PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Rule 5 Draft

Episode Date: November 19, 2021

On this episode, Jesse and Derek talk about the final day of Arizona Fall League, what the AFL could do better to attract more people, and who the D-backs added to the 40-man to protect them from the Rule 5 Draft. 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 another edition of the PHNX D-Backs podcast right here on PHNX. I, of course, am officially known as your mayor of PHNX. It is I, Derek Montia, and I am joined, of course, by my vice mayor, my friend, my co-host, the one and only thunderstick, Jesse Friedman. Derek, last day of the fall league for you today, you know? Last day, I took it all in Jesse. I absorbed the sun. I enjoy, I absorb the baseball.

the sound of the bat, the sound of the ball hitting the myth. It's the last time I will hear this until spring. And I'm not super happy about it. That's pretty sad. It is pretty sad. But you know what? Sometimes baseball needs to go to sleep just like the rest of us. So just a reminder, 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 P HNX and simply for downloading the app and signing up as a new customer. and betty just $1 on any NBA or any NFL team to score any points at all. You will get $100 in free bets instantly. And that again is $1 or more on any NFL or NBA team to score just one point. So use our code of PHNX. Jesse, yes, the Arizona Fall League has come and gone. We have our championship game tomorrow.

I think it the Salt River Rafters are not in said championship game. No, they did not make it. They did not do so hot. But Mesa made it in. And it was interesting, actually. It was a three-way tie coming into today for the other final position in the Arizona Fall League championship game. So not sure how that shook up.

But I do have some ideas in regard to the Arizona Fall League and just ways to make it better, Jesse. I mean, I guess. I mean, it's already pretty great. I mean, what are you hating on here, Derek? Okay. We'll just get into it now. I'm not hating on anything, Jesse. I think this year, more than any, I fell in love with Arizona Fall League.

I say that because I had the opportunity to go watch more Fally games than I ever have. Typically, they don't stagger them the way that spring training games here in Arizona are staggered. You don't get the opportunity to see as many on the weekends. They don't have Fally games on Sundays at all. all. And again, it's a lot of day baseball played during the week that I, when I had a 40 hour a week day job, did not have the opportunity to make it out to go see. Now that I cover baseball for this very wonderful network right now, I get to go watch these games. And I think that's my problem, Jesse, is the fall league is wonderful, but I don't feel like enough people get to

watch these games. I think that there is a wee. timing situation with the fall league, right? Like that it's during the playoffs? Correct. Yeah, and I mean, I get it. It's the fall league, so they want it during the fall, right? But I, and I also feel like there's other things that they're avoiding, right? I feel like they're avoiding Sundays for football during the NFL season, which is very understandable. And I feel like there's other, you know, other factors they're trying to avoid.

However, Fall League wraps up today, essentially, right? We do have the championship game tomorrow. I would be at it if I didn't have a very important prior engagement as an assistant commissioner for pro wrestling promotion. Yeah, yeah, you made a big, Derek. Hey, you know, I got a lot of bookings and signings to take care of just. Yeah, ever since we named you the mayor of PHNX, now you're kind of a hot commodity in the valley. It definitely went to my head. I'm not going to say it did not go to my head.

But my point being is that next week, my child, 10 years old, is off from school. Oh, there you go. For the week of Thanksgiving. And I'm sure. She has the entire week off. And I'm sure she's not the only one. Remember those days, Jesse?

Remember when you just randomly had a week off from all of your minor? Well, as a teacher, I kind of do. Oh, yeah. But not, but we only have Thursday and Friday off next week. week. So, yeah, having a whole week off on Thanksgiving is pretty sweet, right? My point being is that there's a lot of families that during this time of the year, without a lot of sports on, wouldn't mind being able to take, you know, their children to

a very inexpensive baseball game during the day while their kids are off on on Thanksgiving week break. But unfortunately, the schedule ends right before we hit that. Okay. But the counter argument here is that do the players want to be still playing all away from home, away from their families? Not at all. Not at all. Of course not. Of course not.

And I'm not saying necessarily that it has to be like that. I'm not saying that the players need to be playing on Thanksgiving Day for the dozens of people that would be in attendance for a game like that, right? I'm not making that claim. They could easily make the schedule. that they have maybe, you know, a three-day schedule this week and then have Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday off even, you know? I don't know. Okay. You just want to go into next week just a few days. Here's what I want is I want the schedule to not be happening while a very exciting baseball playoffs is going on. I don't feel like you're getting people out to these games. And I'm not sure if that's what they want. I'm not sure if that's, that's very important or very high on their priority list, right? Spring training games have become extremely popular, no matter when they are. Right.

So when you go out to spring training in March, even during the day, some of those weekday games are sold out or at least very, very full compared to the 600 plus that we had today out at Salt River Fields. Right. And again, I'm not, I'm not knocking anything they do, but I'm just saying if, the purpose of the fall league actually was to try to get people to come out and see these games for the low, low price of $9 and being able to sit anywhere you want, then, you know, then I think that moving the schedule out just a few weeks to kind of avoid the meat and the heart of the playoffs and to give, you know, especially during this period of time, right? We get a lot of snowbirds that come down during this time of the year because of how nice it is. And I mean, some people don't come out as early as October. Some of them don't come out until about December when we get closer to the holidays, usually around Thanksgiving, right? So if you gave them just a couple of extra weeks more towards this end of it and a few weeks earlier on the other end while the exciting MLB playoffs are going on, I feel like it would be more successful.

That's interesting. I think so my first thought is maybe, and I don't really. know much about the origins of the fall league and exactly where it came from. But the idea fundamentally, I mean, more than an entertainment purpose, it serves the purpose of, you know, giving these guys an extension to their season. You know, a lot of the players who play in the fall league are guys, especially pitchers who didn't get to play an entire season, who still have more innings in their arms that, you know, organizations want to get out of them.

And same on the position player side, right? Short A, double A sometimes doesn't have that one of the season. I totally get what you're saying. I'm not against that, Jesse. I guess my point is is that baseball seems very short-sighted at times on the business end of things. Not on getting the players' time.

I don't think they even market the fall league. Like, they really don't. It's people like us who market the fall league and Major League Baseball doesn't really track. When I go out there, right, they have hats for sale. They have shirts for sale. They're good. It's good merch.

I really like the Rafter shirt. was this close to buying it today. I just, it was a good looking shirt. It's a dumb name. It's a dumb name. They called the goddamn team, the Salt River Rafters because they play at Salt River fields and there's,

and Salt River. Well, I'm told there is a time in the history of Phoenix when Salt River actually had water in it, like the part of it runs to downtown. But those days are gone. Am I supposed to care about somebody that rafts in it, Jesse? No. It's a medicine.

nickname, Derek. There are other more menacing nicknames than that that involve it still using the river name. Isn't there something called a river dog? I've heard river dog before. That sounds cool. There's a sod poodle. There's, well, yes, we know, we know that, Jesse. That's an incredible name. There is a river otter. The salt river otters, Jesse, the salt river otters. Okay, but there are, there are no otters anywhere to be found around here that I'm aware of, at least. I bet there's Beavers? I know. Bevers, really? I don't know that there's, I don't know there's bevers.

I feel like I'm making a favor this weekend, Derek. You take a truck out to Lake Swarrow. And you hunt for beavers, all right? Absolutely not. And you tell me how many you find. I'm just saying there's better names than the rafters. It's very fair. Some of the other teams do have good names.

They have good merch. I still, I still like the havelinas. I think that that name has potential for any kind of major league sport. The Scott's still Scorpions is kind of classy too. I mean, the scorpion is a staple of the valley. So I'm pretty on board with that one. I'm going to show you this hat. And then if I had it, I would show you my friend's Griselda hat.

Now, I know you're not familiar with Griselda. You always show your hats when we're on audio on audio podcast, right? So I'm going to describe it to the listeners. And it's got a big Scorpion on it with a giant patch on the side. That's all you need to know. and my friend paid at least double that for a Griselda hat that looks just like this. So you, too, can go get a Scottsdale Scorpions head. You know the thing about the Scorpions with the Diamondbacks, don't you, Jesse?

About how the Diamondbacks were going to be called the Scorpions. I believe I have heard this. And Jerry Colangelo, despite the fact that it was a very fair process, totally just circumvented the process they had in place, which was a vote, a secret vote amongst a secret cabal, of Diamondbacks, Arizona baseball team involved owners and front office people. And apparently the Scorpions won the vote amongst these people. Really?

And Jerry Colangelo is so disgusted by Scorpions that he had the final say on it and was like, nope, I don't care, even if you guys voted for Scorpions. It is like, I do get that it's a little weird because scorpions are like, scorpions are not viewed in a positive way in the valley and i know this from experience because my parents refuse to live in a neighborhood where there are scorpions and so they found this little they found this little corner of chandler where scorpions don't exist and that's where my parents have lived for about 15 years so i i understand maybe that's where calangelo's coming was coming from at the time is just that like we don't want to name our team after the most hated creature

literally in the valley. I mean, it kind of makes sense, right? Like, I do kind of see that. But Diamondback is still, I think they could have done better. I think we've talked about this before. It's not, it's not the very best. It's definitely not. And like I said, when I was, you know, 15, 16 years old,

finding out this team was going to be called the D-backs. I knew then. As a matter of fact, I give a lot of credit to opposing fans and other teams because I feel like there's a lot of negative nicknames that are low-hanging fruit that are right there available for them at all times to fall back on. Yeah. And like D-Dags and stuff.

Yeah. And surprisingly, they don't. I don't hear that as often. But when I was 15, I was sure that was all we were going to hear all the time, non-stop, constantly. So I credit society for being a little bit more mature were than I thought they were going to be. It does, it does abbreviate kind of nicely.

That's the one thing about the name Diamondbacks that I will say. Like not that many team names in baseball have like a shortened version that makes sense. Short. Yeah. Like Dodgers like you can't, you just can't shorten Dodgers. You can't shorten Giants. You can't Padres,

I guess pods. I don't know. Like Diamondbacks is D-Backs. Like it's a nice, it's kind of a nice fun little abbreviation. I get what you're saying. Like a lot of team, because that's their niche.

name. That's the official classification for D-Backs is the Arizona and it's a hyphen. It's a hyphen. Enough of this apostrophe business. When people write D-backs and they put an apostrophe between the D and the B, I can't do it, Derek. It drives me nuts. Okay. Let's just get this on. Let's get this out on the table. The Diamond Backs actually sent us a style guide as journalists telling us exactly how they wanted the D-Vax name to be used. It's the hyphen. It's the hyphen. And you're not supposed to capitalize the B either. Correct. It's supposed to be a D-hyphen, lowercase B, A-C-K-S. And I think they thought it was simple enough. But we screwed it up, Jesse. We didn't take it seriously.

We didn't take the little bit of information they gave us and get together as a group and decide. Well, I didn't screw it up. Maybe use it. I don't know. I have no way of going. back and checking all of your work at this point. I'm just going to say, uh, we apparently did it poorly enough, often enough that they needed to send out a reminder to us as media on how to actually do it. And then the jokes flew about that because people, you know, like to poke fun when, uh, someone, whenever someone has to come along and remind everybody of the rules, now that person's the jerk, right? But really, we were the jerks all along. That's really what it comes down to. But don't be a Jerk, Jesse, go download the Draft King Sportsbook app now.

The Draft King Sportsbook app is the official sports betting partner of both the NBA and the NFL. And if you use our code of PHNX for simply betting $1 on any team to score anything in any game for either of these two leagues, you will get $100 in free bets instantly. Jesse, I am Mr. Parlay, single game. Single game, same game parlays, multiple game parles, multiple sports. It doesn't matter. combine multiple legs for multiple payouts.

I'm going to give you my draft Kings pick of the week, but of course, that's a little bit later. We want you to go in there, and we want you to do your own betting as well. Feel free to go into draft kings. You can deposit and withdraw whenever you want. Draft Kings is safe, secure, and reliable. And just a reminder, if you do bet, use our code of PHNX

and get that $100 in free bets instantly for betting $1 on any NFL or NBA game for any team to score. anything. As long as they score, you score with your $100 in free bets. 21 and over only, Arizona only, gambling problem, down $1,800 next step. New customers only, eligibility restrictions apply. Cedraftkings.com slash sportsbook for details. Well, we're getting close to the deadline, Jesse. I mean, we're really close now.

And there's some interesting things that are happening because we don't know still how this lockout, how the new CBA, how all of this is the deadline, the deadline to clarify being when the CBA agreement expires. Is that what you're talking about? That's the deadline I'm talking about, but what you're referring to

potentially is a more recent deadline, one that happened today, which was for the Rule 5 draft, which teams had until today to add players from their team that qualified for the Rule 5 draft to their

40-man roster. Otherwise, they would be eligible for the Rule 5 draft. So, Jesse, do me a favor. Can you explain to us a little bit what this whole Rule 5 drafting is in baseball? Sure, sure. So, yeah, so the Rule 5 draft is basically, it is what it sounds like. It is a draft, right? And basically what happens is all 30 teams are given an opportunity to draft players out of other teams minor league organizations. And basically the process that determines whether players are eligible to be taking, you can't just take anyone out of another team's minor league system. It is, and you told me this earlier, Derek, it's if you are, if you enter the league at

18 years old or younger, it's once you've hit five seasons in the minor leagues. Or if you enter the league at 19 years old and over, then it's once you've hit four seasons in the minor leagues. So basically it's an opportunity to give guys who have been sitting in the minors for a long time. If their current team hasn't gotten them on the major league roster, it's a chance for maybe another team to step in that would have a role for them to draft them away. And the team that they take them from gets some form of compensation. I think it's like 100 grand or something like that.

But the trick is that in order to do it, you have to keep the player on your roster, on your active roster for the entire season. otherwise there are some different qualifiers and things but otherwise in general the player gets offered back to the team they originally came from um so it's it's it's a lot it's a lot and if if it sounds like a lot if it sounds weird the reason why is because this fucking rule five draft has been a part of baseball as long as baseball has existed it's basically been a way for teams to not just stash guys away in their minor league system, right? Right. That, that, I, I don't really get it, but I guess to not stash them away in their minor league system when they might still have potential or help other teams win, when the team that they're a part of isn't giving them an opportunity to play at a major

league level. But when I say, right, right, this thing has been around forever. It dates back to 1892, 11, 11 years before the American. League and National League held the very first World Series. The Rule 5 draft has been around that long. Yeah. Oh my gosh. And I think that's it's it's it's definitely changed quite a bit.

Obviously this is one of those things. Yeah. Through all of these different, you know, CBAs and and all of these different agreements that they have with the Players Association, there, there are things that change. But it's been part of the game that long. Yeah, right. So today is an interesting day like you said earlier because today is the deadline. A way that you can protect players from this is to put them on your 40 man roster.

And if you don't, then any player that meets the requirements that I mentioned earlier, any of those guys are going to be Rule 5 draft eligible and another team can just sort of take them from you. And so today's a big day because you have to make sure that you protect who you want to protect. and I'm a little bit in shock today, Derek. Yes, yeah, Jesse. Right, right at the deadline, right? An hour before, or it might have been two hours. I'm not sure.

The deadline for the Rule 5 draft, adding them to your 40-man roster was 6 p.m. today. We're not sure if that's Eastern Pacific. I think it's Pacific because the Diamondbacks announced today around 5 o'clock that they had added Cooper Hummel, which was part of the Salt River Rafters team, outfielder Christian Robinson, which we've talked about in the past, about his entire legal situation and everything he currently has going on in his life.

And right-hand pitcher, Ryan Weiss. Weiss or Weiss? I think it's Weiss. I think it's Weiss. Whatever. I mean, it could go either way. I'm not looking at a phonetic explanation of his name right now. But Ryan Weiss.

You don't want me to search it on baseball reference. I'm sure it's probably wise. Whatever way I pronounce it, it's the opposite way. So Ryan Weiss to the 40-man roster. In corresponding moves, the team has outrighted Miguel Aguilar, Kevin Ginkle, and Riley Smith to AAA Reno. Yeah. So those aren't the guys that they sent down,

not surprising that they were all able to clear waivers and go down. But yeah, so you mentioned the three names. It's Cooper Hummel, but we certainly expected. We've talked about him. He was in the fall league prospect of Diamondback scott and the Eduardo Escobar deal. You're going to want to certainly protect him. He's probably going to hit the major. Groster next season for the debacks.

Ryan Weiss is a pitching prospect for the diamondbacks, not one of their best, but certainly I think he's on the top 30 list over at MLB Pipeline. So it makes sense they'd want to keep him. And then the other interesting name here is Christian Robinson, of course. And there is a whole sad story with Christian Robinson, which we've talked about in the past. If you are not familiar, a quick Google search will tell you everything you need to know about Christian Robinson's situation. But basically, the latest, and Zach Buchanan published an article on this just a few minutes

before we hit record here, the latest is that it sounds like Derek, Christian Robinson, we're not sure, but there's a chance that next season, Christian Robinson, could be eligible to come back and fulfill the role that he was meant to when he came over here in the first place and continue to work his way up the minor league system for the Diamondbacks. He has an issue right now. His remaining issue is that his visa has expired. And due to the felony that he committed, that was a bit of a roadblock in getting his visa renewed. That has since been reduced to a misdemeanor, Derek.

That's sort of the big takeaway from Zach's article today. Which allows him to come back into this country to apply for a new visa. And he's in a situation where he couldn't get back into this country to get. get through these legal issues, right? So the judge was allowing him to have a reduced sentence, but he couldn't come back into the country to serve the reduced sentence or do anything in order to rectify this situation. So everything he did, because of the felony,

did not allow him to get a new visa. Right, right. Yeah, it was a really unfortunate situation. But yeah, so good news today that things are hopefully moving in the right direction there. and hopefully Christian Robinson is able to get back and, you know, continue to move up the ranks. I mean, he is an exciting prospect for this team. So hopefully that works out.

Beyond that, though, Derek, what really stood out to me today is who the team did not add to the 40-man roster. Because there's a few key names that are missing here. And among those names, there's a few guys that I certainly would have expected to see. and they are Levi Kelly is one of them. Levi Kelly is a top prospect for this Diamondbacks team on the pitching side of things. We've talked about him before. It didn't have a great 2021 season, but in 2019, he had a 2.15 ERA down in Singale, which was huge. It's hard to certainly not numbers to laugh at there. So Levi Kelly had a really good season in 2019. Matt Tabor also was not on this list. The Diamondbacks didn't add Matt Tabor. He's another guy in their top 30 list over MLB pipeline.

He's a pitching prospect. And then finally, Kegan Curtis over, we've talked about him recently. He participated in the fall league, had a solid performance there. So it's a little bit puzzling in some ways, Derek, the names that are not on this list. So I guess that may say more about those players than it does about the team, that maybe the Diamondbacks feel that other teams aren't going to want to take a gamble. on some of those guys, but there is some reason for sure to be concerned that it's possible, you know, one or maybe even multiple of those players could be, could be snatched up in the

rule five draft. Yeah, Matt Tabor, again, Cooper Hummel, the only real guy that was eligible that they did add to their 40-man roster to protect him from that. I'm not sure if Christian Robinson was, but he was drafted by the debacks, right? So he's, and I know he's been in minor leagues for a while, it seems like he isn't on this list of guys that were eligible, but he may have been. Maybe he's just not here because, again, with this legal issues, he's kind of fallen off a lot of people's radars as far as being a part of this team still. It's not to say that people don't consider him to be a part of this debacks team, but it didn't, it looked there for a minute like he wasn't going to be able to clear these legal issues up in order to, you know, progress with his,

yeah, with his baseball career. Jose Herrera, another guy that was, that is eligible now for the Rule 5 draft. But yeah, I mean, Kegan Curtis is a guy that we saw quite a bit in the Arizona fall league,

somebody that, I mean, at times struggled in the Arizona fall league, didn't have a very strong, you know, fall league, but still, still had his moments of,

of looking pretty, pretty solid. They did add a Jose Herrera. I think it was a while back. Jose Herrera, they did protect from the Rule 5 draft. But yeah, those three other names, it'll be interesting to see. Levi Kelly in particular is a guy who probably scares some fans because he does have a reasonably high ceiling based on that 2019 performance down in single A.

He also, I don't know if you remember this last year, but Levi Kelly was part of the Diamondbacks Intrasquod games that they were playing before the shortened 2020 season started. It was a weird time in Diamondbacks history when they were televising these games and whatnot. But Levi Kelly pitched in some of those games that were televised where the Diamondbacks were playing themselves. And he was 98 miles an hour with a fastball, a wipeout slider.

Last year it was not the same for him. He had some shoulder issues. So maybe the Diamondbacks feel based on the shoulder that maybe he wouldn't be able to sit on a major. the league active roster for an entire season. But, yeah, I'm guessing the team knows something we don't. And these guys, they're probably not expecting them to be taken. But it's sort of out of your hands in the Rule 5 draft.

So we'll just have to see what happens. That's the biggest thing. You have no clue of who teams are going to take. And I mean, like you said, they might have an indication that they're not going to be taken, but nothing is solid as far as, you know, these guys. guys now being a part of this roster going forward, they can get claimed by other teams. It's unfortunate, but I think that the Arizona Diamondbacks farm system is deep enough to withstand this. I don't think that these are going to be any major losses. It just does

kind of surprise you a little bit when they do have the ability to do what like the Cleveland Guardians did and kind of make some moves to protect a few more of these guys and keep them from being eligible for this Rule 5 draft. it is yeah i mean it is possible maybe the team has um i believe it at this point there's still the opportunity to maybe make a trade before the rule five draft happens obviously with the this i mean with the cba expiring in just a couple of weeks here there's not a whole lot of time left for a lot of things to happen before pretty much all of all of major league baseball shuts down for however long it winds up being um but well yeah we just have to sort of sit back and and wait and

but for the moment I wouldn't be too alarmed by this. Don't, you know, it's not like Levi Kelly pitches for, you know, some other team now and is going to win the Cy Young next year. At least not yet. We'll hope we don't get to that point. You're opening old wounds, Jesse, and I don't like it one bit. I don't like it at all. I've also been getting requests, information,

and offers about the winner, meetings. And the winter meetings are supposed to happen very soon, Jesse. There's no way that they will. Next, not next week, but essentially two weeks from now. The winter meetings are supposed to be going on. And like you said, there's, you, you say there's no way they will, right? And I'm not questioning you because I know you're very smart and I know you understand these things very much. I mean, who knows? agree with you well no i agree with you but i guess my question is then why at this point are they pressing on that like like these yeah they're like trying to look hotel rooms and correct yeah like i've been

i've been receiving offers to book my hotel room and do all of that stuff and you know again it's not even uh tell me tell you i could probably book it on my own for cheaper than what they're offering that's neither here nor there where is it it's supposed to be it's in Orlando this year Orlando okay I'm not a fan of Orlando Jesse not one bit don't like Orlando uh don't even like to go there for the theme parks to be honest I will stick to my Los Angeles California thank you very much but with that being said I will say that I'm confused as to why these winter meetings or at least this uh this this this you know they're proceeding forward with it at this point and I guess my personal beef

is I've gone to the winter meetings before. I've gone as a smaller publication. I've paid my own way to be there, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's really valuable. Yeah. I've had a bunch of people recommend to me over the years. You should just go to the winter meetings and just network and try to meet people and it's incredibly. It's incredibly interesting, right? But my problem being that what's going on? Right. Yeah. If it seems like a foregone conclusion that it's not going to happen when it's going to happen, what are we doing here when it comes to trying to get me to book hotel rooms and trying

to get me to book airfare, right? It seems like a little bit of a weird thing. I guess on one hand, you have to proceed as normal, not assuming that there's going to be any kind of work stoppage or any kind of disagreement of these things, but it seems inevitable at this point. Yeah. Yeah. no, it does seem pretty inevitable.

What's not inevitable, like we've talked about, is, you know, delaying the season itself. That's still very much. I would probably bet against that. But, but yeah, I mean, the possibility of there not being a lockout. I've read some stuff from Jeff Passon over the last few days. And he said, basically everyone expects that to be the case. It's not that it's impossible that somehow they miraculously reach an agreement by December second but not exactly something we should count on at this point.

Is there any concerns of this affecting the game, even if it doesn't delay the season? Is there any, is there any concern on their part that, you know, just in general with a game that's kind of dwindling in popularity as it is, is going to be, you know, seen as yet another, here's another disagreement. Here's another work stoppage. even if it doesn't impact, like I said, the schedule. That's a really good question. I haven't thought about that.

I feel like probably not, at least not in like a macro sense, just because as long as they're playing games and they normally play games, I mean, your casual fan probably isn't going to care that much. But I mean, it's a really valid concern. I mean, the owners have sort of, I mean, if there's a lot, I mean, what that is is it's the owners locking out the players. They kind of hold the leverage in this scenario. And a lot of people don't really like the optics of that.

So I wouldn't be surprised if you're right that there are some people who are pretty put off by this. I just, and I mean, I guess it's pretty pessimistic of me to say. I just think it's kind of arrogant sometimes of baseball to just always expect fans to be there. Yeah. I think that there are some cities like a lot of the other teams in the NL West, to be honest, for instance, the Dodgers, the Giants, the Padres, even the Rockies that can't imagine people not coming out to watch their team any longer. Yeah.

But I've seen it. Yeah. I've been there. I feel like I live in the future when it comes to that kind of thing. You can see in certain markets for certain team how nobody cares. And I mean, to be honest. that's the reason why I think it makes Arizona an easy target to say that they're going to relocate because nobody seems to care here about coming to watch baseball.

But really what it is is people don't like going to Chase Field. They don't like watching a losing team. And yeah, there is a little bit of I don't really care that much for baseball. You know, so there's a combination of factors. It's just at times I feel like the sport is teetering on the edge of irrelevancy. you know it's teetering on that edge of you know people not caring anymore i i hate to bore you with wwee talk but let's just say that oh i love w w w i know it's your favorite time for me but it there's kind of the same arrogance there with them and the way they've been

treating their employees they've been firing a lot of people i saw you tweet about that the and it's becoming it's it's kind of becoming a thing right and it's this weird assumption that your fans are always going to be there as if there isn't some alternative with wrestling there's a completely other company that's doing the things everybody wants them to do so there's an alternative when it comes to baseball there's there's other sports people kind of like more now and yeah and you know they they can go watch those sports and they can take the you know especially especially with how late the basketball playoffs went last year and and, you know, just with the weird schedule and everything.

Like, they were like, yeah, man, let's just do this every summer and let's get rid of baseball. So, like, baseball, in my opinion, needs to be very careful when it comes to things like this and how this impacts. Not just, not just the schedule, not just pissing people off because the season gets delayed, but actually pissing people off with the arrogance that thinks that we're going to, that thinks people are still going to care about a sport that continually bickers over, you know, how much guys get paid. and how much owners get and all of this other stuff, right? I understand that they are trying to make the game better, like with what Max Scherzer wants to do and his intentions with competitive balance

and other things like that. You know, I think there needs to be more people like Max Scherzer that are concerned about the game itself and not just if the owners get their pockets lined or if the players get their pockets lined, right? I'm still skeptical that Max Scherzer is genuinely concerned about competitive balance. It's weird, right? I mean, especially when he's like one of the guys that's going to benefit the most from their not being competitive balance.

And you can say all he wants, but, you know, at the end of the day, Max Scherzer is only going to be in a league for a few more years, right? He's not going to really see the benefits or things change too dramatically while he's there. So at this point, he can just get his money while he can and then get out, right? I mean, if he really does care, then that kind of makes him a decent person, right? right now we're seeing this change in MLB. We had the news come out that the major league teams were advised the other day that they needed to start providing the housing for their minor leaguers. As much as that's probably going to result in some MLB team,

just buying some shitty hotel and putting all their minor leaguers in it, like some sort of weird sitcom. You know, it's a- Could you imagine being in a hotel with all minor league baseball players? I would create the reality show about it. It's like a college storm situation, right? Like, that's weird. But at the end of the day, minor leaguers are not currently cared for the way they should.

And again, that goes back to my point that the sports dwindling. It's not just the fans. It's the athletes. It's the stars. It's the people that choose to play baseball when they could play another sport. right people choose to play baseball because they really love it it tends to be an easier career on your body and you can typically get more years out of a baseball career than you can another sport right you know especially when it comes to football like kaila murray for the ari for the arizona

cardinals who could have gone for the oakland a's or could have gone for the cardinals right um but you know i i i just again that's that that's where my concern is and that's where i think they need to be careful. But you don't have to be careful. You could go get all sorts of opinions like this from us on go phtonx.com. I put up a piece today about Brent Strom's thoughts from his press conference yesterday and how just, you know, great, great he was. He was very gracious and grateful for the Arizona Diamondbacks, you know, giving him this opportunity

as their pitching coach. So go on to go phtonx.com, become a member. You can either get the annual membership. ship, which will get you a free t-shirt. And again, if you go over to the PHNX Sons or Coyotes, they might sweeten the deal and double down on that free t-shirt offer for you. But that free t-shirt comes from the PHNX Locker.com. Check out the PHNX Locker.

We have all sorts of great shirts there, too. Hopefully you like what we got going on. It entices you to become a member. If you're not interested in the annual membership option, we do offer a month-to-month option that will get you your first month for just 50 cents. So please join us over here. We have our members-only Discord. We have our members-only discounts over at the PHNX Locker.com.

So we hope it's enough to make you feel like you're getting your money's worth. We understand it's not easy to spend your money in this day and age, especially on just more and more content. There's so much content out there, whether it's TV, sports, whatever it is. So we appreciate you taking the time to check out the show. And we definitely appreciate you becoming a member if you have done so already. and that that brings us down to once again it's time for our drafting sports book pick of the week Jesse I what you got Derek I'm I'm typically this is where I fall back on telling everybody to bet against the coyotes but that's how I was going to guess are we they won their second

game this week Jesse their second game so they're trending in the right direction they're also becoming a little bit more unpredictable they have a new goal to tender that has actually been doing pretty well. And I, again, if it was just a straight up money line situation, I'm taking the coyotes to lose. But that puck line, it makes it a little bit more difficult with the one and a half goal. You know, just that extra goal. I don't know what to do there.

So I'm going to steer clear of the coyotes for now until they get back to their losing ways. But I'm going to give you my pick of the week. First, I'm going to give you two Jacksonville Jaguars. I'm taking them. I'm taking actually the 49ers to cover the spread over the Jaguars. And any pro 49ers stats or anything you want to take there, I hate the over-under in that game. I absolutely can't stand it.

But here's what I took. I took the 49ers covering the spread at six and a half. And then I did the Defein-lock thing. I went the Defe-in-lock way. I took both Jimmy Garoppolo and Trevor Lawrence to have the under on the most passing yards that I could take. So I took the under at 299.5 yards on Jimmy Garoppel's passing yards. I took the under on Trevor Lawrence's passing yards at 269.5.

And I also took the race to five points, Jesse. So the first to five points, and I took the San Francisco 49ers on that. So that's my four-picked same game parlay. And that's what I'm giving you as our draft king's pick of the week. do whatever you want. Draft Kings, again, you can go crazy on there. I was betting Lithuania basketball the other day. So that's amazing.

It all depends on what time you wake up and what sports are on at the time. This is basically what I'm saying. But jump on there again. Use the draft king's sportsbook app. Use our code of PHNX for betting a dollar on any NFL or NBA team to score anything, basically. You will get $100 in free bets instantly. But we thank you,

guys so much for joining us checking out the show. Of course, you could get us on Twitter. I'm at Cap underscore Kband with a K. Jesse is at Jesse and Freeman. Our show is at K, uh, excuse me, at PHNX underscore D-BACs. But of course, all roads lead to at PHNX underscore sports. And that is on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. If you're listening to us right now on your favorite audio podcast, please subscribe,

leave us a five-star review and then jump over to YouTube and subscribe to us there over at PHNX Sports. Uh, you can sign up for notification. to get all of this hot, fresh baked content from all of your favorite Arizona sports, not just us, the Cardinals, the Suns, the Coyotes. Let me tell you, I love Petey. If you're not a Coyotes fan,

Stephen Peters will make you a Coyotes fan. So hop on over, check out the Coyote show. They're doing some really fun stuff over there. They're in the same position as we are. We're all in the same miserable boat. Tank season for them started from game one, which is way worse than we can say about the Arizona. That's true.

We had at least a month and a half, right? Yeah, we only had a little bit of tank season, but, you know, go over and send your condolences to them. On behalf of Jesse and myself, we thank you so much for checking out the show. And remember, kids, baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun when you bet on it.