PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - REPORT: Diamondbacks Outfielders Drawing Trade Interest, Brent Strom Lands With Pirates

Episode Date: November 14, 2024

JOIN THE DIEHARDS FOR JUST $4 A MONTH! https://www.gophnx.com/intro-offer-youtube This offseason for the Diamondbacks is shaping up to be a doozy. Per a report from MLB.com’s Steve Gilbert, the D-backs are receiving trade interest in their young outfielders Jake McCarthy and Alek Thomas. Will they pull the trigger on a trade to move either player? Also, Brent Strom is on the move, becoming the new assistant pitching coach for the Pittsburgh Pirates. How much will the Snakes regret losing him after they see him become Paul Skenes’ new mentor? Join Jesse, Derek, and Kevin for the PHNX Diamondbacks Show LIVE! An ALLCITY Network Production SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtube ALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports MERCH https://store.allcitynetwork.com/collections/phnx-locker ALLCITY Network, Inc. aka PHNX and PHNX Sports is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by the City of Phoenix PHNX Events: Get your tickets to PHNX events and takeovers here: https://gophnx.com/events/ bet365: https://www.bet365.com/olp/open-account?affiliate=365_03330244 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/ Bluechew: Try BlueChew FREE when you use our promo code ALLCITY at checkout--just pay $5 shipping. That’s https://bluechew.com promo code ALLCITY to receive your first month FREE. Visit for more details and important safety information, and we thank BlueChew for sponsoring the podcast.. Zbiotics: Go to https://zbiotics.com/phnxdbacks to get 15% off your first order when you use PHNXDBACKS at checkout. Pre-Alcohol is backed with 100% money back guarantee so if you’re unsatisfied for any reason, they’ll refund your money, no questions asked. Empire Today: Schedule a free in-home estimate today! All listeners can receive a $350 OFF discount when they use the promo code PHNX. Restrictions apply. See https://empiretoday.com/phnx for details. Branded Bills: Use code PHNX at https://www.brandedbills.com/ for 20% off your first order! Gametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. 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! Shady Rays: Exclusively for our listeners, Shady Rays is giving out their best deal of the season. 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. Check out FOCO merch and collectibles and use promo code “PHNX10” for 10% off your order on all non Pre Order items. Rugged Road: Gear up for your next adventure with Rugged Road Coolers - Your ultimate outdoor companion! Head to http://ruggedroadoutdoors.pxf.io/ALLCITY and use code PHNX for 10% off! Get 10 FREE meals at https://hellofresh.com/freedbacks. Applied across 7 boxes, new subscribers only, varies by plan. 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. #dbacks #diamondbacks #arizonadiamondbacks #mlb #zacgallen #corbincarroll #ketelmarte #mlbtheshow #mlbtraderumors #tradedeadline #traderumors #allstargame Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Which beloved Arizona Diamondbacks outfielders are the team getting calls on? We're going to talk about it right now and you're going to hate it. Don't go anywhere. We're talking about it in 30 seconds. Welcome in to Studio K, presented by our friends in Circle K. It's another edition of the PHNX feedbacks podcast right here on PHMX. My name is Derek Montia. Occasionally known as your mayor of PHNX.

This man is your thunderstick and my vice mayor, the one and only Jesse Friedman. And happy throwback Thursday. Once again to you all, so happy to have you here. Of course, we got large, intimate Kevin Thomas on the ones and two is holding it down for us. And D-Backs fan 602 starts things off with. I better not see Jake Bacartheir, Alec Thomas trade rumors. Well, damn, sorry to disappoint you, D-Backs fan 602. Unfortunately, we do have news on a report from Steve Gilbert from MLB.com on the Diamondbacks

receiving some trade interest there in both of those guys. Of course, why wouldn't they? Those are very two quality players. We're going to talk about it here shortly, but the big news right now is that the Arizona 9backs have some names that have officially found new teams that are moving on from the franchise. We have Brentstrom who has taken a role as an assistant pitching coach with the Pittsburgh Pirates. And we knew this was inevitable. We knew this was going to happen.

Jesse and I witnessed it in person at the All-Star game. Throw that up there. Jesse tweeted this out back then. And this is there you said. Jesse said this is quite the pairing. and Paul Skeins. Well, good job, idiot. You did this to us.

The trendy comment at the time, like the hot take on the situation was, oh, Brent Strom is recruiting Paul Skeens to the Arizona Diamondbacks, which of course was an absolutely ludicrous theory. But it turns out. Paul Skeens was doing the recruiting. Jokes on the people who thought that because, yeah, apparently Paul Schoen's was recruiting Brent Strom to the Pittsburgh Pirates. That probably didn't happen either.

But Brent Strom has been hired by the Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh Pirates, according to reports, as their assistant pitching coach. And no surprises there that Brentstrom was able to find another gig. As much as things may not have gone great with the Diamondbacks, at least in his last season with the diamond backs, the reality is that Brentstrom has been and will continue to be a highly respected name across the game. And if he wanted another job, it was going to be out there form. And sure enough, he lands with the Pittsburgh Pirates. I don't mean to diminish it, but assistant pitching coach, I don't know if that means anything or if that makes anybody feel any ways about that. Obviously, I know there were a lot of people that felt like maybe moving on from, you know, a legend like Brent Strom as our pitching coach was a mistake.

Maybe, you know, maybe it wasn't all on him. And I don't know. I mean, he didn't go out and get a pitching coach job. So I think that that might make some fans feel a little bit better that maybe, you know, he did take an opportunity with the Pittsburgh Pirates who do have a quality, young. pitching staff. Maybe one of the best young pitching staffs in the game that he can help shape and bring his knowledge to, bring his experience to and help make them better. But also, you know, there is something to be said about Brent Strom's tenure with the Diamondbacks. It would be one thing if maybe this season was an outlier when it comes to the team's overall production

for pitching, both starters and relievers. But when you look at these numbers for the three years that Brent Strom is here, there was never a point. where pitching was better than the middle of the pact. In fact, the Diamondbacks were always in the bottom third in both of these categories as far as starting pitching and relief pitching is concerned. And that goes back to his, you know, his first year here at 2022. Diamondbacks had a 4.05 starting ERA, which was 19th MLB and a 4.58 relief pitching era, which was 25th.

That year, the team finished 23rd overall in Major League Baseball and pitching. and then going back to that graphic and to 2020, same thing. I mean, you kind of just see the numbers here getting worse. Starting pitching ERA goes from 4.05 and 19th to 4.67, 21st in 20203 to 4.79 in 2024, which is 27th in Major League Baseball, relief pitching. I mean, the best that any of, that this team ranked at all was 18th in

2020 and relief pitching at 4.22. And again, Elise says in the comments, I think this says more about our. overall pitching talent than Strom as a coach. However, that pitching talent has changed over those three years. There are a lot of the same components here, and you're right about that. The team has gotten, you know, but you could argue the team got more talented over that tenure and those are the results. All I'm saying, and again, not to not to blame these results entirely on Brent Strom, I'm just saying there's not really an indicator there that would say to you that this pitching staff

has gotten better under Strom as the pitching coach. So the move to, you know, hire a new pitching coach and Brian Kaplan makes sense. Again, and it might not be Strom's fault. But if the results aren't there, there's a time where you have to, you feel like you have to start doing something differently. And that's what the Diamondbacks are going to do in 2025. Yeah, I mean, I think two things can be true, right? On one hand, is it Brian Strom's fault that the Diamondbacks has such a, such a rough year

on the pitching side of things in 2024? Absolutely. I don't think so. I think that's kind of outrageous take. But I think on the flip side, especially with the team making the World Series in 2023, there was this narrative out there that Brent Strom had, you know, kind of greatly elevated this Diamondbacks pitching staff to a highly unexpected place. And I don't think that narrative was ever substantiated either.

You look at, you know, Zach Gallen and Merrill Kelly. Zach Gallen has certainly been a, you know, one of the best pitchers in the game since, since long before Brent Strom arrived in Arizona. I guess Merrill Kelly, his emergence, did sort of align with when Brent Strom arrived in in Arizona. And there are other narratives, you know, like Brandon fought. I do think that his progression, his development over the course of his major league career, you know, moving from one side of the rubber to the other, that was directly attributed

to Brent Strom. So there are clearly good things that Brent Strom has done. Yes. But yeah, that big picture narrative that Brent Strom was the reason. the Diamondbacks were in the World Series or anything, the numbers that simply do not support that. Cam says our young guys improved with him, though, fought Nelson, J-Mart, you're absolutely right,

especially J-Mart. I mean, and, you know, how many times have we talked about the branded fought phone call that suddenly changed his season, right? So there is a lot to be said about what Brent Strom is done for the young pitchers on the staff. It just, it's to that point now that the organization felt like, you know, they needed to change.

I think based on what we've heard, so far about Kaplan. I'm excited for him as a pitching coach. I think that it is going to be a completely different vibe. You are not bringing in a Yoda like mentor for these young pitchers any longer. And at this point, I think at least for the 2025 season just as a start, the Diamondbacks are more worried about getting their pitchers to stay healthy and to get a lot of innings under their belt and get back to where they know they could all be. You can also say that Kaplan, you know, does have a history of development, considering he was the director of pitching development for the Phillies.

So I don't think there's going to be a big drop off there as far as his ability to develop young pitching. The big difference here is experience. And Brent Strom has so much of that that there's no, there's very few pitching coaches that are still active in Major League Baseball that you could gain that amount of experience from. Just how does that experience translate over to actually helping these guys, right? Maybe Strom landing in Pittsburgh is the best, you know, spot not only for him, but for that team. They might, we might see, you know, those young guys all of a sudden make some huge improvements, which is scary considering how good they already are.

It's just, you know, this might be one of those situations where it's best for all parties involved that the Diamondbacks moved on and that Brent Strom found this home in Pittsburgh. I think that's fair. I will be very curious what, you know, Paul Skeen's, Jared Jones, Mitch Keller, like they've got some really good young pitchers over there in Pittsburgh as it is. And I think that while Brent Strom, you know, we've discussed that there have been some reports about Strom's relationships with the Diamondbacks veteran pitchers, maybe not being exactly what you'd want them to be.

I don't think we ever got any indication along those lines for the younger guys. By as far as we are aware, it seems like the D-Bex younger pitchers like Ryan Nelson and Brandon Fod and, you know, that new wave of pitchers that's coming up through the system, I think those guys seem to enjoy working with Brent Strom. and very much benefited from him. So him going to a situation in Pittsburgh where there are, there's a decent contingent of younger guys, I think that's probably a pretty good fit for him.

I love you, Michael Roquekekeke. Thank you for your super chat. He says, Derek, looking hot capital H-A-W-T in the throwback. Boo Elise for letting Newman go. It is Elise's responsibility. Boolee, Elise, known baseball GM. I will say, though, that Kevin Newman, that's a name I thought that the Diamondbacks maybe had a chance to bring back.

I will say that I thought that maybe it would be cost effective. And the deal that he signed with the Angels isn't outrageous. It's a one-year deal with a club option. I still don't know what the hell the Angels are doing this off season. They are entirely too active for a team making the mediocre moves that they're making. And that's no knock to Kevin Newman. It's just they're very active and it's stuff like this. But Kevin Newman was very sneaky.

He was very sneaky with his values. you in 2024. I mean, he wasn't a guy that a lot of people probably had on their radar, but he was like a Swiss Army knife for the Diamondbacks. They kind of plugged him in all over the place. And whenever someone was hurt, whenever they needed someone to back someone else up, even late in games, they had him come in and substitute. And I felt like he just did a great job everywhere that they asked him to play. He really did. He really did. Yeah, I mean, especially in those first couple months when Geraldo Perdomo went down with the knee injury, there were some big questions like all right who exactly is going to play shortstop i guess it's i guess it's going to be

kevin newman diamondbacks trusted him defensively more than they trusted blaze alexander uh we kind of we kind of learned why in in the first few weeks of the season and yeah newman uh newman was was was up for that challenge he stepped in and was not only solid offensively there wasn't really much drop off at all between heraldo perdomo and what newman was giving the diamond backs and then defensively, Newman was excellent. I think this was the best defensive year that Newman has ever had. I sort of viewed him as a utility guy who could play shortstop if you needed him to, but you'd probably rather him play second base or other infield positions.

But he played a whole bunch of innings at shortstop and he was really good. You look at his defensive metrics, four defensive runs save, four outs above average at shortstop, six defensive runs save three outs above average at second base. Those are really good numbers. and there are not a lot of utility players out there that can give you that kind of defense up the middle and really all around the diamond. So Newman was a very valuable player for the Diamondbacks in 2024. And they're probably going to have to do something this offseason to fill that gap. They're going to have to do something to fill the hole in Damon's heart for no longer being able to hear Lelo by Tiesto every time he gets up to back.

Because that man can't shut up about how good that song is. It's a great song. Lelo hit the sun. I can't sing it because we'll get DMCA. But anyway, yeah. And I don't think you're, I don't think you're singing that song would be close enough to the actual thing for us. That's an insult.

That's a, I don't think we're going to have to work about any copyright. I don't know. You didn't hear me sing sober. So you don't know how well I can sing. But of course, there are going to be some changes. I know a lot of people in Tucson upset about this because, of course,

the product of you of A and it was fun to have a couple of those guys on this team, Jesse's favorite school in the world. But, I mean, again, the Diamondbacks are going to have some changes. You know, they're going to have to evolve here. And a big part of that evolution is kind of finding the next Kevin Newman. I mean, the deal that he signed with Diamondbacks was pretty good considering the production that he gave them this year and the usage that they got out of him. So it's not always easy to go out there and find a guy that's going to just randomly give you 2.2B war like that out of, you know, out of nowhere. V-WR is that's a lot for a utility player.

Like for a part-time player, that is a really impressive number. And a lot of it is, as I said earlier, it's because of his defense. If you play well above average defense at a variety of positions, that is really valuable. And it's not a particularly easy thing to find. Jesse did say Tucson wasn't real piece of Yoshi. It's true. He also had some real, you should hear the terrible things he says about them in like our staff meetings. It's even worse.

But of course, we do have some more here because I know. Again, if you're upset about hearing about Brent Strong leaving and Kevin Newman leaving, you're going to be really upset when we start talking about the Diamondbacks possibly trading either Jake McCarthy or Alec Thomas this offseason. We don't know which one it's going to be, but we do know, again, according to Steve Gilbert, that they have received some calls on these guys. They have some interest. And with their needs, they might be willing to part ways considering their surplus of young outfielders.

So we will be talking about that on the other side of this break. Don't you go anywhere. Stick around. Of course, shout out to bet 365. If you haven't gotten down on bet 365, today is a perfect opportunity to do so. You can see for yourself the wonderful benefits to signing up to bet 365 with their Thursday night touchdown offer. You can place a qualifying parlay bet totaling $20 and more on tonight's game and get bonus bets for every single touchdown. That's right.

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Well, according to the report that we discussed, earlier, Steve Gilbert, that's Steve Gilbert from MLB.com. Diamondback center fielders are drawing an interest from teams across the league. This points to guys like Jake McCarthy, Alec Thomas, and possibly even Jorge Barrosa. Of course, we have to talk about those other two guys because we know how much that's going to infuriate most of you, if one or two of those guys leave. But that's only because Alec Thomas and Jake McCarthy, I think, have really become fan favorites here in the Valley. Not only have they already delivered in their young career some huge moments

for this franchise, but I think everybody sees the potential in both of these guys that they are future stars in Major League Baseball. And then in the case of Jake McCarthy's 2024 season, you could even say it's kind of already, it's already here. He's arrived. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's what makes this conversation so tricky is that one of these guys, you see Jake McCarthy's numbers here, had a very good season in 2024. He had 285, 349. 400, eight homers, 56 RBI. He was a three war player, you know, hitting near the top of the lineup for the diamond backs. Jake McCarthy, I guess at times, not super often.

But Jake McCarthy was very valuable for this team in 2024. And if you look at Alec Thomas' stats in 2024, it's a bit of a different vibe, Derek. It's a 189 average. He is like, hold on base. Not to cut you off. He's way too happy looking at those stats, Jesse. I don't, I want to see, like, this is when fans are mad that people are having a good time in the dugout during a loss. Like, oh, like, look at it.

He looks like he's staring at that 189 average. He's like, yeah. But yes, sorry to cut you off there. 189 batting average, 245 on base percentage, 358 slugging. He had three home runs, 17 RBI and a minus 0.24. And he also only had 103 plate appearances, which makes it hard to know how much to really read into those numbers. Sure. But yeah, like going into 2025, the idea of having Jake McCarthy and not having Alec Thomas

probably sounds better to people than the reverse, right? It's hard to look at Alec Thomas's 24 season and feel super optimistic about his future. But on the flip side, if you're thinking about which of these guys nets you more in a trade, you're kind of in a position to sell high on Jake McCarthy right now, whereas Alex Thomas, I still think he has some trade value. you given how young he is and how good he is at playing center field, but I don't think he's going to have the trade value that Jake McCarthy would at this point. You don't exactly have to be a baseball savant to look at the two statistics that we just

put up on screen here, or here you go, this comparison, and see which player is a better player, which player is more production, right? That's not really the case. You know that Jake McCarthy has had a better, you know, career so far, especially last season. McCarthy has had a little bit, I guess a little bit more stability. He's been a little bit, you know, just just his average and everything that he's done has been a little bit more stable than Alec Thomas. You also have the fact that McCarthy's value right now is potentially after the 2024 season at an all time high. It could be higher. There's no way for us to know that. But right now,

at least, it's at an all time high. It's pretty high. And meanwhile, Alec Thomas couldn't be more on the opposite end of the spectrum as far as his 2024 season goes. But, why does that instantly make us think that McCarthy is the one that they would trade, right? Like, I know that Alec Thomas's value isn't super high, but that doesn't necessarily mean that other teams don't still see the full potential in Alec Thomas. It doesn't mean other teams might not analyze 2024 and see that he was injured and just kind of had an erratic season and never really got himself into a groove. Might be willing to take that gamble on the 2025 season and see what a healthy Alec Thomas looks

like going, you know, having a normal offseason and a normal, you know, spring training and everything like that. Alex's defense, Elise says there in the chat, Alex's defense over Jake's defense, though. Yeah. He stabilizes the outfield and he's so good in center field that you feel like at times you're willing to forego when he's struggling offensively because of how good he is out there. And he makes it look so goddamn easy at Chase Field that is not an easy place to play. You see other guys.

You see Jake playing there. You see Corbyn playing there. It's not that those guys don't play an adequate center field. It's just at times you see him get all turned around and flipped inside out and making weird plays. You saw what happened with Jake off the wall twice in the game. Like that type of stuff, you never see happen, Alec Thomas. It's very rare when it does.

And I mean, again, there's something to be said about his ability to look so to play that center field at Chase Field so effortlessly, right? Yeah. So I really don't know the answer here because, again, it's like, I personally see the value at times in trading players when their value is high. And I still believe in Alec Thomas. So that makes me lean towards trading Jake McCarthy. And I just think that's the route to go based on the yield you will receive in return.

Diamondbacks have to start thinking beyond the 2025 season at this point. It just sucks when you want to trade essentially the better player, right? Because like with them being all in in 2025, they need. They need that. They need him. They need him as one of their, you know, center fielders or at least one of their outfielders, it feels like. Yeah.

Yeah. I, you know, thinking about these two guys, it's interesting because the, the conversation feels a certain way right now where Jake McCarthy was, you know, far in a way, the more valuable player in 2024. But if we were having this conversation a year ago at this time, I think it'd be kind of reverse. Like after what Alec Thomas did in the postseason for the Diamondbacks, Jake McCarthy did not have a good 2023 season at all.

So a year ago, this conversation was very different. However, if we kind of zoom out and look at the big picture, these are their career stats. Jake McCarthy has had 1,231 played appearances. Alec Thomas has had 916. And you look at these career stats and it's pretty clear. Jake McCarthy is a career 103 WRC plus. Alec Thomas has a 70 WRC plus. Jake is at 5.7 career wins above replacement over at fan graphs.

Alec Thomas is a 0.9. So if you zoom out, the big picture here is that what is happening? Who what it's it's Arizona Fall League Jesse Fall guys. Oh, okay. You get to you just push them push you push it. You just push them over. That's all you do. You just shove them out of the way.

They're very pushable. It's fine. Okay. All right. But yeah, no, it's a, it's a weird question. It's a terrible question because it's like, again, I don't think any Arizona Diamondbacks fan wants to part ways with either one of these guys. think that's what it comes down to you.

Nobody wants to see Jake McCarthy go be Rick McCarthy with another franchise and you get the overwhelming feeling that that's what you're going to see. Then you also have the fact that because we're kind of having this conversation and because people might forever connect these two guys should a trade be made, you're always going to have that comparison graphic right there coming up and deciding if the Diamondbacks made the right move depending on who they parted ways with and what what their careers become beyond this point. This is potentially a fork in the road for, you know, one guy that helped this team tremendously in 2024 and one guy that had what was one of the biggest hits of the entire 2023 season and the playoffs. So I don't know.

I don't know what the answer is. I mean, a lot of you guys do. A lot of you guys definitely have your thoughts on it. So, of course, we want to hear from you in the chat and who you would like to see the Diamondbacks part ways with because I don't know. I don't know what the answer is here. I will say we did have a poll in the chat, 31 votes. I asked who has the higher long-term value to the debacks? So who would you rather keep pretty much?

61% currently of the 31 people say Jake McCarthy is the one that has a higher long-term value to this franchise. That's interesting to me because that that's not, I mean, that's almost 50-50, right? Like people seem to be fairly split on this, even though the numbers we just showed, like Jake over the course of his career has far outperformed Alec Thomas. um, offensively at least defensively, Alec Thomas has a slight edge, but it's just not nearly enough to, you know, to bridge the gap between, um, how big their,

their offensive numbers have differed. So, uh, yeah, given the Diamondbacks history on this, my, my inclination is that they would trade Jake, that a Jake trade is more likely than Alec. Uh, that is just sort of my speculation.

And I say that because you look at some of the recent deals that they've made, the diamondbacks have sold. hold high on guys in general, right? Like last off season, they traded Dominic Fletcher. After Dominic Fletcher put up really good numbers for the debacks in the regular season. The year before that, they traded Dalton Varsho after he had a really, really good season and was showing a lot of promise. Even some smaller moves, right?

Like Ryan Bliss was part of that trade to get Paul Seawalt. He had a really, really good season in the minors that year, Davis and Delos Santos this year in the AJ Puck trade when his value felt like it was maximized. It just doesn't feel like the debacks really ever dip their feet in the water of trading a guy when their value is near its lowest point. And if you were to trade Alec Thomas, that's kind of what you would be doing. Yeah. No, I mean, there's no argument there. Alec Thomas has had a really, really rough 2024 season.

Elise here again, like she doesn't want us to call her a baseball GM, but then she keeps like giving us insider information. but she says we can't judge last season offensively for Alec in my opinion he was hurt from the jump and never really got going and he got hurt again yeah it's like it didn't it didn't prove anything positive about Alex's future but it didn't really prove anything negative either right it was just sort of like all right Alec Thomas his season was basically you basically can't take anything away from it because he was hurt for such a big portion of the year well I hate this and I hate not knowing at all what the Diamondbacks are going to do all of this stuff that we've talked about for basically the last two weeks is speculation. But when you hear what you're hearing, there's there's smoke. And where there's smoke, there's fire, right? We know the Diamondbacks have a surplus of center fielders. We know the Arizona Diamondbacks have a surplus right now of starting pitchers. So when we hear the rumors that they're trading, you know, or at least taking phone calls on starting pitching, taking phone calls on these outfielders, it makes sense. It makes sense based on, you know, what they have. And that at this

point, it's not going to be, you know, they're not going to spend nothing in the off season, but we do know that they're going to have their hands tied a bit on how much they can spend. So in order to make this team more competitive and keep up with this really, really tough NL West, they're going to have to, you know, make some sacrifices in order to try to improve this team. All right. I have a couple questions for you.

So would you, hypothetically, would you trade a Jake McCarthy if it meant that you were getting, we'll start with a back-end reliever. If you could get one of the top back-end relievers, like I guess some of the guys we've talked about at Devin Williams or Ryan Helsley, someone like that, would you be willing to trade Jake McCarthy to accomplish that? It would have to be a back-end reliever that had at least two years left on their contract. Okay. So you're not in on trading Jake for Ryan Helsley.

For Ryan Helsley. I'm not. Interesting. I'm not. And I know that might be crazy because Ryan Halsley is the exact kind of thing they need. However, Jesse, I've been sitting in this damn seat right next to you when we talked about the Arizona Diamondbacks picking up the guy that had the most saves in Major League Baseball last year.

And you remember how Mark Malanson worked out. You all remember how Mark Balanson worked out. And I don't trust any of you closers out there because you're all going to come here and you're all going to be crummy and you know it. And that's why my heart is broken and it'll never trust again. to be fair mark malanson was what like 38 when that happened oh i don't now you're just right you're right i'm just seeing ryan helsley and devon williams are in a slightly different stage of their careers than mark malanson was when that happened but it's fair it does feel like at

this point if you're the diamondbacks and you trade for a closer you're sort of holding your breath no matter how good their credentials are because we've seen a thing or two in this market right when it comes Backhead relievers. You have great track records and then they come here and it doesn't work out. We've been hurt before. But yeah, Cam says for just one year of control, now I pass. I think that's the biggest thing. And I mean, honestly, the Diamondbacks, we also talked about there are two timelines.

This is the first timeline and it sucks. This timeline involves the end of potentially Merrill Kelly and Zach Allen's career here. It involved maybe Christian Walker and the end of his career in Arizona, right? So like now that we're getting to 2025, that there's, you know, There's two clear paths that the Diamondbacks can go, which is building beyond and starting to prepare for the future or, you know, going all in in 2025. And it seems like they're kind of doing that. Like it seems like they are kind of going all in on this season.

It's just how much of your future, again, to do you mortgage? How much of a Jake McCarthy or Alec Thomas are you willing to lose, you know, to give up in order to improve this team? And how long does that improve the team for? I don't like the idea of it doing it just for one year, but again. So two years of a back end reliever, though. I mean, that makes me feel. You could be interested in the right situation.

Yes, I could be. And especially, again, if it's, you know, if you're talking about the caliber of those two guys that you bring up and the numbers that they had in 2024, then yes. You know, it's just, I don't know. I mean, you can't play all of the guys, right? You know, this is, again, like fantasy football, when you're hanging on to guys the entire season. that you never even play once just because, like, you think that there might be good, or you think at one point they might be that running back one or that wide receiver one. Sometimes it works out.

Sometimes it doesn't. But sometimes you literally leave those guys taking up a bench spot the entire season. You can play them in your buy week. And so, like, the Diamondbacks are getting to that point where they just have a surplus of these guys that are major league ready. And that includes Jorge Barrosa, which we haven't really talked a lot about. But, I mean, if you traded one of these guys, I think you would do it, knowing that Jorge Barrosa is a viable option to step in.

And I think that's reasonable. Like, Jorge Barrosa is a really good defensive outfielder. I don't think it's too crazy to imagine that Horace Barossa and maybe Alec Thomas would be the more accurate comp there, that those two guys could be roughly similar performers in the big leagues at this point. The other thing I want to bring up real quick, which we haven't mentioned, is both Jake and Alec are under team control through 2028. So when you're weighing which of these guys you'd rather.

trade there's no difference in terms of the team control they're both under team control for i guess that's four more seasons so you've got a decent amount of control on both these guys um yeah we i don't like no they can't go to an nl team that's the other thing too she's right we have to we have to trade them to an al team so that they can't hurt us uh that's why at least christian walker going to the yankees is like the least worst case scenario kind of i don't know i don't really i'm just trying to figure out how one of these guys would make sense for the mariners because if we're just trying to like, yes,

like play them. Yeah, the most likely outcome is certainly a trade with the Mariners. So, so who on the Mariners? They'll give us two starting pitchers and a closer for an outfielder.

They'll give us way too much. I know it. I do think Andres Munoz could be a very interesting relief picture target for the dive backs. Maybe we'll dive into him a little more. We will get them on the phone. What do you got, Kevin? I just have something a little nonsensical to bring up.

Sure. This is a personal beef I have with Jesse. Yeah. Uh-oh. I have an MLB the show franchise where I took over the Diamondbacks, and I did acquire Miller from the A's, as Cam tells us to go do. Jesse told me this would never happen. They would never do that.

But GM Cam says we need to be focused on doing this. I think in my defense, my beef with the situation was what again, Kevin, did you trade for Mason Miller? Yeah. Too long ago to remember. Yeah, no, you're a liar. You know exactly what you gave up because you come in here and you rattle off your MLB, the show stats every single day. You know, the entire history of your franchise? I think you traded someone who very clearly would not get you Mason Miller in a trade.

So I was more. I do think it was a package because we made a couple deals at the time. There was other moving parts. But I do think it was a package of a man who recently followed Derek on Twitter. You what? You traded Lordus Gereyell Jr.? We got Lawrence Butler in return for that in whole. So Lawrence Butler took over and we got Miller.

You traded Lordis for Mason Miller and Lawrence, No, not in one deal. It was multiple. There was a lot of moving parts going on. Yeah, yeah. I'm just very skeptical of the MLB the show trade logic. But I grant you, Kevin, that Mason Miller is awesome. You're skeptical of the MLB trade logic after we sat here and watched Aaron Nola pitch over 140 pitches in a complete game.

Shut out the NLD. As Jesse, are you kidding me? That game is a fraud and we all know it. Oh, anyway. MLB, the show has a few problems. It's still a great game. game, but it does, it does have its loss. We've learned that year.

I failed. Elis, GM, I'm sorry. And now that Elise disapproves, I will never be a gym ever again. I think you traded J-Mart, right? Yes. Yeah, yeah, he traded J-Mart. But not in that deal. Not in that deal.

But if you saw where my team was at in the standings, D-BACs fans would be happy. Elis would be happy. Everyone would be happy. I don't know. No, no. I'm not happy with you, but I guess if you can do, you got to make moves, right?

That's the point Kevin's trying to make. You got to make moves. right sometimes like what did the joker say you in order to make an omelet you got to break a few eggs right so whatever the diamondbacks have to do to get better that's that's i guess all we can all hope is that whatever they do here in regards to these trades in regards to these rumors that we're hearing that whatever they do pull off it makes the diamond backs better and you know can help an 89 team maybe win team maybe win 91 next year and get into the playoffs and and you know do the damn thing but we do have some good news to talk about and that is we're going to

reminisce. It's throwback Thursday. We're going to talk a little Diamondbacks history on the other side of this break. I don't know if it's all good news. Well, I mean, it's mostly good news. It's mostly good news. But we're also going to talk about bad news for Tampa because it would appear that in 2025 we're going to have not one but two teams playing in minor league stadiums. This is nuts. We're going to talk about all this on the other side of this break. Don't you guys go anywhere. Of course, unless the place that you are going is Heila River Resorts and Casinos because you should go there maybe right now maybe after our show is over maybe start a little staycation early on a thursday night stay there till monday doesn't matter what you're going there for no one does it better

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including our Cardinals and Sun's watch parties and so much more. So stay tuned for info on how to come hang out with us and maybe, just maybe, how to come hang out with Archie Bradley. Also, on your way there or wherever you're going here in the valley make sure to stop by circle k it is america's through stop and right now of course you can get yourself a cold drink uh someone was telling me that it's too hot for a hoodie until it's over 100 degrees it's never too hot for a hoodie when it comes to this guy right here but i would like something nice and cold to drink of course i can get it there you can also save yourself some money on gas you can do all this by joining the inner circle for free by downloading the circle k app today terms and conditions apply at participating locations visit circlek

com for details but when you sign up you'll save 25 cents per gallon on your first five phillips and then you'll save three cents per gallon every day after that you'll get your first five polar pops for absolutely free and you'll also get a buy five get a sixth one free on a selection of circle k products including pizza coffee and ice cold found drinks i'm hungry right now i could use a stop by circle k i'm sure most of you can as well so make sure to stop by fill yourself up fill your car up and of course uh get to know why it's america's their stop well like i said jesse to this throwback Thursday and all of this trade talk and all of this stuff is something that we still have no idea what's going to happen or it's still up in the air and undetermined.

But we do know the past. We do know what things have happened for this franchise historically. And today was a big day for this team in 2000. It was actually a big day for one Diamondbacks pitcher Randall Johnson. I don't know if does he go by Randall Johnson. He'd probably strangle me for calling him that. Randy Johnson, he was awarded his second consecutive NL. Salyung Award on this day in 2000,

joining only Greg Maddox and Sandy Kofax to do so in the National League, and it was his third career, Siyang. I just realized more and more how much we never really appreciated Randy Johnson when we was here. Maybe some people did, but I sure didn't because I can't imagine having a guy on your team that's won three Siyang's and two in a row. That's pretty impressive. Yeah, he had a decent year that year, Derek. Decent? It was all right.

He went 19 and 7 with a 264 ERA, 248 and 2 thirds innings. He only had eight complete games that year after 12 season prior. So it was a little lacking in the durability department. Only three of those were complete game shutouts. But, yeah, Randy was absolutely sensational in the year 2000. and this was, of course, the second of four consecutive Sanyang awards that he wound up winning during his time with the Diamondbacks. And I continue to be very jealous of all of you who have memories of watching this man pitch when I was a small child and have none. I still fit in this jersey from when I was 17.

I think that's the real news story here that we should be breaking. But also, it's just, yeah, you're right, man. I mean, like, I just remember it being so just it was every day. you just get used to it like some you know like some teams have some elite pitcher on their team or in the case of like the brave several elite pitchers but like the the joy of being able to watch randy johnson go out their pitch and just to be able to complain every single time he was out there about the lack of run support um was just uh it was it was great you know and and i think the most impressive thing is that you know he did this kind of not on the back end of his career but he did it

you know, like he did it after years and years of playing baseball. He started playing his best baseball at his late 30s. And, you know, like now when we talk about contracts, we talk about players, we talk about free agency, like a guy that's 37, 38 years old is washed up and done in baseball. Like, you're not giving that guy a multi-year deal, let alone you're doing what the teams did for Randy after he was 40, you know. Yeah, you're so right. I mean, the fact that he not only rattled off four straight, Sy Youngs, but he did it in his eight. age 35 through age 38 seasons.

Like that is just outrageous. I mean, we've had some, we've had some starting pitchers age well in this game in recent years, but, you know, throw in 250 innings, 250 plus innings year after year.

And at that stage in your career is absolutely remarkable. I do think it's kind of fun to look back at who finished behind Randy that season in Sa Young voting. Second place was Tom Glabin. The third place was Greg Maddox. I actually, I have to give, I have to give Kevin Brown a shout out from that season.

Was it Dodgers Kevin Brown or Florida Marlins? This is Dodgers, Kevin Brown, who looking back at these numbers very much should have finished second behind Randy Johnson. Kevin Brown rattled off a 258 ERA that season, actually lower than Randy's 264. Randy had the better ERA plus because this is back when I guess Bank One ballpark was very, very hitter friendly. I'm surprised DRA plus even existed back then. Yeah, I mean, it didn't.

It didn't. I don't think anyone was talking about it, but the beauty of statistics, we can go back and calculate all these things still. But, yeah, Tom Glavin finished in second with a 3-40 ERA with basically the same innings total as Kevin Brown had with a 2.58 ERA. I imagine the difference for people back then was that Tom Glaven had 21 wins for the Braves that year compared to just 13 for Kevin Brown of the Dodgers. So this goes back to the MLB era. where wins was actually a stat that people cared about. Yeah, if you were a 20-win pitcher in baseball, you were a big deal. That's why that season was almost a disappointment, considering how close Randy came to 20 wins

and didn't get there. Meanwhile, as equally important, Jesse, right? Equally important on this day in 2015. Speaking of D-BACs legends. Yes, speaking of D-Backs legends, Diamondbacks, Jeremy Hellickson era concluded in Phoenix, Arizona on this day in 2015 as they dealt him to. to the Philadelphia Phillies for relievers Sam McWilliams, which you all remember, of course.

Of course. But Helixen spent only the 2015 season with the debacks. He went nine and 12 with a 4.62 ERA, 1.33 whip and 27 starts, 146 innings pitched, both a forgettable season and non-memorable. I don't know. It's both of those things somehow. I don't know. But yeah, I mean, Dave Stewart,

once said the debacks considered hellixon to be either a number two or number three starter in major league baseball uh and that's when the move was made yeah when the move was initially made is right yeah when the move was initially made dave stewart uh spoke uh very boldly about jeremy hellixon and what he expected to get from him ever a worse era in diamondbacks history than the dave stewart era i implore you to find it and tell me it's a bit of a dark time uh yeah and And those statements that Dave Stewart made were particularly bold, given that Jeremy Helixen had a 4.52 ERA the season prior and a 5.17 ERA with the Tampa Bay raised year before that. I think his argument was that Helixen had some injuries.

I want to say it was an elbow, maybe shoulder, something arm related, that sort of held back his command. And the Diamondbacks felt that since he was healthy, he was going to come back and be more like the pitcher he was early in his career. And to give Jeremy Hellickson his props, he did actually. actually have some pretty impressive seasons in the majors early on, 2011, his age 24 season, a 295 ERA for the Tampa Bay raise, a 310 ERA this season after that in 2012. So I think the Diamondbacks envisioned getting two years of that version of Jeremy Helixen when this deal was initially made. But that is not how things played out.

2015 season was not great for the Diamondbacks. They wind up dealing him to the Phillies for Sam McWilliam. who was later sent to the Tampa Bay raise, oddly enough, to complete the Stevens Sousa Jr. trade several years later. So Sam McWilliams never appeared in the majors with the Diamondbacks, and I don't think has ever appeared in the majors for any team. I believe he's in the Milwaukee Brewer's system right now, still trying to make his debut.

What's the poll that we're talking about, Big Kev? Yeah, so right now I put a poll in the chat that asked, did you ever watch Randy Johnson pitch live? 17 votes 65% of the people say yes, 35% say no. I was hoping it was is Dave Stewart the worst GM mid-Baseball, and that's what have been yes. Don't forget about the Trevor K Hill trade, Shelby Miller trade. Yasmani Tomas! Anyway.

We discussed the hills that we would die on on Mailbag Monday the other day. I maintained the Shelby Miller trade in the moment. I don't think it was as bad of a trade. as it was made out to be. But yes, there were many, many things that that regime did. It's the body of work. It's the body of work. Yeah.

There were many of mistakes that that regime made. I mean, I think trading away, um, trading away Tuki Toussaint in order to like get off the, the Bronson and Royal contract was, was one of the more egregious things I've seen a front office do. Yon Lopez. Yon Lopez. Yon,

right? Yon, Yon, Yon Lopez. He follows me on Twitter to this day. I don't care if he sees this. One of the worst deals ever made. They gave you way too much money and we both know it. They like completely, they made it impossible for themselves to sign international free agents for, I don't remember what the exact ramifications were about, but they paid significant penalties to give Yohan Lopez as much money as they did. Because it was after Yzmane Tomas where they'd already committed money to Tomas, right?

Well, Tomas, I think would have been a different, sort of a different category because he wasn't in the international amateur. category, whereas Yohan Lopez was in the international amateur category, and they gave him a very large bonus. $8 million. Yeah. Which was insane for like that time. $8 million. Yeah, that was a lot.

I mean, the bonus pool is not even that high to this day. The Diamondbacks bonus pool for 2025 is $6.9 million. So they went way over that. I think the rules were maybe a little different back then. But yeah, we could do an entire show on the mistakes of the. No, I don't want to. were Tony LaRosa era. So we won't,

we won't go any further into that now. I swear to God, if you tempt me, if you even suggest that that's going to happen, I won't, I won't come in tomorrow. I'll just not be here tomorrow. I don't think you are going to be here tomorrow anyway.

I just wanted the people to know why I was absent. But anyway, well, of course, that's, I mean, I think we kind of rushed through this here, the Diamondbacks.

I mean, Hellickson was what he was. He was fine. He was fine in that, in that season. He bounced back a little bit. I mean, he wasn't.

But, yeah, he wasn't great. He wasn't what the Diamondbacks hoped he would be. But totally we're talking about in the same conversation as Randy Johnson, for sure. 100%. Yeah. I mean, you want to talk about Mount Rushmore of D-Backs' pictures. He's right up there. It's Johnson, Shilling, Webb and Jeremy Ellickson, 100%.

Well, we're going to say less crazy things on the other side of this break. I don't know. Maybe it's crazier because it appears that Tampa Bay Rays will play their entire 2025 at a stadium named after a former Yankees owner. that's got a sting considering you play that team in your same division. We'll talk about that on the other side of the break. Don't you guys go anywhere. Of course, it is, things are heating up this winter, even though things are cooling down.

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They're allowed to do that. Okay, that's not that works. But speaking of situations where teams are in a bad way, I guess you could say, that Tampa Bay Ray's stadium situation has become a nightmare for this team. We recently found out that it is going to cost What was it like over 50 million dollars plus million dollars? 56 million dollars to fix that weird Poly synthetic roof that they had that up until now I didn't realize was just

TARP basically But it is very expensive TARP and it is going to mean that they cannot play their games at Tropicana Field so and that won't be until 2026. We also know that they are trying to figure out a a new stadium situation for the Tampa Bay Reyes. So maybe with this disaster, maybe it plays into that. Maybe a decision is made for them to just build the raise a new home, which will take

much longer than waiting until 2026 for that to be done. But the Tampa Bay Rays will play the entirety of the 2025 season at George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa. The single A affiliate home of the

tarpons for the Yankees. They play there. So obviously, they're going to now be kicked out and have to go find a new place to play. At least at some time, there's going to be some adjustment that's needed. But how weird is this? So this is the option that we're kind of left with here. Yeah, I mean, maybe they could just use one of the backfields for the race games. And then because the tarpons, they need their, they need their attendance money, right?

Like, we can't be interfering with the tarpon schedule. You're not wrong. Yeah, this is a very messy situation. Certainly, I think one of the weird. Parts of this is, as you said earlier, that the New York Yankees are in the same division as the Tampa Bay raise. And a report just came out from Spottrack that the Yankees will gain $15 million in revenue from having the Tampa Bay raise.

It's not a great situation. Oh, my God. The rich get richer, don't they, Jesse? The rich get richer. Oh, my God. I mean, can you imagine if the Yankees sign Juan Soto? I like true or not the narrative is going to be that the Tampa Bay Razor funding paid for their funding their division rival landing the best the highest highest high most

highly sought after free agent on the market that's by having to play their games at their spring training facility so yeah it holds about 11,000 I think that was one of the one of the appeals here is it is it is the capacity is on the higher end for being a spring training facility and let's face that the Tampa Bay Rays weren't exactly drawing much more than 11,000 anyway. I think they averaged around 16,000 this past year at the TROP. So it might be kind of a fun environment in some ways with a sold-out crowd, I would imagine, at least most of the time. But there are some complicating factors here for sure.

I know of a place that they could play, Jesse. It's a stadium that a lot of people might be familiar with that could hold a capacity up to 49,000 people. and it's actually located in Montreal. That's right. Olympic Stadium. Let's go back. Let's bring the expos back. It's time.

We already talked about it. There was that weird rumor where they were going to split time between Montreal and Tampa. We know that was never happening. Just move them. Just get them out of here. I would rather be in a different country

than be financing the Yankees free agency offseason. That is insane that that's what's going to happen. It's funny that you're making their minor league affiliate had to go play somewhere else. That's kind of hilarious. But what's not hilarious is that we are going to have not one, but two major league baseball teams playing in essentially spring training slash minor league facilities in 2025.

And that doesn't make any goddamn sense at all. There's way too many facilities around the country for these teams to be playing in, you know, stadiums that one are going to have a problem when it comes to weather. because both of these outdoor stadiums are in areas where the weather isn't going to be great at times. Sacramento gets very, very hot in the summer. So good luck sitting through those games. I don't like to sit in the sun at Camelback Ranch

when it's 85 degrees outside. Can you imagine when it's close to 100 and you're sitting out there in Sacramento? And same thing with Tampa. Tampa gets hot and it rains a lot. It gets really hot and it rains and it's just, it's so bad for baseball. And I can't believe that there aren't better options than this.

More importantly, I can't believe, like, at least the Tampa raised, the Tampa situation is a storm. You don't have any control of that. It's an act of God. You had control over what the hell the Oakland A's are doing, or I'm not even allowed to call them that anymore. The A's are doing. The Sacramento A's are doing. This whole thing doesn't make any goddamn sense. And I can't believe that there's not a better plan in place.

I can't believe Major League Baseball doesn't have a better contingency plan in place for a major league team. Look what happened just because of the weather during the end of the season and how it impacted the playoffs and the Diamondbacks, right? So it's like baseball needs to get their thing that I can't say anymore together. Get it all together. Put it all in a bag and take it somewhere. Where, I don't know, just get your stuff together and make sure that you have some sort of contingency plan for when emergencies and disasters like this happen. You got to figure it out. Like, hopefully it never happens.

But when it does, you should have some sort of plan. and again, Olympic Stadium is falling apart. It's not in good condition. It's not like that's a great option. However, considering it exists and it hasn't been torn down yet, it's an option. I also have another option for you, Tampa. There's a stadium in Oakland that maybe we could put you in for the 2025 season. Those people would love to have a baseball team back again, and they would love it if it wasn't

the A's. So we'll find something to do, but it's better than them playing in 11,000 capacity, you know, affiliate stadium where the revenue that they generate is going to go to their opposition. That's crazy to me. It's bonkers. I do think there's a fair amount of irony in the idea of, all right, well, a hurricane blew the roof off our other stadium. So now we're just going to go play outside.

That doesn't exactly. Just play. Just play it. Just play the tropical. It doesn't have a roof. Neither does the other place. Neither place has a roof. Oh my God.

That would be the wildest solution here. It would be like, all right, well, let's just rip off the remaining pieces of the roof and just play. It's just an outdoor stadium now. Just play the trap as an outdoor stadium. You're really the catwalks too while you're at. I mean, logistically, there are, you know, I don't know exactly what Major League Baseball is supposed to do in this situation. Like, can you really, can you really move a team on the East Coast to the West Coast as much fun as it would be

to just give Oakland the team back? Although I don't think that would be possible anyway. I guess the only scenario, Derek, to make it a level playing field for everyone, would just be to have all 30 teams move to a minor league facility. So the Diamondbacks, they're relegated to Salt River Fields. Salt River Fields, I guess. Good luck in July. Yeah, I mean, there's just, there's no easy answer here if you're a major league baseball. It's just a hurricane blowing the roof off of a stadium is understandably not.

you're not necessarily going to have a great pivot for something like that. Yeah, I get it. But there's better options than this. Cam says Ray's turn into the Bisbee Frisbees. Don't hate that idea one bit. There we go. There we go. Well, we've been advocating for Bisbee as an expansion market for a long time.

So it is time that finally the great people of Bisbee landed their major league baseball team. So we're all on board. Well, one of us will be back tomorrow because it's Zips projections time. You know what that means. That's when I go take a vacation so this guy could have the stage of stats and his nerd stuff all to himself. But, of course, this show will be back tomorrow at 1 p.m. Make sure to join Jesse and whoever he has joining him tomorrow for that show. We'll see.

It's a surprise. But until then, of course, you can follow us on Twitter. I'm at cap underscore caveman with a K. This guy next to me is at Jesse N. Friedman. Of course, the big unit, aka large intimate over here, Kevin Thomas. You can get him at Kev Tom Wright's. I'm not going to explain that to you. show is at PHNX underscore D-Backs, but all roads do lead to at PHNX underscore sports on Twitter,

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I'll see on Tuesday. But until then, you guys have yourselves a wonderful evening, wonderful weekend. And remember kids, baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun when you don't trade away outfielders that we love.