PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Robot umpires will not be coming to Major League Baseball in 2024

Episode Date: September 5, 2023

Is our dream of robot umpires behind home plate dead? We discuss the future of the automated strike zone and when we can expect to see robots in MLB. We also have a MEGA Mailbag Monday, including questions about the future for D-backs at third base, when we knew Corbin Carroll was special, and our favorite breeds of dogs.An ALLCITY Network ProductionSUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports PHNX Events: Get your tickets to D-backs Takeovers, Knockout Nights & Suns Watch Parties at BetMGM, and MORE here: https://www.eventbrite.com/o/phnx-56002330273 WATCH YOUR FAVORITE TEAMS: https://www.fubotv.com/phnx WIN MONEY THROUGH SPLASH SPORTS: https://www.splashsports.com/phnx Head to https://factormeals.com/phnxdbacks50 and use code phnxdbacks50 to get 50% off.Go to https://saturdayneon.com and use code PHNX for 10% off your order today. Free shipping for orders over $200!Gametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase.Pins & Aces: Check out https://pinsandaces.com and use code PHNX to receive 15% off your first order and get free shipping.Circle K: Text PHNX to 31310 to join the Circle K SMS subscriber club and get BOGO 32 oz Polar Pops! Head to https://www.circlek.com/store-locator to find Circle Ks near you!OGeez!: Score 25% off a bag of your favorite OGeez! Fruits of Creams. Go to https://theflowershopusa.com, add a bag of OGeez! to your cart, enter promo code “PHNX” and pickup at a local The Flower Shop dispensary.Four Peaks: Follow them on social @fourpeaksbrew & @fourpeakspub! Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. 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. 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.

Happy the day, for day, folks, welcome to the HNXVX podcast right here on VHX. My name is Derek Marcia. Of course, I am your mayor of VHNX. Once again, I need Shane to get my damn sack back. This fan next to me, Mr. Electric himself, Tom the Paws. And, of course, very excited to have my vice mayor, Thunderstay, Jesse Friedman, back in the house. first do we want to say something nice about the nice things that our diehard did for us oh my god like you guys in our diehards community are incredible freaks made this guy all misty-eyed by the way

i've never seen derrick cry i pretty much saw derrick cry he pretty much saw me cry pretty much it was as close as i think derrick is capable of getting to crying human emotion yeah it's a human emotion, you know. It's fair, it's fair, but the heart's different. Yeah, you guys really are. So we love you. We thank you so much. We can't express enough how much it meant to us that you guys helped to celebrate our second anniversary right here at PHNX. And All City is just continuing to pop off. So we are really thrilled to be part of this family and we're thrilled to have you guys as part of the family.

We hope you're not working at all the day. We hope you are taking the day off. We have some more people that we want to give the day off to, honestly. And it's every home plate umpire. We want to give every home plate umpire today and every day off because, of course, you know me, I want robot umpires behind home plate. And, you know,

again, I know that they'll still need to be back there, right? Yeah, you're not really giving them the day off. I'm just giving them less responsibility. Yeah. That was my conspiracy theory all year is that the ums have purposely sucked so they can

get the same amount of money to do less work. because they won't have to call balls and strikes. Yeah? It would sort of be as if like, like, Saul came up to me and was like, you know, we still want you on the show, but like, we don't really want you in charge of what's coming out of your mouth. So, like, we want you on the show, but we want to tell you exactly what to say. That's basically what is potentially about to happen. That's what we got Jesse Jr. for. That's what, that's what, so he could make Jesse Jr. talk and he can.

Did you tell him about Jesse Jr.? I did tell him about Jesse Jr. is the name of the snake. Yeah, is my understanding correctly. Yes. How did that happen? JJ Snake. Look, I don't, we don't know how things happen on the show. I think we just miss you.

I think we were just like, you were gone a lot and we just didn't. We wanted to replace you, but we really couldn't replace you. So we went with like a child like version of you that's like half diamond back, half human. Yeah, it seems reasonable. That's basically what happened. I have no further questions. No further questions. It makes all the sense in the world.

Well, we don't want to just replace you. with a stuffed snake. We do want to replace the umpires with robots. But it appeared that robot umpires in some form were coming to baseball in 2024. But that is no longer the case. Yeah, it doesn't look like it. We spoke with MLB commissioner Rob Manfred a few months ago during the All-Star break. And he talked about some of this then.

And it kind of seemed like robo-umps in whatever fashion, whether it be the challenge system or just the straight-up system where umpires are back there. but they're just calling everything from what the robot tells them. It seemed like there have maybe been some obstacles that have come along the way. Back when we had that conversation, it seemed like major league players and I guess minor league players really were more in favor of the challenge system than just the straight up system where it's just robots running the universe basically. Robots running the universe. That's basically what it equates to. That's what the writers and the actors in California right now are fighting against.

His robots taking over the universe. Correct. So I completely understand it. But yeah, there have been some issues with the technology itself and getting it to a place where, no matter which version of the system you use, getting it to a place where players are comfortable with the strike zone that this system is calling. And it doesn't seem like we're quite there yet. Well, right now in AAA, the league has been switching back and forth between full-on robot umps and, and, and, and, and. and the ABS system, right? Or the challenge system.

Right. Like part of that, I feel like that comparison as a player gives you a fairly good, like way to be like, I don't like this one as much as I like this one because you're going back and forth between the two and you're getting it.

You're seeing the problems with a full-on robot hump back there. Players appreciate the human element of umpires. I mean, even when they're wrong. In a sense, right? I mean, I think players are used to umpiring being done a certain way. Like, right? It's the stereotypical. Like if a player, if a pitcher is around the strike zone, they're going to get a few more calls right off the edges than a pitcher who's not at all around the strike zone. And theoretically, that's a problem. Like theoretically, the strike zone doesn't change depending on who's on the mound. But hitters are used to it working that way. That's what we have a problem with sometimes because we take screenshots from game day and we throw out.

up there and we show like how like hey why is it that Justin Martinez isn't getting this call versus the opposition's picture getting this one right yeah and yeah like you said a lot of it is how they're pitching otherwise not just that one pitch being in the same places another pitchers same pitch yeah I mean the interesting thing to me is like I don't think people are ever going to be happy so we're they're going to blame like when the robots come and there's no like who are fans going to blame who are they're going to be like that's outside blue and like yeah okay but Science says no, it was not. It was in the strike.

Who's the villain? Who's the villain at that point? We need somebody that we can all hate universally, right? The ums are, ums serve in a very important purpose in the baseball ecosystem. Not that they still, but like the, the,

the room to blame umps is becoming smaller and smaller. Yeah. We're going to have at some point. What would baseball fans? For our own actions. Yeah, what would baseball fans do without it? I don't know.

They have to blame their players for not being good. Honestly, it's what galvanizes us sometimes as fans of opposing teams. And it's always nice when you can be like, look, we don't like you and you're like us, but we can all admit this guy's an asshole. And we're like, yeah, we all do that thing where it's like, I know we got blown out 10 to 1, but also, it's not the only reason we lost, but the ups to us sucked. Us too nights. Yeah, exactly. We lost 9 to 1 and we were like the Upsworth dog shit. It's not why we lost.

There were three calls that we can point out where we made it all. Awful call. Spent 15 minutes talking about it. Yeah. As far as the ump stuff goes, though, that's always been my take on it. I love blaming somebody. Yeah, that's the best thing in the world. Yeah, which is why I'm a fan of the challenge system.

Like, I do think there needs to be room. More blaming. More blaming. More blaming. No, no, no. We're calling out of umps. Yes, and it's not just blaming, but it's, it's having an answer. It's having a judge in that moment make a decision and be like, nope, you know what?

We're going to see who was right. I had my friend, Mo, you guys know Mo, he's a troll from the chat. He was famous for any time we were having a debate. And this is going to show how old I am. But like when Google was kind of a newer thing on our phones and we started Googling all time, Mo would never let us debate anything because Mo would just like, no, what are we debating? Let's just get an answer, right?

Like sometimes in life, we need that, especially if you're married. You know, you would love someone to step in like those. Yeah, just give you an answer on who's right and who's wrong. What was it? Like the progressive commercial? With the challenge flight. No, I mean, I do love in theory, like you need to be able to blame ums, but I think the challenge system is awesome for that reason,

because then you can blame them and immediately be like, ha, ha, ha, told you so. Or ums can be like, ha, told you so, shut up and get back in the box. There is a good, there are good times where umpires aren't calling the game the way that a robot would. And that's when, like, it's a blowout loss or the weather sucks. They throw an ephist pitch that like starts. about five feet above the strike zone, but kind of drops onto the plate.

And they're calling those strikes because everyone wants to go home at this point. Right. It's like as much as we want every call called right all the time, there's just some times where we also don't really want that. Yeah. I mean, I think players in some ways, they have an appreciation for like big moments in games.

And like we don't want to lose a game because of a bad call. I think everyone, players, I think everyone can agree on that. Even the umpires, because they don't want to have that blame. Yeah, the umpires, they're not out there trying to, they're not out there trying to like blow games because of her swing games, one direction or another with bad calls. And so that's what the challenge system gives you is an opportunity to make it so that the game is not heavily weighted one way or another because of the umpiring. And yet at the same time, you get a lot of those human elements that we're talking about the players legitimately appreciate. And if players legitimately appreciate it, then why are we trying to get rid of it entirely?

I'm going to be sick when somebody loses a perfect game or something like that. of a borderline pitch that a real unprobably would have called the strike and probably been a strike in that situation and then it's not because it's technically not a strike, but I think everybody other than the batter would want it to be a strike. Do you know how many conversations I've had with people about the game day bumper area where if it's here, it can be a ball or a strike? Like it's like you guys don't understand. It's not a razor thin line like it looks on TV when they throw the strike zone.

And when you go to like the umpire auditor, they always show like the ump's true strike zone because as I always say, like I'm more about consistency than anything. So it's like obviously it's not going to be perfect. But as long as it's consistent, like there's. I love when it's this shit. Yeah. It's just like some sort of it looks like the rings of Saturn around a planet. You're like, what are you calling? But I mean, according to stat cast, umpires do get 94% of the calls right. So it's a 6% margin of error there for umpires making mistakes. A lot of that has to do with that area that I'm talking about where if it's in there, it doesn't get called against them as a bad call. But like you said, they're really not trying to call the game poorly. I just don't, I wonder how umpires feel about the challenge system because I feel like the challenge system really does work. But one of the problems at least conceivably that we have when we've seen these umpires toss managers or players, we've heard the arguments. We have John Boy to break down the last. reading for us. It does feel like there's a pride situation there for umpires a lot of times

about being called or told that they were wrong on a call or whatever. So it's like, I don't know at time. It's like the umpires are going to have to swallow their pride on that and they're going to have to just let that slide because that's, it's going to be a gigantic like, ha ha, you were wrong moment on a big stage for them in some years. But I mean, they're used to that right? Because of instant replay. It happens all the time. I think alternatively it's like a certain amount of pressure being taken off of them where it's like because I think I mean I'm sort fully aware that they're not perfect and like they have to make split second decisions. I'm sure there's plenty of times where if they were like ah if I could sit here for a few seconds and I had a

beat to think about it I might have called that differently and so there's a certain amount of pressure where like if they like I mean obviously you think about the Armando Galleraga thing right like and obviously we're talking about replay in that situation but like that does not happen if there's replay because the ump can fuck up in the worst why I've ever seen an ump fuck up, but there's something that someone there to have their back. There's technology there to have their back. So I think obviously there is a certain amount of like, as opposed to being able to get into it with a player and then just toss them. The player can challenge you and immediately upstage you. But as Jesse said, that kind of already happens with replay. And I think

they would rather the game. Because in the moment, sure, it might suck, but they would rather the game get played. And when the game is over, them not be a story than them screwing something up. and then that pain kind of being elongated because everyone's talking about them at that point afterwards. Yeah, and no matter which version you use, whether it's just robots all the time or this challenge system that I think all of us seem to prefer a little bit more.

Major League Baseball wants to make sure that the robots have the zone correct. Yeah. That, you know, even if you're using the challenge system, if a call is challenged, you want it to be the correct zone and not necessarily the correct rulebook zone, but the zone that players are used to

from the time they were four years old, right? You don't want to suddenly change that, right? These guys are like halfway through their careers. And that's what Major League Baseball is struggling with right now. And I think that's ultimately why this is going to wait a few more years is from what there's a story on baseball America that has some good information about this. It says the ABS Strike Zone has set the upper and lower zones of the strike zone based on percentages of a player's height.

So that doesn't seem like a perfect system necessarily because it doesn't adjust for like where your knees are, like not everyone who's six foot two would have their knees at like the same height. People have different stances and stuff like that too. Different stances. Yeah, those things are not being accounted for and I think that's sort of the source of the issue

right now and what they're trying to get right. Jeff Bagwell would have never been able to get away with murder like he got away with in the late 90s with this kind of system. That article also said that that's one of the tweaks they're making right at the end of this AAA season is that they're going to adjust the way that they're doing a sensor type thing. Yeah, they're experimenting with it right now.

And it does say in here that, you know, even if they were to implement this immediately next season, they were planning on incorporating, you know, crouching and, you know, making it a little bit better for the majors in some ways. But this is something you want to get absolutely right. Yeah. I know Jason Stark also wrote a story about this over the athletic. And he talked about how, you know, for really, for players that are huge, like Aaron Judge, their zones tend to be a little bit smaller in reality than what, like, the rules.

book would say it is for someone that size. Because umpires not used to calling a zone that thing. Yeah. And it goes the other way. Like if you're Jose Altuve, your zone theoretically should be tiny. But in reality, in practice, umpires don't actually call it that way. And you don't want to suddenly make those guys zones change enormously, you know, just because of this new system whenever it's implemented. The technology is there because, man, my Xbox 360 Connect used to be able to tell where my elbows and my knees were based on my... movements and shit, right? So it's like, it's not to say that they can't find a way to like use that.

But they also talked in this article about factors changing from park to park, which I don't really understand because- Yeah, that was in Jason Stark's story. That would be a problem. Yeah, like how, just based on the fact that the systems are different or calibrated differently or something of the sort? They shouldn't be. Yeah, theoretically, it's run by Hawkeye. It's installed the same way in every park theoretically. But Major League Baseball has said, like, you know, they didn't just get that complaint from one person. They want to make sure they go in and get to the bottom of that

and make sure that it's not actually happening the way that people believe it to be. Because, yeah, that would be a big problem. If, you know, you got robotumps and the robots are consistent enough of themselves, but the robots disagree with each other from one park to another. Go to Dodger Stadium and the strike zones get a real small. That Milwaukee strike zone is gigantic. And then you got the ABS.

system disagreeing with the whole plate robot you're gonna look they're gonna implement it and all of a sudden this team's ERA is gonna shoot through the roof and you're like what happened there I think the biggest takeaway here is they're still not discussing how they're gonna put an actual robot behind the plate or what the robot's gonna look like Boston dynamics I don't know if it's gonna be one of those if it's gonna be like a Jetson like robot maybe a droid from Star Wars it doesn't matter I'm down for whatever but make sure it has human-like features I want little buttons for eyes I want a jaw that opens up and like I don't. Strike. No, scary now. No, no, I don't want all that. Uncane.

Can you imagine if they did it that way? I mean, I love JJ. No, I should have to stand behind the plate with a puppet. And do it that way. Yeah, let's go. Well, we thank you for being right here right now on the page and exports YouTube channel. If you haven't subscribed to the channel, make sure to do so now. Sign up for notifications.

That way you don't miss whenever we go live. And leave us a little thumbs up just for our own personal, you know, self-esteem. if you're listening on the audio podcasting side, leave us a review over there and subscribe there as well. We always appreciate you guys doing that. Most importantly, no you missed out on the diehard sale last week, but make sure do not miss out on becoming a diehard member. It is still a tremendous value because you still get that $50 Mountain Mike's gift certificate. You also get access to our members-only Discord lounge. You get a golf car, Dobson Ranch ranch card. You get a free shirt from the PHNX Locker.com and 20% off all future purchases,

including our brand new snake, bat shirt, bat snake, bat snake. That's pretty good maybe. Bat snake? I don't know. Like that sounds like a tool Batman would have in his utility belt. The debat. The debat? The debat. All right. I'm okay with that too. Whatever it is. Go grab that shirt. And like I said, get 20% off all future purchases. You also get access to our members of going Discord lounge. Jesse's newsletter, full count, and all the newsletters for all of our wonderful writers around here and so much more. So grab yourself a diehard membership today. Jesse missed out.

We've added some things that basically we celebrate around here. We make up every year now on this show is our year. True. Every month. Every month on this show is Indigenous People's Month. Right? Every month is Black History Month. Also true.

Every month is Women's History Month. Every month on this show is Black Women's. History Month. Every week on this show is Shark Week. Every day on this show is Earth Day. But on Mondays, we go to the mailbag. Damon, let's go.

My mailbox. Always something interesting in my mailbox. I'm trying to get to everything in my mailbox. And then what sucks. It's actually a mega mailbag Monday. Don't I get a holiday? You don't, no.

Like, isn't there something that has anything to do with me at all? We're expanding it as much. I mean, it's going to, I'm not to keep the list, but we'll fit something in there for you. But you are one of the people that they come here to ask questions of. And so, of course, you're celebrated as well. Stop being so selfish. Let's get to the questions. What do we got for our first question out of the mailbag?

DeWan Booker asks, if Lawler gets called up, how do you envision Tori, Tori, utilize it, Tori. Tori utilizing him in the lineup, shortstop, third base, DH, and how often? Well, we know at this point the Lawler has not been called up as part of the, you know, pre-September call-up. So we could only see Lawler if it's due to injury replacement. Is that right? No, I mean, we could see Lawler at any point throughout September. We could see him in the play.

Like we talked about the other day, we could see him in the playoffs. The debacks would just have to use that weird workaround thing where they say Mark Malanson's on our playoff roster, but he's injured. so we have to have Jordan Lawler instead. They could do that. So, yeah, he could still be called up at any point in September. Well, what are your thoughts on if they do call him up? Where do you think they'll be utilizing him? Obviously, I feel like third base is seems like a very likely spot.

Anyone's position? They're not going to, I don't think they're going to play him at third base. If Jordan Lawler does come up this season, I think he's going to be a shortstop. I guess he could get some time at DH as well. But the Diamondbacks aren't about to take, you know, a 21. year old up from the miners who doesn't have that much professional experience and ask him to play a position that he hasn't really played. He's exclusively played shortstop this year. I want to say he exclusively played shortstop last year as well. So yeah, he's a shortstop. If he plays for the

diamond backs, he's going to play shortstop. How often depends on some other factors. A big factor I think would be whether Nick Ahmed is still in the organization. Is Loller kind of like an extra player or is Loller someone that you brought in to replace someone who is like, actively getting significant playing time. If he was, if he was here to replace a Nick Ahmed or something like that, I would expect to see him in there pretty regularly. When Corbyn Carroll got called up last year, the Diamondbacks didn't call him up to just sit on the bench.

So I would expect he would play pretty regularly. And if he is playing regularly at shortstop, that probably moves Geraldo Perdomo over to third base. Perdomo would probably still get some time in second, still get some time at short. He'd kind of be floating around. but it would probably yeah, Perdomo would be the guy moving around.

I don't think Lawler's really going to move around. I don't put too much stock in it, but to be honest, one of the things that always made me think that that exact thing was potentially going to be the case is that when we are there pregame, we see Perdomo taking a lot of practice at third. I don't think it really means anything.

I feel like it's just based on the field set up and the fact that you have like somebody, you know, throwing alive or like a batting practice. I mean, we've seen Carson Kelly take ground balls at third. Yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, no, I know. We've seen... Stay ready. We've seen Christian Walker over, like, at second base shortstop, you know, fielding balls,

and there's never been a moment where he thought he was going to, you know, play it. Christian Walker as a middle infielder would be unreal. He'd be elite, probably. Uh-huh. It would just be unreal. Not necessarily in good sense. It would just be kind of crazy. Yeah, that's true.

Pardomo has played a decent amount of third base this year. So that wouldn't be... He's played, he's played at least some third base in 10 games. And he's been fine. It's just... Yeah, he's good over there. Unfortunately, offensively, his numbers are terrible whenever he plays third base. I don't think there's any correlation.

Well, his bad just doesn't really profile at third base. Sure. If you're third base, you're not exactly looking for, you know, a guy who has six homers and over 400 played appearances. But, you know, he's been a good contributor for the Diamondbacks this season. He was obviously an all-star. And, you know, long-term third base is there still some big questions there? I think we're going to get to that a little bit later in the show.

But if you got to move Perdom over to third base, it's not the end of the world. Yeah. Ultimately, I'll be happy with whatever results in Nick Ahmed, enjoyed retirement, and Cotel Marte, Daching and not having to play second base ever. I don't think the answer to that is going to make itself apparent this year. But in the future, if that means Perdomo playing third or second, I would not mind seeing it. All right. What else we got, Damon? Next question comes from AZ Sports Girl 224, Studios 249.

she asks, but we're going to bounce back against the O's after the D-backs got their butts whooped in L.A. Let's pull the curtain back here. We have no idea of the outcome of this Orioles series. We're not actually working on Labor Day. That's why we're not acknowledging your comments in any way. So we have no idea. Maybe the Diamondbacks swept the Orioles. Maybe they got swept.

I don't know. If people were actually convinced that we were here live this entire time, we get some serious props to that. I think we would deserve that. I mean, if we're pulling back the curtain, can we address the Pave and Smith thing? No. I didn't get a chance hypothetically to address it yesterday and I'm upset

well okay go ahead I mean we can turn it into that because we have no answer for this question I just don't want Jake McCarthy fucking die or something like what are we doing?

Say it yeah no it is horseshit go guys what are we doing I'm just why is they put the most I thought we defeated him I thought so too you can't he's like the undertaker from the dead he never loses

he's a ghost it's a match against AJ I don't want to see them. I'm a phone-yard match. Yeah. Yeah, totally. Unbelievable. Anyway, that's anything else we want to address about this show, not being live right now?

Yeah, I think the curtain has been pulled back, so I think we're good. Should we record alternative takes? Like, should we do one where they, like, won the series and then one where they lost? I can't believe the Arizona Diderback just swept the Baltimore Orioles. That was fucking crazy. That was crazy. Zach Allen, that perfect game. That Zach Gallon, perfect game was awesome.

The perfect game? I wasn't expected that. If this series doesn't go well, people are going to be so angry. Forbidson for the cycle. If it didn't go well, then, oh, man, I can't believe the Diamondbacks just got swept by the Orioles. Man, six in a row. Only two innings for Gallin. That sucks.

I thought Gallen was unhittable at home. I thought so, too. I thought he was capable of throwing a perfect game. Corby and Carol went, oh, for the whole weekend. That sucks. Perfect. Good. Damon, you do that in post or whatever, figure it out.

You have to watch the series in a day. do that on Monday. All right, what else we got? Michael Rokickey asks, when did you know Corbyn Carroll was different? For me, it was when Katie went to the game in his jersey. That's such a great question.

For me, it was August 21st, 2000. That was the day he was born. The day he was born. He was special after since that moment. Were you live? I was alive? I was too. Jesse, I'm holding you. Yeah. By what? Like a couple months?

Yeah. But I mean, if you were, I was. In spirit, Jesse's like 45. I know, but I'm just saying he should know I was around. I was two years old, man. Jesse, what are your thoughts on Corbyn Carroll? When did I? He was him.

Okay, that's an interesting question. I remember the day that Corbyn Carroll was first called up to the majors and all of the excitement surrounding that day. And I believe he was playing right field. I think it was one of the first hitters of the game, Game against Philadelphia Phillies. One of the first hitters was Bryce Harper. He hits like a 115-mile-hour missile right at Corbyn Carroll.

Carroll kind of misplays it. And it's like, all right, there might be some initial jitters here for, you know, make sense. I mean, he's 22 years old making his major league debut. And then later in the game, Corbyn Carroll comes up with the biggest hit of the game. I believe it was a sort of base clearing double, a two, I think it was a two-run double that tied the game or gave the diamondbacks the lead. I'm not remembering the exact details there. but it was an enormous, enormous hit. It was the biggest hit of the game in the biggest comeback in Diamondback's franchise history.

And I just remember on that day, like when a guy makes that kind of first impression, especially bouncing back from, you know, one of the first plays of the game, not looking so great defensively, when a guy is able to come back and do that and have that big of an impact in his first major league game at that age, that's an enormous accomplishment. So I wouldn't say there's necessarily one day. But if I'm picking one day where I kind of wondered, you know, this guy really might be the next big thing in Arizona. That first day in Arizona does stand out.

Yeah, if I'm being serious about it. Like, yeah, I don't know if there's an exact day because I feel like it happened over the first couple of weeks of the series or the season. But I think the first time that I saw him on an MVP graphic, like it was Akunia and him. And I was just like, oh, this is like everyone's recognizing how good this guy is.

Like I'm not being. Because I mean, it's sometimes it's hard to know how much you are just kind of being like a homer and stuff like that and how much of it is like is real. And when you see the rest of the like national media recognize that this kid is one of the best in the game, it's like, okay, we like we have one. And it was like that feeling that's like not every, not every franchise at all times just to have one of those guys and we have one. And so I think, yeah, I think the first time I saw him on on one of those MLB MVP race graphics. But yeah, he's that guy. That's a good point. I think if I'm being honest, the thing for me that clicked was when I found out when he had his shoulder injury.

And I kind of written him off as a bit of a disaster, you know, because that was one of the things that they had said about him was that they didn't know if he had the durability to be a major league baseball player because he was kind of a smaller undersized kid at the time. And, you know, it's kind of like one of those like, oh, here we go again. or not even here we go again because at the time there wasn't this succession like we've had now of Jordan Lawler and also Drew Jones going through the same thing

but it was the hearing that he was sitting with the scouts that really made me go I've never heard of a player doing that I really had and like there was nothing but praise being poured in for him and like this wasn't I don't necessarily think when he was doing it as much as it was after

he had done it but it was like just one of those things that in all all the time of covering this team. I had never heard that. And it even kind of dawned on me. Like I was like, maybe I thought that this kind of was something that players did, but they really don't.

So when a kid made the decision on his own to do that, that it really stuck out as something. I mean, something that almost has become a blueprint that they try to encourage other young players that go through a similar injury or time where they can't be playing to do something similar.

Just to learn from a scout's perspective about pitching and to learn about the strike zone and to learn about stuff at a major level. And just stay like mentally engaged with the sport of baseball. Yeah. Like it's not easy. You don't come out of the womb knowing how to hit a baseball. You don't know how to come out of the womb out,

knowing how to recognize a pitch and things like that. Like that's the reason why someone like Brent Strom is so valuable within the organization. It's because of the wisdom that he can impart on these guys. There's good pitching coaches out there all across the country, but few of them have that experience. that someone like Brentstrom has. And to be able to share that with a guy,

be able to do like what he did with Brandon fought, you know, that's that experience. And like Corbyn Carroll already seems wise beyond his years. I feel like a big part of that was that knowledge that he gained from sitting with those scouts. Yeah. You know, just that commitment to the game. And we've heard about it a lot since then.

We've heard a lot about how Corbyn Carroll is just an absolute student of the game. He loves baseball. He loves doing everything he can to become. a better player and you don't really necessarily hear that praise about everybody as a matter of fact you you hardly hear it when people are like oh man this guy literally eats sleeps and breeds baseball you know i feel like you hear that i mean if you're a major league baseball player right like i don't know like guys get here just like oh yeah you know i practice for half an hour

in the afternoon every day you know it's the emphasis though that people have on yeah he's on a different level you know what I mean like yeah so like guys do take time off guys do go like are you kidding me Jesse he fucking quit playing fortnight for major leagues yeah that's big that's a big good that's a big that's a big that's a definite level of maturity not a lot of guys sound far cried from all that that show we went went through with Kyler don't even don't even but I'm just saying like there's there is a special kind of of the athlete what else you got damon I'm not doing this with him uh Colin Kozak I hope I said that right asked Who is the biggest free agency splash this off season?

And obviously we don't know the context in which he means that, whether he means with the Diamondbacks are just in general. I'm going to assume because the answer is Shohei. If it's not a Diamondbacks, if it's not a Diamondbacks of Showhay. Hopefully if it's the Diamondbacks, it's still Shohei, but I don't see that happening. Well, Jesse and I, again, we were talking about Shohei and the impact before the show. Like, Shohei is just on a different level. There's no player in baseball that's going to make as big of an impact as Shohei Otani,

including even if he resigns with the Angels, because that means he's going to stay there for a long time. No other team is going to be able to have him. And all that he brings with him as a commodity is going to go to the Angels too. You know, like there's a lot of more than winning baseball games. It really is. Like, I mean, obviously he's an incredible two-way player. So you're getting that out of him, right?

But you're also getting a tremendous amount of fan support internationally. You're getting ad revenue from companies that are going to, they're going to advertise with your team, depending on whatever team. he has like there is no player in baseball that is going to have as big of an impact on wherever he goes as as show hey but if you're talking about the diamondbacks uh there are some guys i think the diamond backs i hope that the diamond backs look into and i just don't know technically how much those guys are going to cost them we've been talking all year about their issues with third base so i would love to see them maybe go after a matt chapman but i don't know if matt chapman is going to be

actually worth the money it's going to get a hundred million dollars right Yeah, exactly. I mean, I would take, listen, I, Justin Turner's still been producing for the, the Diamondbacks, or for the Red Sox, and I think considering how you look at the window for the, the D-backs, like, if you could still get something out of, out of Justin Turner.

Justin Turner is about during 39. Absolutely. I love him. I still love him. He's good, though, yeah, he's still producing for them. I mean, obviously Matt Chapman is, like, you know, Matt Chapman, I'll be pretty good. Give me either.

I'll be pretty juiced. I would rather have Matt Chapman, to be clear. But yeah, I, but Justin Turner, I would be happy with. I'd be very happy. Give me a red hat. I just want them to lock up. Oh my God, you already got one. I just want him lockup third base.

So no matter what they do, I feel like they need to bring in something at third base. An infielder of some way, in some way, because you can move around whatever, like you can move Rallo to third look we were talking about. Because like I said earlier, I also don't want to see Catell playing in the field if we can help it. I think you're probably going to have to see you can tell in the field in another year. Let's go get Witt Merrifield. Have him opt out. Let's go get Witt.

I think Justin Turner has a player option for next year. So the debacks would need it, which he very well might decline. If he could get more money on the open market. Yeah. Yeah. Which you might be able to. Well, there's not a lot of third baseman available.

No. I mean outside of him and Matt Chapman. Josh Donaldson. Edward O.S. Is it? Yeah. Levin Longoria. Gior.

Bring them back. No. I think, I mean, the Diamondbacks were interested in Justin Turner over this past off season. That was a story we were talking about for a while. That's why not end your career in the desert, man. Yeah. Come.

Come beat the Dodgers. You can go be all buddy, buddy with all your friends eight times a year or whatever it is because that's how this shit works. And then you can retire and golf every day. Yeah. It's a good life. Go to kids birthday parties, right? Kershaw's birthday.

It's real slow pace out. You don't got to worry about your heel problem that you've been dealing with. Marcus Schroman? Marcus Schroman. You want to talk about injecting it straight into my veins. Like, stat.

Yes. I mean, I mean, I love Marcus Schroman as a person. I love, he's a great pitcher. He's going to cost a lot, but I like him a lot.

Too much. He's probably going to cost too much for the down. He's another player option guy. But given his current injury situation, I mean, I guess that does make it a little more interesting. I'd have to look a little bit closer into Marcus Sturman's situation. I suspect he would still opt out.

But he was not good in July. And then he got hurt. And I believe his season, is his season over? I think so. I think Marcus Strowman's season is over. So yeah, that's another guy who might be out there, might not be. Seth Lugo. Well, let's let Jesse go out because he's just turning all of our guys down.

Who do you want, Jesse? Well, that's kind of what I do. You know, that's my role on this show. What about Martin Hurstaw? Mark Cana-ha. Sure, yeah. A right-handed hitting outfielder? I mean the debats, yeah, the debacks are going to need a right-handed hitting outfielder.

They can't let both Lourdes and Tommy Fam walk and not acquire right-hand-hand-hitting outfielder. 80-year-old Charlie Morton, anybody? No. Charlie Morton is incredible. It's incredible how Charlie Morton just continues to be fantastic. I mean, how do you feel about either of the Seth Lugo or Blake Snell? Blake Snell is going to get paid like crazy I would suspect that would be outside of the Diamondbacks

price range Seth Lugo is interesting Got a player option But he's been having a good year right So I feel like he's Probably gonna opt out no Justin Turner I'm looking at his defensive metrics He's only played 57 innings at third base He's at minus three defensive run saved and minus four

So he has been dealing with a heel injury I know that. So I don't know if he's just like been playing through it. He even himself said he's either hitting home runs or singles. Like he can't really move all that well. So I don't know if that's something that plans to get addressed in the off season. Maybe he'll be able to play third again. I'm not sure.

But that's why I just want any kind of infielder. So we can just. And the correct answer is Rich Hill. The correct answer is Dick Mountain. I don't want. I don't want Dick Mountain on this. I don't think that's the correct answer. I think that is objectively the wrong answer.

Season of joke. Well, I will tell you this. The thing that is no joke is never the wrong answer. Never the wrong answer. Is betting on a Nerfie on Friday? True, right? On the bet MGM sportsbook app, you can get kind of nerfy Friday,

and that is going to be no-run first innings, of course, for those of you that are season, for those of you that aren't, it's an insurance situation where if you place a no-run first-inning bet on any major league bet baseball game, where you bet no on the will there be a run in the first inning market, you will get your bonus bet back,

equaling your stake up to $25 if your bet loses, but only one run is scored. That is available on Fridays, so do not miss out on Nerfie Friday. Sometimes, like I said, in previous shows, they do increase the backing, the insurance on those, like it's been $50 recently. So again, you bet on that.

If you don't hit, you get your bet back in a bonus bet for $50. So make sure to check that out over at bet MGM. If you haven't signed up yet, sign up for bet MGM using bonus code PHNX. There's a few different offers depending on where you live. But for our Arizona audience, place your first bet offer and receive up to $1,000 back in bonus bets if it loses. Check out the show notes for full details. And now listen to Shane. Talk about the disclaimer.

Gambling problem. Call 1-800, Gambler, Colorado, D.C., Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, New Jersey, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Wyoming. Call 877-Hope-N-Y or text Hope & Y. 467-369, New York. Call 1-800-327-50-50-50-Massachusetts. 21-plus to wager. Please gamble responsibly.

Call 100, Next-Eap, Arizona. 1-800-2-7-1-1-7-1-7 for confidential help, Michigan. 1-8-1-0-0-2-3-P Puerto Rico in partnership with Kansas Crossing Casino and Hotel. Visit at MGM.com for terms and conditions. U.S. promotional offers. Well, I am starving. That's my. We always are hungry on this show.

And, of course, we're just always hungry. We just always hungry. They don't feed us. They don't. And we always have to do this show right around like lunchtime or dinner. Yeah, that's the crazy part. I feel like they purposely are like. They're like, yeah, we're going to have food come at 1.30 on my base.

What are you doing your show? Yeah, 115. We're going to have it coming. Exactly a half an hour after. So it sits there for a little bit. You got to, you got it miserable. Miserable. We got to smell it while we wait.

It's still good. It's incredible. It's incredible. It's just the, it's the torture that we get put through. Smelling it and not getting to go eat it. The worst part is watching all these people because I am a man of principle. I'm not eating until everybody gets their food, unlike some people here. And I just watch.

You don't eat until everyone gets their food? I mean, at restaurants, at restaurants. Yeah, in restaurants. Not in the situation. It's not actually. You can't wait for any of these savages around here to eat anything. They're all a bunch of monsters. You can't even wait.

Yeah, that's every man for themselves around here. Matt, you wait too long. Max's going to take a whole thing of queso without you know it. Exactly. Exactly. All the meatballs from the spaghetti shack are gone. But that and that's when I'm really sad because I love the spaghetti shack. I love their giant.

trays of food that they bring us that could feed an army. They got garlic bread. They have all the basics, and that's the beautiful part about it. You don't need to get fancy when it comes to a time. So you just want spaghetti and garlic bread, dog? Right, for real. And like, and meatballs. And meatballs.

And that's what spaghetti shack provides. It provides a menu starring spaghetti meatballs and garlic bread and a few other fan favorites. And it is an ASU alone, alum owned and operated business. And they provide to the ASU community as well as the rest of us, quality and affordable food, as quickly as possible. So make sure to check them out. They are all about currently serving Tempe and Queen Creek. So if you are in those areas, make sure to check that out.

They just celebrated their new ASU location on August, opening up on August 19th. Again, out there at that location, you can get spaghetti. You can get one meatball and garlic bread for just $3.99. That is practically a free lunch. It's only valid. Well, it was, I'm sorry. I'm reading. I'm apologizing.

because I'm reading from their grand opening. But of course, make sure check them out at 922 East Apache Boulevard in Tempe, Arizona. So Spaghetti Shack, again, thank you for providing incredible food to the community and to us right here. But we got more mailbag Monday questions to go. Damon, let's get one from the guy that made me all misty-eyed. Cogs, your message in our little bag made me choke up, pal. I have not read mine yet for the record, so I don't know if mine made me choke. Yeah, no, it's, they're tear-jerkers.

But Kingsnake Coggs asks, what is everyone's favorite narrative stat? Something like B-War, et cetera, basically a stat that is used to fit specific narratives and is deceiving. Well, I mean, all of them. All of them, right? Like, you know what? I, honestly, I guess it's not my favorite, but the one that drives me the most nuts, the one that I really feel is what he described there is like errors. because errors are so objective.

There is literally a scorekeeper up there watching you. You mean subjective. Yeah, subjective. Sorry, not objective, but subjective. And I mean, it's one of those situations where he absolutely decides based on your athletic ability and how he feels if you could have gotten to the ball or not if it's an error.

It really tells nothing, but then we base things like fielding percentage on it. So it's like it's a stat that then impacts other stats and becomes deceiving because, yeah, I mean, if you're a mediocre, if you're a mediocre defender, you're not going to get a lot of errors because you're not even going to be in the vicinity of a ball when it comes through.

I'm sorry, I just saw a meme on Twitter about Pave and Smith. Oh, yeah, no. Yeah. I just got distracted by Pave and Smith. You're all right. John just wanted to announce that he was distracted by his by his meme. He just wants to find a way to bring it back. I did.

The realtor twice. Yeah. I can't really come up with any one stat that I think is like misconstrued. because all of them frankly can be. Yeah. You so often see comparisons between two players of, you know, a few select numbers.

And like you can, you can convince, you can make a statistical argument for almost any player over any other player if you just pick the right numbers. Obviously like, okay, if it's mooky bets against Travis Janowski, that one's a little tough.

But if you just kind of cherry pick the numbers that make your argument, you can do just about whatever with baseball stats. So it's not really one number for me. It's just like, I don't know, make sure you're giving the complete picture when you compare to guys. I love expected batting average because I am a hater. And so there's nothing I enjoy more than finding guys

who are performing way out of their expecting batting average and being like, this guy actually sucks. He's hitting 296, but that is definitely not real. I did that. I mean, I did that a lot with, um, alternative, like with, um, Julio Urias coming into this season. I'm like, his XBA last year was not, as an opponent's XBA last year was not that good.

And the shift is gone now. And he's not going to be that good. And he hasn't been nearly as good as he was last year. Um, you know, they, they change this, like the savant visuals are. Oh, yeah. Oh. We're going to have to do like a deep dive into this at some point because it's like, it's like, it's messing with my mind.

Yeah, I don't like it. I don't like it. You mean like, like, like, you mean like, like, like, like Urius' expected ERA last year was 281 compared to 216, and then 281's still pretty good. Yeah, but I just, I mean, that was me being a hater, like I said. I just, and I use it, yeah, I definitely use it. I will say I use that as being my reason for wanting to get rid of Jake McCarthy

when we were talking about last offseason, like which outfield was going to be included in the trade. Yeah. And ultimately, I'm glad that was not what they did. Like, I'm glad that Varsha was the one that went if someone had to go. But there was some truth to what the expected stats said about, Jake McCarty last year, which was, he probably wasn't, you know, the 830 OPS guy that he was in the second half of the season. There was some luck in there that, you know, probably wasn't sustained.

So I also really like it, like, as a real stat, too. Like, I do think it is valuable in showing kind of who guys really are. By the way, speaking of that, do you guys know who leads all of Major League Baseball and defensive run saved? Is it Gabby Moreno? It's Dutton Varsha. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it would be Doughton Varsha.

Tell Mortay. Dalton Varsho is one of very few players that can be like a well below average hitter and still be like a genuinely good player because his defense, at least according to defensive run, defensive run safe thinks Dalton Varsho's 2023 season is like the best defensive year by any player and it'll be history basically. It's insane. All right.

What else we got? Travis Moore. More for me on Twitter asks what draft pick to the D-Backs? get if Carol wins rookie of the year. How is it determined what pick they get exactly? Yeah, and I know this is a question a lot of people have, so we wanted to address it.

I'm pretty sure the answer is that they get a pick after the first round, is that right? It's not a number, but it's just essentially the first pick after the first round is over. Is it before the competitive balance? It is. Yeah, it's directly after the first

round. Sometimes not every team gets a first round pick because of, you know, sign a free agent or whatnot, they can, they can lose picks. So this past year, or I guess this year, in 2023, you know, the Seattle Mariners got the prospect promotion incentive pick that the Diamondbacks would get because Julio Rodriguez won rookie of the year last year. So that pick for them fell at number 29 because there were 28 teams that had a first round pick and then it was immediately after that. So I don't, yeah, we don't know exactly what number it will be, but it is directly after the first round. And of course,

That is the, even though he won't address it, even though I won't talk about it very much, that seems to be the big goal Corbyn Carroll had set in mind coming into the season as far as what, what he really wanted to accomplish. And like, probably one of many. One of many. Yeah, but I mean, that is all seemed to have accomplished. Yeah. There's a lot of value in that pick.

I mean, because it's not like it upgrades one of your picks. It is just like an additional pick at number, you know, number 30, number 29. That's, that's a lot of value. It's so good. I mean, and right now... Thank you, Corbin. Thank you, Corbin. All right, what else we got?

Snake fan, Skeletor the Great, asks, what do you believe to be our future solution at third base? Farm talent or free agency? And I thought this was a great question because, to be honest, I don't really know who out of the farm system right now would be it. I mean, I would love to say Ivan Melendez. I would love to say that. But I just don't know if his defense is ever going to play at a major league level of third base.

And I don't feel like that's going to happen. I mean, as we kind of talked about earlier, like, I don't think it's, I definitely don't think it's with the farm system. I think it's either someone that's on the roster now. I think it's either for all the prodomo or a free agent, ultimately. Like you either move herald over there or you go get the third base with, yeah. I don't think, especially in the near term. Yeah, in the near term, Perdomo could play third base. In the long term, I don't know if I see Perdomo being like a long term player there.

at least not, not an ideal one, not an ideal fit. One name that does come to mind for me is Tommy Troy, D-Back's first-round pick from just a couple months ago. He has played shortstop so far to start his pro career and he said that's the position he enjoys the most. Everybody that plays on the left side of the infield says that. Yeah, essentially, yeah. I mean, it makes sense.

Like, as someone who's just entering pro ball, like you want to start at the most challenging position and see if you can establish yourself there. not you can always move somewhere else. I think he would profile pretty well at third base. I think he has a chance to hit enough to play third base. He's got enough power where I think he could, he could, his bat could profile at third base. And defensively, you know, even if shortstop is not a long term ideal fit for him, or even

if it is, the debacks could move Tommy Troy over, over to third base eventually. That's still a couple years away. So, you know, for 2024, I don't know if you're going to see Tommy Troy play any third base for the diamondbacks. but he's honestly the one guy in the farm system right now where it's like, yeah, the bat and the defense both make sense at that position. He already seems much further along than Drew Jones, and I don't want to take an unnecessary shot of Drew Jones,

but it's just Tommy Troy already seems like he's moved up so many levels. Big difference between a college pick and a high school pick. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think as far as the free agent thing is concerned, like if you want to actually, like if you're actually going for it, in this off season as far as you're concerned, you're actually trying to win a World Series. And you have to go sign a third baseman.

I don't think, or again, an infielder and move things around. Like, you have to. So I think, I don't think any, like, the variety of people that you've seen play third base this year are going to be playing third base next year if this team is actually attempting to win a World Series.

So I think they're going to have to sign, most likely a third baseman, but at least some kind of infielder in the free agency. Or trade for one. Or yeah, that's a good. Whatever it is. Yeah, I agree. It's probably going to have to be external for,

for 2024. All right. What else we got, Damon? This question, we think. We think this question came from Elise. How do we not know who the question came from? Well, because it's from a protected account. And the account name was just E.

That was the screen name. And her Twitter handle, or this person's Twitter handle, is E-L-I-S-U-L-L. And Elise is just a legend around these parts. So we just figured. We hope it's a bit. We hope it's her. She asked, Question for Mailbag Monday.

What is one of the most ridiculous, awful sports takes you've ever heard? For example, a guy I work with told me this morning and he was dead serious that Shohei Otani is nothing special. He doesn't help the Angels more than Trout does. And anyone could do what he is doing if MLB had allowed it before. I literally laughed out loud at him, but inspired me to ask what other ridiculous takes people have heard. The only that I will say about that is that I not by no means do I think that there would be like 18 other. show hey as if M-O-B-L-B. But, like, I do think you would see, I think there's plenty of stories of guys who, like,

played on both sides and not ultimately throughout the minor leagues or whatever got that kind of beaten out of them, and they ended up having to be one thing or the other. Like, I do think there's situations where if MLB was more open to the idea of a letting guys be two-way players, there would be more two-way players. Yeah, like, like as if MLB are holding people back. It's absolutely not that. It's the fact that you're not good at either one of those things enough to do both of them at the same time.

The idea that JT Real Muto would be out here, like, with a 280 RA or something, I don't think is real. Like, I don't think they're, I think showy would still probably be the best two-way player if there were a bunch of two-way players. So, yeah, the take is ridiculous. My most ridiculous take is Jacob's saying that he doesn't like gray uniforms. I think that's bullshit. That's fucking insane, Jacob.

I think that's insane. That is insane, Jacob. I don't really, I don't really like, I don't really like Road Green. You're also wrong. We've had this conversation on this show. before and it went very much like this. Don't come into my ballpark and try to show me up. You better wear your most drab

ugly colors and fucking blend in with the background as far as I'm concerned. This ain't about you tonight. It's about us. Are we limiting this to baseball or sports takes in general? This is sports takes in general. Okay. I mean, one of my least favorite sports takes or baseball takes is

Damon's I don't give a shit about Pedro's All-Star performance where he struck out the best hitters in baseball history. Do not give a single shit? Yeah, I think that's absurd. In general, it's got brought up earlier today. I don't think it's about, this is not so much about like who's better than the other. I just think it's insane when people bring up the LeBron versus Jordan conversation or like, Jordan's never lost to finals.

And it's like, since when do we punish guys for making the NBA finals? That does not make any logical sense of me. I will listen to conversations about Jordan being the goat, but trying to punish LeBron for dragging Zedrunas-il-Galskis. Anderson Barajal to win a NBA finals and not winning that is absurd to me. Yeah, I mean, that's, I don't really like baseball or like, I don't like comparison, a quarterback, who's the best quarterback of all time? Like, there's just too many variables there when you talk about guys.

I live for debate. Well, no, I'm not saying I'll live for debate, but it's like, at the end of the day, it's absurd to really have that much invested in thinking, you know, a guy from today could have been as good of a guy from fucking the days back when they let the defensive line literally slaughter quarterbacks and they had to get back up. and go out there and throw the ball again. Eras of sports are very hard to compare. Different eras, right?

But, Jesse, what about you? What's one of the worst takes you've ever heard? I know you, look. I misunderstood the question. I thought it was supposed to be like, like, why were sports? I can do that. I'm just like needlessly about to throw myself under the bus.

Let's get that. What is your worst sports take? So for sports in general. Yeah, that is pretty terrible. Sure, whatever. For sports in general, I did not, I'm going to get just absolutely. for this. I didn't think Devin Booker

was going to be a very good player. Oh my God. I'll just straight up saying. I'm not going to punish you too much for that. Yeah, no, me neither. Because like, yeah. All right. I appreciate that. Everyone has opinions on college athletes. Like on prospects.

So like the idea like... But it wasn't, it wasn't just like when they drafted him. I was like, oh, this guy's not going to be very good. It's like he had played a couple years in the league. And you were like, before he was, you know, taking the sons to the finals obviously. It was before that. But I just didn't, I don't know, I was like, you know, he was shooting like 42% from the core.

I don't know if this is, I don't know if he's efficient or not. It was like he was the best player on a bad team. So like by comparison, yeah, he stood out as the star. I kind of get that though. And honestly, the sun's drafted so poorly everybody else. And I could see just kind of the default assumption. On everybody. That's very similar to my Bryce Harper take.

Because when he signed with the Phillies and the years leading up to that, I was very consistent. And I mean, to a certain extent, it's still true. But that he was like the most overrated player in baseball and that they were I never got that contract and they paid him too much. And I think, again, in the grand scheme of things, I think it's kind of still true that he's overrated. Like, he's had a couple of incredible seasons. But obviously...

I mean, the man has a career 912 OPS. Yeah, I mean... That's pretty darn... That's pretty darn incredible. No, I mean, he's obviously a great baseball player. I just thought he was being overrated in terms of being... He was the face of baseball. Yeah, I thought that was like an extent.

I mean, I thought that what the Phillies paid him was ultimately going to be too much, but ultimately I was wrong in the sense that's one of the few like insane level contracts it's actually like yeah well single-hand-in-in-in got that team to a world series so I was wrong hand up I'm going to give you my worst one and then I'm going to throw my brother under the bus first I want to say my brother is has one of just consistently the worst sports takes and the reason why is he doesn't really like sports that much nor does he watch sports he has things he watches like bass fishing and things like that that he enjoys so because of him being on ESPN too while watching bass fishing.

He just gets the ticker down at the bottom. So he gets like half pieces of information and then has conversations with me about it. And he'll be like, you know, like, hey, I heard, like, and he's completely wrong because he's just filling in the other half with stuff that is mind dreamed up. So that's a hilarious conversation to have.

But when he does, because every once in a while, he'll be like, hey, man, the Diamondbacks are on like a six-game winning streak. That's really good. I saw like so-and-so have two home runs last night or something. I'm like, what? Wait, you actually, you paid attention? Wow, that's awesome. That's actually what happened last night.

But my own personal worst sports take ever was watching a single episode of sports science on ESPN and going around and telling people that the reason why baseball players were hitting more home runs in the late 90s was due to the fact that Rawlings was getting leaner leather for their baseballs and making them harder. And being like, oh, well, there's an exponential increase of velocity in distance by 0.005%. Then a lot of the balls that fall at the warning track would go for home runs. And I mean, that's why this is happening. Unreal. That's an all time.

I want to go to. So I'll say my worst one that I could think of off the top of my head is I thought Justin Herbert was going to be atrocious. And he's a decent shot at being the NFL's all-time leading passer. of his career. Yeah. And then overall sports take, I don't know if it's really a take, but just changing the colors of the Diamondbacks, I think is the most egregious.

I think anybody who says that they like the current scheme. That's most egregious sports take you can possibly have. That's fair. Because there are people that don't even care about the Diamondbacks that are like, why did they ever stop with the purple? It's one of those things. Like it's the Diamondbacks purple and teal. It's the Coyote's Kachina.

It's the Mighty Ducks logo. It's like all of these things where it's like, why? Did you ever go away from it? And at least the coyotes have the common sense to go back. All right. Damon, we got one more question. We got two more. Brett Lee Johnson asks,

why do the debacks get aggressive with roster moves, cutting Carson, then turn around and bring back a player, Paven Smith, who has provided less value than Carson? Because Payman Smith is Torrey's sweet little baby boy. I think it's honestly, if I'm being honest and not giving you a takes like that,

it's because he's, it's his versatility in in tory's mind and it's the the gap that he feels even if it's not very good it's still somebody that he feels like can back up at first can play out feel i mean i don't know if there's really bad i mean i don't think christin walker plays basically every day i don't really need a backup first baseman a guy like paven the guy like carson is that like at the end of the day we're very hard some of us at least are very hard on paven and like three reality is he does offer some things. Carson was just like, Matt, some bumgar. What did they offer? It was basically nothing. They were, they were, they were. And I know Pavan's a very frustrating

player, but at times he does do things, right? And at times he's a good baseball player and he offers something. That's not really the case with Carson. Like at a point where there was a, uh, you needed to get rid of somebody, right? Because Gabby came back and I don't think you could make the argument that Carson was better than Herrera or they, um, carry three cats. Exactly. So I think at that point, you need to make that move, but alternatively, got to call someone up, and I agree that I don't think

payment was the right choice. Like if you're calling up an outfield, I would have rather had Jake, but there's a reason for it. Like, he offers something. Yeah, I think what a lot of it comes down to is just what the competition at that position looks like. Like for Carson Kelly, the debacks also have Jose Herrera,

and I guess the Diamondbacks just felt that they'd seen enough of Jose Herrera or it was like, there's just not that big of a difference between these two guys at a certain point. We have three catchers sort of, well, Gabby is obviously on a different level. But Carson and Jose Herrera, I think we're similar enough where it's like, okay, we can, we can move on from Carson Kelly. We have someone right there who's going to give us a similar amount of value.

In the outfield right now, the diamondbacks aren't getting a whole lot of offense from anyone outside of Corbyn Carroll, frankly. Lourdes has just not really been good offensively since the end of May when he was an absolute monster. Tommy Fam got off to a decent start for the diamondbacks, hasn't really contributed a whole lot offensively in recent days. And Pavin Smith, you know, I mean, the diamondbacks have a lot of outfielders, but Pavin Smith, bats left-handed, and, you know, which obviously have plenty of left-handed

hitting outfielders, but Jake McCarthy hasn't hit much in the majors this year. Dominic Fletcher is currently injured down in AAA. So there's just not a whole lot of clear like, oh, this guy's better than Pave and Smith offensively. This guy's better than Pave and Smith offensively. And obviously he's an extra player here. The D-Backs aren't bringing in Pave and Smith to replace Tommy Fam or replace Lordis Correale Jr. But he's, he's an extra option for them in the outfield.

They only have four outfielers on the roster, you know, before this thing happened. So, yeah, I'm not saying I agree with the decision, but, you know, he at least relative to the competition around him, no one has really separated. themselves offensively in the outfield outside of Corbyn Carroll. All right. Damon Welts we got. Last question goes to Elizabeth. Elizabeth asks, what's your favorite dog breed?

This is going to burn the show down. That is a tough. Yeah, this is not easy. That is tough. I used to be a veterinary technician, so I will take the lead on this myself. Oh, yes. The best, my favorite dog breed, the best dog breed is a corgi. That's the answer.

Corgi butts are the best butts. corgi dogs are the best dogs. They're low riders. They don't shed a tremendous amount. They're super cute. I have a French bulldog and I have pugs. And I would like to, in their defense, say they are good dogs, but you have to know what you're doing with these stupid idiots. They have folds that you have to clean out and stuff.

There's a lot of grossness when it comes to flat-faced dogs. So as much as I would like to say a French bulldog, because they truly are the dog that makes me squeal like a small child every time I see one. there is a lady that brings a French bulldog to the wrestling show that I'm a commissioner of. And every single time, I go say hi to the dog and I don't even bother saying hi to the lady. I just, it's the dog is there and I go say hi to him. That's it. I love dogs.

But this is a hard one for me. This is a hard one. Honestly, the best dog is a mutt. I mean, that's the truth. Like a mutt that you adopted from a shelter that knows how fleeting and delicate life is. That's the dog that you want. That dog will love you for the rest of your life. I have a handful of ones that I really like.

First off, I think the most beautiful dog I've ever seen. My mom growing up, she had a German Shepherd husky mix with two different colored eyes. And that's like an incredible dog because those two breeds of dogs right there and their own right are incredible. I just have a sauce spot for pit bulls dog because they're so, they're so like misrepresented. Pit bulls are just incredible dogs. Yeah, they are the sweetest. I really love them. But from a visual perspective, like huskies are my dogs.

I love huskies are so cool. I'm just a big dog guy. Huskies, German Shepherds, like Bernie's Mountain Dog, St. Bernard's. We need an office dog. I'm pro. Well, the flip side of my love for big dogs is that I'm also pretty allergic to dogs. So I, from like a personal what dog I want, it's a golden doodle because they're hypolyogenic. And they're awesome.

It just makes my life easy. And they're smart as shit. Yeah. Jesse? Golden doodles are fantastic. Poodles in general. Poodles are a adult dog. That's honestly what I was going to say.

I think poodles are you can mix poodle with just about anything. It's kind of being a pretty fantastic dog. Yeah. Damon's kind of looking at us like he got an opinion on. Well, I was just going to say I like boxers, but also who needs a dog when you have Jesse Jr. Yeah, when you got the snake Jesse Jr. That's a great point. He's behind the control board right now.

He's going to produce. Yeah. Damon's my favorite dog. Absolutely. We are Damon's dog. Roo roo roo roo. All right. Well, we thank you guys, as always, for your questions. You guys are the best. We also thank you for all the wonderful gifts that our diehard sent us and all the wonderful messages.

We can't thank you guys enough. You guys do make this whole thing special. And today's been kind of weird without you in here. But I will still tell you. They're there. They're here. They're there. They're there. You are here. I will tell you, though, that we're not the only family you need to join. You need to join the inner circle over at Circle K. it is the best way for you to get all sorts of free, wonderful stuff. You can text PHNX to 31310, and that will join their Subscriber Club,

and you'll get a buy one, get one free on Polar Pop. You can also join their inner circle for free by downloading the CircleK app today. Terms and conditions apply at participating locations. Visit CircleK.com for details. But that will get you 25 cents off your first five Phillips over at CircleK, which, of course, they already have cheap gas, so you're going to get it even cheaper. and then you'll get, buy five, get the sixth one free on a selection of Circle K products, including pizza, coffee, and of course, their ice cold fountain drinks.

So sign up today over there and become part of the inner circle. I'm become, I'm becoming. All right, that's all the genius you're going to get out of me because we'll get DMCA'd. But we also want to give a shout out to our friends at Pins and Aces. I know golf season is here. It's cooling down. We finally don't have to get up at 6 a.m. to go out and go golfing. But again, Pins and Aces, wonderful polo shirts, they're not just.

just for the links. They're not just for the golf course. They're for everywhere. They are comfortable. They're lightweight. They're stretchy. They're perfect for the super hot times of the year. And of course, they have wonderful patterns that are delightful. So make sure to check them out. It is a family-owned golf and apparel business that is the official golf apparel partner, PH&X in All-City. Of course, we love our pins and aces gear, especially our custom-made little phoenix polos that we have. They make amazing polos like that, as well as hats, golf bags. And of course, the beer sleeve. That's not just for golfing. It's for anytime. But check out pins and aces.com and use code PHNNX to receive 15% off your first order

and get free shipping. That's pins and aces.com. Well, I'm all done working on this faux, pseudo-Labor Day that we're here pretending to work on. Do you have any big plans for Labor Day? I do not. I have none at all. In fact, and I'm the right way to celebrate Labor Day. That is exactly what I'm going to do. I'm going to do nothing. I'm going to maybe watch all three episodes of Osoka again and just bask in the Baseball, baby. Don't we have like baseball all day on? Yeah, we do. We do. One o'clock baseball game today. Right now we're, we're, watch us and then go watch baseball a little bit. That's the way this is going to work. I think I don't know how scheduling works with these things.

I'm probably at said baseball game right now. Someone someone around here has to go to the ballpark and you know someone's got to work on Labor Day. I guess. Yeah, no one's forcing you to go anywhere, Jesse, but actually yes it is. It's me. I'm forcing him, but make sure to follow Jesse for his shenanigans at the ballpark at Jesse N. Friedman. This maniac next to me is at Sean underscore DePaz. I, of course, am once again your mayor of PHNX. I need my goddamn sashback. But you can follow me at Cap underscore K-Man with a K.

We are Damon's dogs, and you can follow Damon and be one of his dogs, too, at Damon, DAWG on Twitter. Our show is at PHNX underscore D-Backs, but of course all roads lead to at PHNX underscore Sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. We thank you guys again so much. for your time. And remember kids, baseball is fun, but it is so much more fun when you have robots

behind home plate.