going to try my best to figure out how we're going to stack this. So we're going to do that on the other side of this break.

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So do not miss out. Join the inner circle for free right now by download. downloading the CircleK app today terms and conditions do apply at participating locations visit circlek.com for details in the words of wins Winston from lock stock and two smoking barrels alarm bells are ringing Willie there's a pool for you and the alarm bells are ringing Willie when it comes to the Diamondbacks bullpen I see Michael Dixon shouting about it in the chat for good reason that's because the Diamondbacks it feels like they're running at a time they've had no big signings they've had no bullpen help and quite frankly

Frankly, there's that word, there's that phrase. I swore I wasn't going to use it in 2026. I'm sure I probably already used it three times in this episode. But the 9-Vex don't really have a ton of options left now. That's the biggest problem. Arizona really has taken a risk here waiting. If the Cotel Marte trade did impact them waiting, they may have waited too long because, again,

there doesn't seem to be a lot left on the market. And when you take a look, I mean, again, MLB has each free agent listed by position by position. it's hard to find the ones that are not signed when it comes to bullpen help when it comes to relief pitching. I mean, there's still a lot of top available starting pitchers at the best of the best are still out there, right? You have Frambervaldez, Ranger Suarez, Nick Martinez, Zach Gallin, Chris Bassett. These guys are all still available. You still have Marcel Ozuna, who we talked about yesterday for designated hitters. You also have Eloy Jimenez.

and then right fielders. Not a lot of those guys left, but the one we talked about at the top, Kyle Tucker, he is still available, as are many of the top free agents across baseball. You got Cody Bellinger, Harrison Bader, you got so many guys available, Alex Bregman, Gino Swarrett, still out there as well.

Yet when you look at relief pitchers, 41-year-old David Robertson is one of the top relief pitchers left on the market. Jacob Junis, who we've briefly discussed at times, is available. Danny Colum. You also have Derek Law, Evan Phillips, Justin Wilson, Luis Garcia, a bunch of names that will make most baseball fans say

who, who, and who, right? And this is no disrespect to them. It's just a matter of the bullpen being a priority for a lot of teams to address their bullpen situations and a lot of the top names being off the market already.

I mean, it's getting down to a point where a guy like Jalen Beeks coming back to the Diamondbacks might be an option or perhaps even old friend Andrew Chafin coming back, right? I mean, we're looking at Beeks being like a top 10 available option right now, according to like people that are putting out updated reliever lists. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. He would be the eighth best relief pitcher right now available on the market according to MLB.com. Yeah. I mean, that's wild. That's what we're talking about here. A guy who is mediocre.

in a bad bullpen for the Diamondbacks last season. So we have to turn to internal options. I mean, we could discuss some of these guys that are still available on the market, and many of them could be a big help to this team. But let's just pretend. Has Sir Anthony signed yet? Sir Anthony has not signed. That's the only guy I look at available where I'm like, I want him.

I want him bad. I know. And quite frankly, bullpen neglect during the offseason has killed good teams before. Somebody said it in the chat because it's way gone now. But, I mean, again, like legitimately, like you looked at this pitching staff and said, let's run it back. You looked at this bullpen and was like, let's do this again. This is the one. I mean, I don't believe that this bullpen as it's constructed is good enough for the National League.

However, I'm going to take a shot at figuring this out. And again, what I want, I don't want to disrespect anybody here, but I want these guys, if this is the case, to maybe prove me right or prove me wrong. Prove the things I'm saying right now wrong, but prove me right about me feeling confident that we could figure this out. I think if you're talking about long relief, there still feels like there's because of injury, a need for that, right? I think if you're taking a look at the Diamondbacks options on their active roster, on their 40-man roster right now, you have a bunch of young guys that are starters that you wouldn't want to necessarily put into that role like a Cole Drake or a Mitch Bratt, because those guys at this point are your starting pitching depth. They need to get up to Reno, they need to get pitching, and they need to get ready for the season.

So should they be called upon by this team due to injury, they're available. However, I do think that one guy that did do that for this team for a period of time could be the long relief option, and that's Jillber Diaz. I think Jilbert Diaz could be a long relief option in the bullpen for the Diamondbacks, and I think he could be pretty good at that, right? Then you also have some young arms that I think could all be used in early relief, middle relief, maybe even high leverage situations as we go on. So we have Yulbert Diaz. Those arms that I'm talking about would be Philip Abner, Brandon Garcia,

and Super Bad Andrew Hoffman. Right. And then going from there, not terrible high leverage options for this team on this roster. You have Kevin Ginkle, you have Ryan Thompson. Those are two guys that I feel like you can count on and two guys that,

you know, kind of need to take a step forward as being veterans now in the bullpen that need to lead the way and they need to do that based on their performance. They need to lead by example, right? Set up man, Damon, you're going to love this. Dre Jameson. Dre Jameson as our electric eighth inning setup man.

And then in the ninth, Andrew Saul Frank. Because Andrew Saul Frank was incredibly good last year. And when you're taking a look at this bullpen, you're looking at ERAs, you're looking at innings pitched. You're looking at high leverage innings pitched. You feel like Saul Frank is actually a pretty good option. And one that might people probably don't think of just due to the, you know, gambling situation that he got into and the suspension.

He kind of fell off a lot of people's radar. Let's not forget that in 2023, he was incredibly good for this team. Did not allow an earned run in 10 and a third innings pitched in 10 games of relief. He walked four, he struck out six, he had a 3.26 FIP. and a 0.00 ERA. Last season, a 1.24 ERA in 28 games. Damon, 29 innings pitched a 1.24 ERA. It might have been, I don't know what to call it.

It was towards the end of the season. It was in high leverage situations. It was when this team was trying to claw their way back into the wildcard. And we couldn't afford any blown saves at that moment of the season. And he was, yeah, he looked good. It looked really good. Listen, I do. 3.3.3.5th?

I do love the prospect of Drey Jameson, as you said. I want Drey to be successful, and I think he has the talent. But until I see it, I don't think I can bank on it, if that makes sense. He just struggled too much with injury. He hasn't really done it in the majors. He's a Tommy John, and then he came back and they thought he freaking needed another Tommy John again. Yeah, no, so I think. Right?

Like, I mean, you miss a year of your career. you missed the entire 2024 season, you come back in 2025. And I know this is a very small sample size. It was only three innings pitched, but, you know, again, a three ERA. You know, and I mean, that's what he's kind of done his entire career in 2022. He had a 1.48 ERA in 15 games in 2023 at 3.32 ERA. So I, and I don't know. I mean, again, I'm only basing this on the fact that I'm a huge fan of it.

He's a guy that I believe in. But I also think that he is a guy that throughout his career has kind of proved, like he's always posted good numbers. True. So I just constantly feel like no matter how much of it sounds like a joke, no matter how big of a pun it is, no matter how many times I have to say it, Damon, I feel like people simply forgot about Dre. I think, I think Jay Jameson is one of those wild cards that you need someone to stick. And the dimebacks have a lot of them. I believe Andrew Saul-Frank is an MLB caliber reliever, even if he's not a closer full, like long-term. He might have to be for the first half of this season.

And I think you can be okay with that. Now, you look at the rest of the options that you got, whether it's Abner, whether it's, you know, Burgos, whether it's, you know, Garcia. A lot of questions there. None of these guys are proven. But at the same time, none of them are bad. Like, none of them are straight up just not good MLB pitchers. Gilbert Diaz even. I think a lot of people think that he has like pretty good stuff for a bullpen guy. So you need those out of those young guys, that's about five guys that we named right there.

You need like three of them to have like mediocre to good seasons. And the diamond backs will be okay. But that is, that feels like like the problem with that is that like yes, if you are a normal organization and you had a bunch of talented relievers, you'd be like, oh yeah, we're, we're going to be all right. We'll figure it out. but when you're the Diamondbacks and you have a bunch of young relievers that you're calling up and you're a fan of this team and you know what the history of this bullpen has been, you're sitting there going, oh my God, none of these guys are going to work out because none of them have proven anything.

And the Diamondbacks have proven that they can't develop young bullpen arms. So that's the part that is difficult to kind of like go into the season being like ecstatic about as a Diamondbacks fan. But I do think that there's like potential there at the very least more so than what we had last year. by a long shot. I didn't even mention, like, Andrew Hoffman, you know, there, there are some other guys in this pen, but, like, it's just you need these guys to work out and pan out. And until that happens, it's hard to, like, feel confident in that. I still can't help but wonder if Andrew Hoffman ever got his car, Damon, if he ever reunited

with his car, which took a very long time. I would hope so at this point. I would hope so, too. I still, the one thing I believe in, the true wild card here isn't really anybody in the bullpen. It isn't anybody on the 40-man roster. It's Jeremy Blake, the Pirates Director of Pitching Development that the Diamondbacks hired to be the new assistant GM. You can call him Assistant GM all you want. He is our new director of pitching develops. He made Paul Skeens. He did. He created Paul Skeens in a laboratory. And I believe he kept the formula. Paul Skeens was nothing before this guy.

That's got a old of them. That is very true. I will say though like- had a 12 ERA and was just had a garbage fastball before. Paul Skeens aside, the pirates actually do have really good pitching. Like that's what they, that's their thing. They develop pitchers. Yeah,

they do. This team is awful at. So if, if this human being is somehow the key to the Diamondbacks now having an advantage when it comes to pitching development, there's a whole lot of talent here, young talent to be worked with and to improve and to help, you know, grow.

that's the biggest thing. And it's not just young pitchers too. We've talked about this. Like there's a reason why Merrill Kelly became so good as he got older and it was the way he adapted. It was the way he developed into a different pitcher as he got older and, you know, found a way to basically get out even though at times Merrill Kelly's game hasn't been, you know, extremely flashy, right? So we made Tony Stark. We hired Tony Stark as our Fitching development guy. Yes, yeah. He built the skein suit in a cave. But I don't know, Damon. I mean, overall, I just, I feel like looking at this bullpen, I don't hate it. I don't feel like it's going to be a complete disaster. However, it's on these guys being given this opportunity to not make it a disaster. It's for guys to prove me and most of our fan base wrong

that do not really believe in running this group back that this is going to be successful. It's hard to. It's hard to feel like this team is a contender, even necessarily competitive, if you're coming back with the same guys. However, you know, the youth of this bullpen and the way that each and every one of these guys could take a step forward, especially with this new addition to the staff, feels like there's a little bit of hope there. Yeah, it does feel like there's a little bit of hope there.

I do like, you know, in a little bit different sense than you, though, Derek. You're saying like you feel like you have some confidence in what this bullpen could do. I'm too scarred. I'm like, that's what I'm saying about Drake James. I'm an idiot. Everything is cautiously optimistic when it comes to my world. Yeah. I'm like, prove it to me, though.

And then I'll believe you. Because I believe in the rest of this team. I actually think that, you know, like the maybe, I mean, they kind of suck last year. I mean, not kind of suck. They really sucked last year. But I think that the rotation could be okay. Like you have Merrill Kelly, who I believe in. I don't think Brandon Fott's going to be as bad as he was last year.

Erod, it would be hard to be worse than it was the last two, than he has been the last two seasons. But that has been two seasons now. And then you, I like, I kind of like Soroka, honestly, all things considered. But, yeah, I mean, this bullpen is just, I'll believe the development of young bullpen arms when I see it. I do think there's potential here for the first time in a long while, more so than we've seen. but hopefully, hopefully, Hayeson can get a couple hits here from that trade deadline.

Is there a person? It's Bo Brock. He just got here. He's looking so sad. Oh, man. That Cardinal situation is a disaster. I don't even want to talk about it. It's so sad. Tony Conn, I'll message you later. Anyway, speaking of being a supporter, supporters club members, we love you guys.

Candice says you all need to like the video, by the way. Only 18 likes and 50 viewers. Come on, guys. She's not wrong. Hit that like button. And also be like Candice and join our supporters club. It's a great way to support us directly. We are kicking ass when it comes to All-City, by the way. Still leading the way in supporters.

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playing headbands and me ruining that game for everybody. So I want that. I'm not even going to. Yeah. Derek. Let's just say become a supporters club member. Watch the video. And Derek ruined my life.

Yeah, I did. I did. Well, uh, the U.S. patent and trademark office is ruining the life of the athletics. Damon. We have, uh, some news coming in this morning.

Apparently the athletics cannot be the athletics. At least for the time being. the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office denied multiple requests from the team, according to reports, including for the name the Las Vegas Athletics and Vegas Athletics. Like, first of all, when you just think of a term as generic as that, there's got to be companies that already have it, right? Probably, yeah. Las Vegas Athletics, Vegas Athletics.

That seems like something like, I don't know, a business could have that's a training facility. it seems like a place that, you know, could do sports medicine for the various hockey and football teams that they have in that city. Like there's a lot of things there. It's like a gym. Yeah. Sounds like a gym. A gym. Yeah.

It's a gym as well, right? And that's exactly why apparently the trademarks were denied due to the names being deemed to generic. But it raises the question, though, Derek, where it's like, how do you not have this figured out? How are you not gotten this taken care of and figured out years ago? That should have been step one. Years ago. Is that not step one? That would be step one, step one.

It's like the Utah hockey club, you know, they, they were the reason why apparently, and I mean, this is just a rumor, but the reason why it took so long was they really wanted the Utah Yeti, which I actually like. I think it sounds good together. I think it's a, you know, and apparently the company, Yeti was like, nah, we got that. That's our. That's our name. you can't have it.

So they end up going with the stupid mammoth. But according to the USPTO, the dominant portion of each mark refers to a well-known geographic location being Las Vegas, while the remaining wording athletics lacks any kind of distinctiveness as applied to goods or services

identified in the applications. So saying that you're a baseball team from a different city that's had that name for a very long time, including when you moved there from Philadelphia, that's not good. good enough. Yeah. The USPTO. That's the the problem here, Derek, is that the, the, I think that the, the, the A's are so cheap that they're probably going to be like, all right, I guess we're the Vegas freaking spades. Yeah.

You know what I like they're they're going to they're going to, they're going to, instead of trying to monetarily fix this situation by being like, we cannot lose the athletics. That is our iconic name. We have left a city before. It's all you have left. Like at that point, you're, you're, The Ravens were the Browns that moved to a different city and no one wants to even remember that. And then they bring in another team that called the Browns. Or like the Oilers and the Texans. Yeah.

Yeah. Like, and you know, keeping the name as you said, Derek, like you used to be the Philadelphia athletics. Then you became the Oakland athletics. You can't lose athletics. It's too historical. It's too like much of a brand. The logo is awesome.

Like the history of the team. The colors. The elephant. Like you can't lose. that that branding and I know for a fact that the A's are just going to be like nah we tried didn't we and you're going to be like no no stop doing everything wrong stop doing every single thing wrong you guys decided you were moving there before you had a freaking stadium deal in place well that you decided you're moving there before trademarking the damn team name that what are you doing like

i i saw construction happening at the site that building a stadiums And that same day, there were conspiracy theorists online claiming that they still hadn't got the stadium squared away. Damon, they took the players to where the new clubhouse is going to be while the construction was going on. Like, that stadium's being built. Yet for some odd reason, it's not a clear-cut situation like it is with every other, like stadium in every sport, right? Like, it's like a stadium gets built. People know it's getting built. Like, this hasn't, like the timeline hasn't really slowed down imploding.

old hotels and building it on the end of the strip where there really isn't much left. Like there's a lot of things to this that, uh, like again, it, it, everything would be fine except for the speculation here that somehow they don't have everything in place. This is a big part of it. And, and they were right to an extent. They don't have everything in place. This is an insane thing to not have taken care of.

It's, it's ridiculous. I just, I genuinely, how are you moving? How are you announcing a relocation before you have a, uh, ground that you can break on a stadium deal in a name trademarked. Holy hell. Yeah. Sean's right. He says not only way late,

but this title makes me, oh, okay, no, I'm sorry that. The other message. She said that Calcutter, pursuing Kyle Tucker is like saying Sean's pursuing Hillary Duff.

I mean, yeah, he's not wrong. Same here. It's like me saying I want, you know, a Maybach or whatever, right? Like, Sean here says,

Maybach music. They're just doing. the most to ruin that franchise. And really that's what it comes down to. It is a beloved franchise by that fan base. And they are ripping the heart out of these fans. They are doing everything they can to turn their backs on so many people in Oakland and elsewhere that just don't feel like this team needed to be moved and needed to have all of this go on.

And most importantly, it just, it feels like when people get divorced and they just start doing things fast, right? Like just to split stuff up. You know, that's when people are taking advantage of these people by going to their yard sale and giving them nothing for treasured goods simply because, oh, we're having a move in sale and everything must go.

That was my ex-husbands. I don't care what you can give a damn about that comic book collection. I don't even know what's in there. I don't know. Yeah, 20. It's yours. Take it. It's thousands of dollars comic book collection. Exactly. I mean, and that's what this whole situation feels like. It feels like the

identity, the history, the lineage, it's all just being thrown away here, one move at a time. If this team ends up being called anything other than Las Vegas athletics or the biggest athletics, it's the true nail in the coffin. It's a travesty. For the, for the athletics. And at this point, it's just an expansion franchise that wiped its history clean and moved to Las Vegas. Yeah, I agree with that.

I mean, what are they going to call them? Some stupid-ass Vegas name, I bet. I mean, again, like, we can't wait for the Cattel Marte trade rumors to go away. Damon, I'm so glad that we got this stadium situation done where we do not have to worry about the Diamondbacks moving and speculation on what their future is going to be. How ridiculous would it be for a team to leave Arizona in baseball? That's what I was saying the whole time with all of that. And people still want to come play for us just because they like the vibes and the weather here.

They're like, I want to live in my house year round. That's why I want to go to Arizona. Oh, yeah. I bought a house there because I love Arizona. And that's the reason why to go there. I just remember flat tax. That's true. I just remember telling people, though, that like, guys, M-O-B, this is like the MLBs, other than, it's Florida and Arizona.

Those are the two states that the MLB is, is, like, aligned with and that they want presence in. It would be a criminal decision to move the team out of one of those states. I mean, shoot, it might happen in Florida. But that's because probably there's more Yankees fans. in Florida than any other team. And I mean, you're still going to have the Miami Marlins there. So it's not like you're moving both of the teams out of there. But again, it's also a weird geographic situation.

Like baseball for so many years was just located essentially in the northeast of this country. Yeah. It's the reason why so many of those cities hate each other, Philadelphia, New York, they all hate each other just because of baseball and geography, right? But like, again, like the branching out, venturing more west, having a team in Las Vegas, having a team in Arizona. Like these are the things that should change a lot about the love of baseball geographically across the country, right?

And moving a team to Las Vegas, you feel confident that you are going to create a new fan base there once you get there, right? Or at the very least, you're just going to be a travel destination for all the other fans. Visiting fans to fly to Vegas, have a reason to come stay for a weekend, do some gambling,

do some drinking, and have a good time watching baseball, right? which you and I are definitely going on. I was going to say, there's no doubt. There's no doubt about it. Sounds like I'm pretty sure that the first Vegas weekend trip that they, that is available.

Derek and I will probably go to Vegas. We'll do some content out there. If I survive after December 2026, we'll see. Maybe I go back to the cute world after the baseball world falls apart. But anyway, uh, Damon, we got to get out here.

You got another show to do. And I don't want to talk about this miserable athletics franchise. Again, I'm just happy that this team, that starts with an A-up on my hat. Doesn't have to worry about their future in the city that they're in. This is true. What Coolbro says,

like the Raiders are in a way team basically in like probably, I would say about half their home games that they play these days. And that's because they moved to Vegas. And they used to have a great home field advantage. They did. They had one of the best, I mean, the black hole was one of the craziest environments for any team to go play in.

Grown men dressing like professional wrestlers and stuff. It was great. It was amazing. which were in spiked shoulder pads. Spiked shoulder pad and skulls. With a gorilla out suit underneath. Yeah. Like, yeah, like, Darth Vader.

Darth Vader would show up. You ruined it. You ruined it by moving them to Vegas. But also, I will say that we kind of go through that too, the whole opposing fan thing here. It's very difficult. It's an uphill battle. And it takes years to establish a fan base. Almost takes a generation of kids being born and growing up as fans in order for you to get through that whole phase.

It feels like the Diamondbacks are entering that phase. It does. It does. People your age and younger. Totally. I think that. Loving this team. Yeah.

Sorry to cut you off. I am truly the first generation of Diamondbacks fans. Like I was born two years after the franchise was announced that it was going to be started. And so my whole life I've known the Diamondbacks. But most people that have been Diamondbacks fans couldn't say that. They were fans of other teams. My mom was a Reds fan. My dad was a Yankees fan.

They became Diamondbacks fans. because once they move the team here. And so it's like, I think, you know, Derek, you've said, like, you had other teams that you liked as well because there was no team. Oh, yeah. So if you liked baseball, you had to pick a different team. And now we're finally, like, I think embarking on the era of like people that have all they've ever known is a Diamondbacks, growing up, getting jobs, having money where they can go spend it. And I think that in the next like 10 years, we're going to continue to see a rise with debacks attendance and just overall support in this city.

but obviously you can't prove that, but I do feel confident that that is, like, well on its way to becoming the truth here. Well, and really what this all comes back to, Damon, is the fact that this city does not have an NFL franchise, and I am choosing the Jacksonville Jaguars for my support. That's all I got. We thank you guys so much for joining us. We'll be back tomorrow.

Jesse Friedman will be joining us tomorrow at 12 p.m. We're going to talk about starting pitching depth on this team and what the Diamondbacks are going to do in regards to that if they don't add any more players to this roster. and I'm sure there'll be some new crazy trade rumor that pops up between now and then. So make sure to join us for that. Until then, we love you guys. We appreciate you.

You can follow us on Twitter. I am at Kap underscore Caveman with a K. Damon, as always, is that Damon dog with a DAWG. And we're all Damon's dogs. Bark, bark. Our show is at PHNX underscore Dbacks and all roads do lead to at PHNX underscore Sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, which I am going to buy Twitter back and change it back to Twitter. with that $160 million.

So, or $400 million. It's going to cost a lot. He bought it for $44 billion. It's gone down 72% in value in his over his time owning it. So we're going to offer them like $600 million and we'll see what we can get. But until then, until we figure that out. We thank you guys again for your attendance today. We love you.

We appreciate you. We'll see you tomorrow. Behave yourselves, Candice, and remember kids, baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun when you stop trying to spend crazy amounts of money that you don't have.