PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Robert Raymond Esquire

Episode Date: November 18, 2021

On this episode, Derek and Jesse lament about Robbie Ray winning his first Cy Young with the Toronto Blue Jays. They also provide some updates about the D-backs players in Arizona Fall League play and what Corbin Carroll did with his time to keep getting better while rehabbing a shoulder injury. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome to the PHNX DBAX podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Montia, officially known as your mayor of PHNX. And this show is brought to you by the fine folks at the Draft King Sportsbook app. Go download the Draft King Sportsbook app now. Use our code of PHNX and simply for betting $1 or more on any NFL or any NBA team essentially to score a point, you will get $100 in free bets instantly. New customers only, but again, any NFL or any NBA game. Thank you guys so much for joining us.

Of course, I am joined by my vice mayor, the one and only Thunderstake, Jesse Friedman. Derek, I'd be doing better today if Robbie Ray hadn't just won the American League. Shut up. Just shut your stupid mouth. Let's just get to it. Let's get to it. I'm not happy about it. And of course, this is just going to add fuel to the fire of the hurt that is being an

Arizona Diamondbacks fan. But yes, as Jesse alluded to Robert Raymond Esquire, formerly known as Robbie Ray for the Arizona Diamondbacks, has become your American League Cy Young Award winner, the fourth Cy Young Award winner in Toronto Blue Jays history. Jesse, when does the hurting stop? I don't know that it will, Derek, to be frank with you. I mean, we've been talking about this for how long. It feels like we don't go a week on this podcast without Robbie Ray's name coming up. I don't think we can really avoid it. And honestly, I didn't even really, I didn't really even want to bring it up again.

But of course, Robbie Ray has been the odds on favorite to win the ALSai Young Award for quite a while. And we kind of figure that this day was coming. So I do want to say, in all honesty, congratulations to Robbie Ray, just him as a person. I have not gotten a chance ever to interact one-on-one personally with Robbie Ray, other than like press conferences and things, which is obviously less personal. But Robbie Ray is a, you know, he's a great guy. And it's really cool to see him, to see him have this success. I mean, he's a guy who has really had to battle throughout his career.

And as much as we, you know, immediately go to the curse of the Diamondbacks, why didn't this happen when he was here, right? obviously there's a significant storyline there that is very genuine. But at the same time, like Robbie Ray, just for him as an individual, what an incredible feat this is, right? Turning around his worst season as a professional last year in the shortened 2020 campaign, going from an ERA near eight and walking literally a batter and inning to winning the American League's Salyong Award.

I know this isn't what you hear, what you probably want to hear. here right now, Derek. But, but, um, but it is incredible. And, and I am happy for Robbie Ray today. I'm happy for Robbie Ray. I'm sad for all of us. I think, right. I think the thing that blows me away here when it comes to Robbie Ray and his performance really is, you know, yes, this is his second season with Toronto. And, um, obviously he had a, or I don't, don't know if you could call it that. It's not even a half season, right? He played in, what, we had four starts for Toronto in 2020, and he immediately got better. Jesse, just leaving this team, he lowered his ERA from 7.84 to 4.79. That's just flying from Arizona to Toronto,

just doing that, did that. But then, again, dropping his ERA to 2.84, 2.89. runs against per nine. There's some wild things here. I mean, we've seen flashes of greatness from Robbie Ray in 2017. He had a 2.89 ERA with this team. He went 15 and 5. It was the year when we started saying,

oh my God, this guy that we got from the Detroit Tigers might end up being one of the best acquisitions we've ever had. And the debacks just kind of gave up on him after, you know, as things, as far as his performances went, trended in the wrong direction. 3.9.3 ERA in 2018, 4.34 ERA in 2019, 4.34. And then a 7.84 in his time in 2020, a rough year. And, you know, again, like you said, I believe he was at the end of his contract, right? Or his end of his contract was coming up. So the Diamondbacks once again, like the Paul Goldschmidt situation, probably had a feeling they weren't going to resign him whether he was going to leave elsewhere or whatever.

So they wanted to get something for him. But, you know, now once again, we are left looking like we just gave away, you know, one of the best pitchers in baseball. That's what the Cy Young Award is all about is awarding it to the best pitcher in each league. So the Diamondbacks literally gave away the best pitcher in baseball. They literally did in that they, a lot of people probably don't remember this, but they acquired Travis Bergen in the deal. And Travis Bergen did not, I believe you pitched six and two-thirds innings with the Diamondbacks in 2020 before the Diamondbacks ultimately let him go and he wound up back

with Toronto. So the guy the Diamondbacks acquired in the deal wound up pitching for his same team the following season after throwing six and two-thirds pretty lackluster innings with diamondbacks. I mean, which that isn't really. That is salt in an open wound, Jesse. That is salt. It's not that surprising, though, because when you're, when you're trading a guy with an

ERA of almost eight, right, like midway through the season, you're not going to get much for him, especially when he's at rental. But yeah, I mean, that's just the icing on the cake, right? I mean, this is a disastrous situation for the diamond backs. And that's why we're excited about Brent, about Brent Strom, Derek, because we hope that as some of these pitching prospects come up, that hopefully these kinds of things don't happen again. I feel like you know you upset me with your Robbie Ray stats. And I feel like now you're trying to smooth things over with this Brent Strom. I am.

I am. I really like to play with your emotions. And you know what? I was going to say it's working. It's working. I guess my question here is, why can't we have nice things? and why is it that even when we did have our, you know, when we finally had a Cy Young Award winner again,

after all those years of Brandy Johnson, just spoiling us with Sy Young after Cy Young. Brandon Webb was taken from us too early, you know, due to injuries. We have guys like Max Scherzer and Robbie Ray. At times, I just think about what this team would have been holding onto these pieces, having more things work out, stuff happens, right? It happens to teams. They're not the first team that this happens to.

God forbid you're a Pirates fan looking at who they had on their roster like a few years back. I think Jeff Bannister was with the team around then, and he talked about the development of those guys at that time. But man, when you look at those pitchers and you look at that roster, I, I think Pirates fans at times have a little bit more to be angry about than we do as D-Bex fans. Tyler Glass now is really freaking good. They let him get away. Austin Meadows is turned into a pretty good player.

The Pirates have a long list. The Diamondbacks are not alone in this, but, but oh, man, I mean, just like going from basically baseball's worst pitcher to literally baseball's best pitcher is some kind of bad luck, Derek. It makes you want to stop my feet and throw a tantrum. Like that's the only thing. That's what I feel inside. And I'm not going to because I'm trying to set a better example for my 10-year-old daughter. But Jesse, I want to throw a fit right now about this.

But I will refrain and I will remind everybody that they can go to the Draft King's Sportsbook app and use our code of PHNX. And you will get $100 in free bets if you're a new customer. If you bet a dollar or more on any NFL or NBA team to score anything, as long as they score a point, you score your $100 in free bets. Just a reminder, Draft King's Sportsbook is the official sports betting partner of the NBA and the NFL. Drafking Sportsbook customers right now can get skin in the game with the new same game parlayes. Obviously, I've talked to you about being Mr. Parlay. I'm not going to do the whole nickname bit, Jesse, because I'm already sad enough about Robert Raymond Esquire. So I will drop being sad about how better Patrick is that giving himself nicknames.

But you just did it again, Gary. I can't. I can't not think about it, Jesse. I haven't stopped thinking about it since it happened. I lose sleep at night over Patrick being better at nicknames than me. But you don't have to worry about that. You can call yourself whatever you want. You can get your same game parlay, partay on basically add as many legs to your bet. And the more legs you add, the bigger the payout. You can combine bets, parlays from multiple games, multiple sports. The more money, the more you add, the more money you win. Draft King is a safe, secure, and reliable. Best of all, you can to put. and withdraw your cash whenever you want.

That code again was PHNX for those $100 in free bets for betting $1 or more on any NBA team or any NFL team to score in their game. 21 and over only, Arizona only, gambling problem down $1,800 next step. New customers only eligibility restrictions apply. See draftkings.com slash sportsbook for details. Jesse, I want to think about good things. I don't want to think about sad things. Yeah, yeah.

Let's talk about a little Arizona Fall League. It's almost over. And some guys that were off to a slow start, I don't even know if you could call it a slow start. It's such a short season for them in fall league that, you know, guys that weren't doing great at the plate for the Salt River Rafters as members of the Arizona Diamondbacks have been tearing the cover off the ball as of late.

Dominic Canzon, man. He hit almost 900 feet of home runs in two games. They were both four. 440 feet, which is significant for a guy who, like, is not necessarily been known for his power. I mean, he's showcased some decent power in the minor leagues, but that's not necessarily his calling card. Those are some big swings. Jesse week in the fall league. Let's remember, too, that these are spring training stadium.

So a 450 foot home run might have hit my car in some of these ballparks. That's true. That's true. That's exciting. See, what more reason? do you need to go out to the fall league, then you might actually get your front windshield smashed by a home run ball. That's a story.

I mean, do you guys, I haven't been there in a little while. Do you guys park like near the outfield? I would figure you just parked like in the home plate lot because there's not, there's not that many people there. You would think that, but there's different,

um, figurations for the different ballpark so they're not all the same. And I will also say that, okay. I tend, it's, it's different. There are no rules for fall league.

I don't even know if you have to pay for food. I think you might be. be allowed to jump over the concession stand and fight the guy for a hot dog. And whoever wins gets to walk away with $20 on a hot dog. But no, you can sit wherever you want. You can park wherever you want. Yeah, it's kind of a free for all. Right.

Spring training games, they tend to be a little bit more rigid. They usually have media parking in one section and like standard general parking elsewhere. But this is, there's not even a parking tenant. There's no cost to park at these games. So I just kind of follow my GPS to wherever it takes me and I park in the first place that I can get into. Sometimes it's problematic because it's like on the opposite side of the field from, you know, where I'm going to sit and put my stuff down. So I have a long log. But who am I to complain?

It's the amazing weather. It's like 78 degrees today here in Arizona. Yeah. And it's just great to be out. I could get super cliche about it. But man, it's great to just hear the sound of that bat and the ball hitting the glove. It's great to smell the grass. I just, I love baseball.

More than anything, I love being outside for baseball. So I don't really get. that same feeling from going to Chase Field that I do, going to some of these spring training ballparks. At least not for, what would you say? What percentage of the season at Chase Field is, are the roof and panels closed? I would say 75% of the season.

Okay. That's what I had in my head. You know, I would say maybe in the first two months and the last month are pretty much it. And sporadic, you know, nice days that kind of fall here or there. Maybe some night games that start later, uh, cooler, you know, cooler temperatures impact that obviously. It's just still not the same, right? Between the airplane hanger feel of it and the fact that it is now, in fact,

fake turf, that it's not the same as being at some of these minor league ballparks. Again, something not trying to bring up Patrick's name again and make myself any sadder than I already am. But Patrick and I couldn't get over, you know, just how great it was to be so close, especially watching, you know, watching this. Like nobody even wants to. to sit behind the backstop because it's usually in the sun and people try to just find some shady spot to sit and enjoy the whole game, whereas the two of us are running back and forth between the press box and trying to be up close watching guys like Canzone and Buddy Kennedy.

Buddy Kennedy is another guy that's been absolutely out of his mind. He was the offensive player of the week for the Arizona Fall League. So just another guy that, you know, he had a little slow start at times. He had a lot of strikeouts, but really got things on track and has just been doing a tremendous his job. I know I talked about this before, but I got to speak to him on field and he's just really cool guy. You know, like I'm excited about, you know, just his general approach to life. And he was very easy to talk to. He talked to me about, you know, giving that the minor league fellow prospect that just got drafted some, some advice. So it was a, it was a great chat, but I'm really excited about these guys. And again, there's not much time left to see them. I'm not, I'm not being paid to

advertise for the fall league. But I know it comes and goes very quickly and you find yourself saying, I want to go out there and see a game. Well, you don't have too many opportunities left as of this episode. I think it's literally tomorrow. It's literally two days. Two days, I think, are they not on Friday? I think there's a game on Friday too. Is there a game on Friday? Okay. And then Saturday is their championship game. So that's it. The season wraps up in no time. So if you want to go out and see the team that's closest to you, check out the schedule. But yeah, definitely play hooky from work tomorrow and go watch the baseball. I want to look just quickly at the numbers that some of the Diamondbacks prospects have posted during their time there. You mentioned it's basically over. I mean,

for all intents and purposes, we've basically seen everything we're going to see. Sure. We got maybe two, you know, like I said, maybe two games left. But aside from that. You're not going to see anything crazy in their stats jump one direction or another. So buddy Kennedy, you mentioned offensive player of the week last week, yet a big, big week offensively. Overall, 250, 351, 438. That's his batting average OBP and slugging percentage.

Not bad, right? 57 plate appearances. As you mentioned, he started off a little bit slow, but had that big week got himself back on track. Dominic Canzone, though, I mean, this is, these numbers are, are very impressive. Of all the guys who got the same number of played appearances or roughly around the number of played appearances

as Canzone got on his team, he really was arguably the best hitter. Spencer Torkelson, of course, one of the best prospects in baseball from the Tigers had an absurd, absurd few games. We only played seven games. There you go. There you go. So Canzone, three homers, 15 RBIs.

he slash 349, 431, 556. That would be following Tuesday's game. Yeah, I mean, he's been, he's been crazy. And a lot of people don't know Dominic Canzon's name because, you know, if you go to MLB pipeline and look at the debacks top 30, Canzone is not on the list. And I have a feeling that he probably will be shortly because the Arizona Fall League is very well respected in terms of if you perform well in the Fall League,

you're probably destined for the big leagues and you're probably one of the better prospects in the game if you're still young like Canzon is. Canzona has turned 24 in August. So he's maybe a little bit more on the older side. But certainly, you know, if he can break into the big leagues at 25, the Diamondbacks would welcome that. And it's kind of an exciting, kind of an exciting outlook on him just in terms of his skill set.

He showcased some power like we mentioned. He did this also during the same. season. He spent part of his season in Hillsborough and then the second half of the season in Amarillo. So he's gotten up to double a ball. He slugged around 500. I think it was 522 between single A and double A this year. And he's continuing to showcase that power here in the fall league. So Canzone is exciting. He's got some speed as well. We'll see if that translates up into the upper levels of the miners. A lot of times guys post big stolen base numbers at the lower levels. And it doesn't necessarily transfer as catchers get better as you move up the ladder.

But Canzone is exciting. And Buddy Kennedy is only 22. And you mentioned your conversation with him. He has a good head on his shoulders. And he's posted some big numbers. He's sitting at around a 900 OPS from his year this season in the minors, which is telling once again he got up to Amarillo was playing AA ball. The issue with Buddy Kennedy, Derek, is going to be finding him a position.

He's played third base mostly. And there are some questions about where he'll end up defensively. And we've seen this happen time and time again with prospects where the bat has, you know, a profile you like and the defense is a little bit dicey. That could be an issue for Buddy Kennedy. And it's the reason why he's not a lot higher on some of these prospect lists. But nonetheless, those two guys, Derek, are both really exciting. And they really showed that here in the fall league.

it's interesting you bring up canzone not being on the debaq's top 30 prospects list hopefully next week or very soon after that we're going to have william boar who does the debacks top 30 list for m lb pipeline so he's the impossible job oh my god 30 list it's it's incredibly difficult and he kind of gave me some insight already into how many it's like the office space sketch He has eight bosses when it comes to this top 30 list. And every single one of them, whether it's someone within the debacks organization or someone over at MLB.com or MLB pipeline, has to give their input and their two cents on, you know, his rankings and everything that he puts together. So it's going to be very interesting to have him on the podcast and chat with him about everything that goes into that. And maybe he can give us a little bit of insight about. where he might see Canzone ending up now that, you know, he's had such a good fall league if that's going to impact his standing right now on their top 30 list. So that'll be a whole lot of fun. Yeah. Some of these guys also are going to graduate soon. If you look at the top 30 list as it stands right now, you know, eventually once you log enough, enough games at the major league level, you're not going to be on the list anymore. So Geraldo Pardomo, probably going to graduate next season. Hopefully, Seth, we are graduate. hopefully Luis Frius.

Maybe we see Drew Ellis more. You know who I want to see, Jesse say it. I want to see Alec Thomas. Oh, Alex Thomas, of course. I know next year it might be too early to see him officially off that list. But, man, I would love to see him. No, I expect Alec Thomas to graduate off that list next year. As long as everything, as long as everything goes well and he's able to, you know, have a good spring.

I think it's possible the Diamondbacks bring him up, you know, maybe a month into the season. Maybe they even start with him. Depending on how the CBA negotiations work out, the Diamondbacks might not have incentive to delay bringing up Alec Thomas as they normally would. That's the only reason that we play this stupid game of calling guys up in the middle of May is so you can get an extra year of control. When does the service time start on it? Exactly. Exactly. So we might even see Alec Thomas earlier.

So point being, there's going to be a lot of guys who graduate off this list. and our pal William Boar is going to have the lovely task of trying to figure out who takes their places. But one other name I want to bring up real quick on the pitching side of things is Keegan Curtis, who the Diamondbacks have as a reliever. He posted a 324 ERA in the fall league. Eight in the third innings, it wasn't certainly just nine appearances, so not a huge sample size, but 12 strikeouts, three walks. He didn't allow a home run.

Curtis is 25 and I think he's another guy you very well could see at the big league level. Hopefully giving the time and back some semblance of hope in this dreadful bullpen that we talked about the other day. Maybe they can finally put together a decent to good bullpen. We'll see what happens with that. That would be a big building block for this team and this organization that somehow inexplicably has never really had a good bullpen as we found out yesterday. Just a reminder, you can get great articles like Jesse's pieces. Jesse's going to have some more information. I know I'm going to have some more information out.

Once Fall League wraps up, we'll definitely recap what we saw to some of the Arizona Diamondbacks prospects and what we hope to see out of them very soon. And you can get those articles by signing up to become a member over at go phtnx.com. You can become an annual member, which will get you a free t-shirt. you know you by the way you don't have to be like our our social media goddess's mother macaela perkins's mother jennifer perkins apparently just she purchases a subscription an annual subscription whenever she wants a shirt you can just buy the shirts you guys just to let you know you don't have to buy a annual membership every time you want a shirt just so that you probably should but i guess yeah i mean jesse's right you get a free one with an annual

get a free shirt. Well, and again, I don't know if they're still doing it, but I think that the coyotes and the Sons on PHNX underscore Sons and underscore Coyotes are both giving you another shirt. I don't know if that's possible. That doesn't make financial sense for us, Jesse, but go over and check out what they might have to offer because they might sweeten the pot for you. If you're not interested in committing to the annual membership, we understand. Times are tough right now. And nobody, nobody wants to bet on me putting out good comments. So if you don't do it for me, do it for Jesse. Check out the month to month option for 50 cents. You'll get your first month. You'll have a chance to check out all of the amazing content that our family here at PHNX is putting out. And let me tell you, it is a family. I talked today on our PHNX sports show about what I'm thankful for, Jesse.

And I am thankful for the Arizona Diamondbacks because the Arizona Diamondbacks brought me here. They brought me here. They brought me at times closer to my wife. The Diamondbacks organization helped my career. and made allowed me to cover this team and be not just an outside blogger but somebody who had insider access probably when I didn't deserve it. And I can't thank them enough for making it possible for me to be here now after. What would we do?

What would we do without them, Derek? I don't know. I don't know. It was weird because we were talking today. Like I remember the day that my friend Charles came up to me at PE and told me that we were getting a major league baseball team. Wow. I was like, what?

And he was like, yeah, Tampa Bay is getting one and we're getting one. And I was like, like a real team? And he was like, yeah. And I remember, I was like, do they have a name for it? And he was like, yeah, the Tampa Bay is going to be the devil race. And I was like, that's cool as shit. And he's like, we're going to be the diamond backs. And I was like, what?

Like the bike, like the diamond, like a diamond back bike. And it was like, no, like a snake. It's a snake. And I was like, that's not great. It is, you know, I'm so used to hearing Diamondback, but you're kind of right. Like outside of this baseball team, you don't really hear about the snake a diamond back. Yeah. Like around the valley.

Like people like our backyards in Phoenix are not like overrun with diamond backs that keep getting in all our crap, right? Like that's not really a thing. Jesse, let me tell you, after covering Arizona Fall League, I'm 100% convinced this team should have been called the Arizona. a Havilinas. And I'm going to tell you why. Because I always thought the whole hog association with the Washington football team was one of the only good things about them or their fan base in any way, shape, or form. So I just thought how cool it would have been that we could have had like, you know, like hog noses with tusks as like things that sold in the gift shop. That's, that's, that's Peoria's. I know. And their logo is, they have a newer logo. And I think that's what's what inspired

this in my head because their newer logo is very sharp and they have like some gray and some neon green in it and stuff now. You can buy you can buy merch. Like you can buy a South River Rafters hat. Actually, I need to get my hands on one of those. I know this is an audio only podcast, but this is a Scottsdale Scorpions hat that I'm showing you that they did. This was specific for one game that they did that was a salute to military game. So it's camouflage. And it's got right there on the side, the Arizona Fall League patch. Wow. And yeah, you can buy these at any game. Typically, they only have the home team's hats. And they tend to have older hats, you know, a little bit cheaper if it's like an older design that they don't use or the actual hats that they're currently using.

So yeah, again, yet another reason to go out to Fall League games. Exclusive merch that you can't really get anywhere else. But yeah, again, that's a reason to sign up at GoPHNX. You can get exclusive access to our Discord, which I finally figured out how to join. You got membership deals at phnx Locker.com. all the time, all the reasons, not just the content. It's the family. It's the friendship. That's really what we all came here for, isn't it?

But Jesse, before we go, I did want to talk about one more prospect that we saw a video that the Arizona Diamondbacks posted to their Twitter account that we both thought was very, very cool. After blowing out his shoulder hitting a 110 mile per hour home run, Dback's second overall prospect, Corbyn Carroll, apparently- Wait, it was on a home run. It was on 110 mile per hour home run, yes. Wow.

Yeah. That's like the most badass injury. It really is. That's so cool. I didn't recognize that somehow. That's amazing. So he joined the D-BACs advanced scouting and analytics team at D-Bax games, essentially scouting the team and learning more about baseball.

And here we have a little snippet from that just for you guys to get an idea of what that was meant for Corbyn. and what it meant to the team. I sat down with Josh Barfield, our player director, and wanted him to use the time as wisely as possible and take in as much information, learn as much as he could. So when we first brought it up to him, he's like, yeah, sure, I'll come. And, you know, we set him back there. He sits down there every night with our advance scout, Jeff Gardner.

And, you know, I told him any time you want to come, this will be available to you. So I thought it'd be like a once or twice, twice a week thing. He's here every night. I love that. I love that so much. First of all, I understand because being someone that the Arizona Diamondbacks let in and like feeding a stray cat, I also never went away.

So I can understand where Corbyn Carroll comes from. Not to mention, he mentions earlier in the video about really the difficulties of rehabbing, right? Like, because you're not doing anything to better yourself as a player typically. A lot of times you're going to physical therapy. you're doing the things that you're being told by the training staff to do, but you have a lot of downtime. It's very similar to what Buddy Kennedy was telling us, his advice to chase the Minnesota Twins first overall pick,

you know, what he told him about, you know, utilizing your downtime, like trying to get yourself into some sort of groove, essentially getting yourself into a schedule that you can stick to and you can make your everyday kind of, you know, thing. he chose to go be an active member essentially of the D-BAC's advanced scouting team. And I mean, I just can't, I can't how valuable this time when scouts is to his personal game as a young player who's still in the development process.

Here, so this is a rare situation where the fact that I currently live in the Seattle area actually is a benefit to us. So Corbyn Carroll is a Seattle native. and he went to, I believe it's Lakeside High School, which is in Seattle. And it's also the high school that Bill Gates went to when he was a wee lad. And now Bill Gates, like, funds all sorts of things. And it's a very well-known- Yeah, yeah. You might know who he is.

But it's a very well-known high school. It is probably the most prestigious high school in the area. And the more you learn about Corbyn-Colm. the more you realize like it kind of fits right like he is totally that dude who is he is the definition of a student of the game right like yeah he is he is asking all the right questions i would encourage our listeners to go and find the video uh it's just on at dbacks on twitter uh where the full video is about five minutes it has a lot of lot of stuff from uh some of the diamondbacks um uh player development guys as well as corbin himself um and

And it's just, it's striking just his ability to talk the talk of baseball at a very advanced level, right? A lot of players, we've talked about this a lot, Derek, how a lot of Diamondbacks players in the past, you've mentioned Madison Bumgarner a lot. They're, they're kind of opposed to, you know, to the analytics and they're, you know, they don't, they don't necessarily speak that language in some respect. And Corbyn Carroll is the polar opposite of that, where he knows. basically everything there is to know, right?

Like he, he knows just about anything you could possibly imagine a kid right out of high school coming into professional sports could know about his craft. And so this is just so cool just to see, you know, Josh Barfield and some of the other Diamondbacks player development staff talking about Corbyn and just how he has taken this opportunity with the shoulder injury and tried to learn as much as he can in this process. And, you know, what better way to do that than coming out to the ballpark as often as he did and just soaking up knowledge from everyone around him.

I know this is probably not necessarily the case. But I also imagine that a prospect doesn't usually have this much time to sit around in the scout seats behind the dugout or behind the backstop at Chishfield and watch Major League pitching and watch Major League batting. even if it's not good batting or pitching at times or whatever the case may be, I still feel like just being there. It's like you said, you could still watch it as a fan when you're rehabbing, when you have an injury. But to be there as part of the team doing work,

giving your input and, you know, learning from these guys. I know how baseball guys are. Like, don't get me wrong. I am very much when I am working, leave me alone person.

at times, right? Sure, sure. But, you know, you can't help but want to talk baseball with people when you're at the ballpark. It's kind of my biggest problem. It's not that I don't want to talk to people. It's more of if you talk to me, I will not get my work done. And my bosses will be very mad at me. So please don't talk to me because I can't help but talk back to you. And I will completely neglect all my work. And we will talk about on base percentage and defensive run saved all day long. And I really, I get that. So, I can understand how when you have somebody of his baseball acumen, his IQ, sitting next to you asking these solid.

He's just really smart. Like, he's just a super smart kid. You couldn't help but engage with him. You know, even if you're, even if you're kind of a crumudge and scout that would rather keep to yourself and focus on the game, when you realize how smart he is, you can't help but, you know, speak to him about this game. And again, you're also, you're part of this. franchise as a scout. So you are doing double work right now, essentially, because you're being a

mentor to this young man next to you that can't physically be out there learning the game, but you're teaching him mentally things that a lot of guys in his position never get an opportunity to learn. It was also, it was interesting that they also mentioned Jordan Lawler, the Diamondbacks first overall pick this past year in the draft and how he sort of got in on the action because, of course, in typical Diamondbacks fashion, two of their best prospects, if not their two very best prospects, both came down with a virtually identical season ending shoulder injuries very, very quickly into their season. And so Jordan Lawler was in a similar position. And so he came out to the ballpark and Corby and him, you know,

sort of hit it off his friends, it sounds like. And yeah, I mean, it's sort of a depressing story. I was happy. I was happy. And you brought me back down. You brought me back to Robbie Ray all over again. Jesse, I'm wrapping this podcast up. But they're friends, Derek. They're friends. I don't care. We did the friendship thing earlier when we're talking about go PHNX.com. By the way, go to go PHNX.com.

Become a member. We call you guys members because you're family members. Jesse might be dead to me, so I might need a new vice mayor and some new family members because he brought me down. I was up here and then he brought me down. But thank you guys again so much for supporting this show. You can follow us all on Twitter. I'm at cap underscore caveman with a K. Jesse is at Jesse and Friedman.

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