PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Southwest Bias: The WORST Decision in Arizona Sports HISTORY

Episode Date: July 1, 2024

In the latest edition of Southwest Bias, Erik Ruby, Bo Brock & Espo go back in time to discuss the worst contracts ever given out by an Arizona sports franchise, and which ones stung the most.#NFL #NBA #MLB #NCAAF #Cardinals #Suns #Diamondbacks #bradleybeal #kliffkingsbury #SteveKeim #Contracts #FreeAgency #NBAFreeAgencySUBSCRIBE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKaPEqS_Mc6eGNNBQN1QgQwWebsite:http://gophnx.com/PHNX Locker:PHNXLocker.comSocialTwitter: @PHNX_SportsInstagram: @PHNX_Sports 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.

Everybody's got a price, but some people just aren't worth it. It's another edition of Southwest Bias. Get that stuff out of here. It's Southwest Bias. As always, brought to you by Desert Financial Credit Union, Arizona's number one credit union named by Forbes. Make sure you like this video. Make sure you are subscribed to P.HNX to March to 30K. We're almost there.

I've got Espo, Bobra. As always, gentlemen, I am Eric Ruby, and I feel like I am on an undeserved contract. So we're going to talk about other people. As a manager here, I know you are. It's fair enough, but free agencies going on in the NBA, some big deals being handed out. Obviously, only a veteran minimum so far for the Phoenix Suns and Mason Plumley. But we got bag talk, and that kind of got us thinking about what were some of the worst bags given out in Arizona sports history. You can't also bury the lead that it's Bobby Bonilla Day.

It is Bobby Ballade. He hasn't played in like most of my lifetime and is still getting paid by the Mets. Isn't that the dream? That's a good contract for him and a terrible one for the team. Yeah, it's almost, it was almost so bad now to the point, though, where it's like, you know what, if I was in, it's like, I wouldn't care. Right. I'm like, this is just kind of funny.

Here's your million dollars, whatever. Enjoy it. Well, yeah, a lot of contract talk going around. And Bo, I'll just ask you, what was the first name player moment that came to mind when you were like, oh, ugh, bad contract. Oh, the first one for me is just a NFL bank robber in the name of Sam Bradford. In 2018, the Arizona Cardinals had zero contingency plan for the quarterback position. Carson Palmer finally hangs it up after a nice run for Bruce Ariens and crew.

BA retires. The Arizona Cardinals are an organization in transition. And with the NFL, unlike the NBA, free agency comes first. Then the NFL draft. They go out and take a swing at a veteran quarterback, a bridge, if you may. But this bridge, the architecture on it was not. great. Sam Bradford coming over. I think originally it was like a three year 18 to 20 million dollar deal. He placed three games for this organization before giving way to Josh Rosen in that

horrible three and 13 season. Sam Bradford just unbelievable. Like he didn't have to wear a mask to rob the Cardinals, but he did. Well, and so here are the numbers on that two year 40 million dollar deal right before drafting Josh Rosen. And like you said, ended up playing. three games, four interceptions, two touchdowns, quarterback rating a 24. A ton of fumbles too. He was just, he was a turnover machine. He may have been a bridge over troubled waters here, but let's be honest. Without him, you don't get Kyler Murray.

Yeah. You knew what you were paying for. You overpaid because you just needed a veteran that was serviceable, you hoped, for one year. You structured it so it was one year. Espo, you're being too kind. I don't think, I don't think that can be. the worst contract in Arizona Sports history. Let's give full context. If you want to look into the future of the Sam Bradford deal,

like how it led to Kyler Murray, let's look one offseason previous and the quarterback draft that was where Patrick Mahomes goes to Kansas City Chiefs, Deshaun Watson goes to the Houston Texans where the Arizona Cardinals were within striking distance. They were interested in Mahomes, but they let the chiefs get up the board. Pretty crazy when you look at that trade in hindsight. They got up with the Buffalo Bills. Yeah. And my homes continues to just haunt them going forward their dreams every night.

That, I mean, that doesn't mean they had to, I mean, that didn't make Sam Brad for his contract worse. Like, the whole premise is what's the worst contract in Arizona sports history? And it's easy. It's Yosmani Tomas. It's a big. Six year, 68 and a half million dollar contract. You know why? Yeah.

Because Tony LaRusa and Dave Stewart sold him to the Valley as the future. The next great slugger of the Arizona Diamondbacks. The answer to Yasiel Pugge with the Dodgers. And that answer lasted three years in baseball. He had 295 hits, 163 RBI, and 48 home runs in his time with the Diamondbacks. That breaks down to $232,000 per hit, $420,000 per hour. RBI and $1.4 million per home run. That is money you should have just lit on fire for a team that can't afford to spend.

This isn't the deep pocketed NFL. This is the cheap ass, you know, MLB back in the day and the Diamondbacks who have always had a tight payroll because they don't generate enough revenue to miss on a six-year $68 million. And I think that's the thing with that one is the fact that it was the Diamondback. who handed out such a massive bag. And fans were excited because we're like, wow, like we're spending. We're investing, you know? Like, this is the right thing.

This is what winning baseball teams do. This is unfortunately what the Los Angeles Dodgers do. And it's like, here's our counter. And that wasn't the only big misstep of the Diamondbacks paying big bags. You can throw names like Madison Bumgarner out there as well. I like to refer to him as Mason Saunders, of course, his alias for bull riding. The bull riding, yeah. That's right.

Because he was a much better bull rider than he was starting pitcher. for the Arizona Diamondbacks. And like, that actually creeps into this season. Like when you look at their inability to Stein former, like, left-handed World Series heroes, we're watching one play out right now. And Jordan Montgomery, unfortunately, it looks like a bad investment. But, like, baseball is probably the top because all the,

all that money is guaranteed for the most part. Like, you can think back at some bad sons deals and those are up there, right? Like, there's certainly guys like Josh Children's. but you look at that deal in hindsight it's not that bad it was like three for 18 right yeah but back then it was a little bit of a deal compared to you know the funny money that's going down right now one like stands out to me that i think flies under the radar and maybe it's just recency bias but you talk about the organization and how it operates maybe not within its first it's football or its roster i guess the arizona cardinals inexplicable signing or extensions like that

of Steve Kime and Cliff Kingsbury. Well, while not extending and giving your contract to your franchise quarterback and then instead embarrassing him with his clauses and whatever and then ending up moving on from Cliff and Kime

like right after that. Right after that is. That is a good call because when that happened, there was not a single person. It was like, oh yeah. The most casual of casuals, Ruby, was just like, what are they doing?

That's why you don't give a contract to your drinking, let's make that very clear. And then you don't tie your horse to the coach that he's sold on. Right. That to me felt like it was more personal relationships that led to that, right? Sure. These other things is just the dimebacks, you know, Mason Saunders, you know,

Bum Gardner or Montgomery, you're paying for reputation, right? Sam Bradford, to an extent you're paying for that. Yassio Pueig, you're paying for, or not Yassio Pueg, Yosmani, Tomas, You're paying on complete hope, hope and prayer. And like, that's what it felt like here. But it's, yeah, the, the kind one makes no, never made any sense outside of he'd been with the organization that long. And they made the playoffs, right? But they backed in, like, as much as any team could that season.

And they crumbled when they got there. They absolutely got their doors blown off in the postseason. Everybody was just like, okay, like we were excited about this team for a couple weeks in the 2021 season. Murray looked like an MVP candidate. And then it's just started to deteriorate. Let's take a beat. And it's like going into, it was the NFL combine. It was like the first day of it.

And we get that, you know, that tweet from Ian Rappaport. It's like the Cardinals have extended Steve Kime and Cliff Kingsbury and everybody's breath was taken away. Yeah. Because you knew this isn't going to age well. What happens? You know, they go into that tumultuous public negotiation. with their franchise quarterback, and then we see the season unfold and it's 4 and 13, Black Monday comes, both of them are gone, and they're stuck with the tab.

So what's worse? Is it the contracts that the moment that they get announced, you go, or the contracts that you can talk yourself into, like the whole part of it, and this guy's going to be good, and wow, that's actually a great deal? And then it doesn't work out, because I think you can really argue, well, duh, duh, duh. But, like, what, like, I'm trying to think for me personally. I even think about a guy like Trevor Arisa, signing the one-year $15 million deal. And obviously, like, on the grand scheme of things, a one-year deal for that chunk of change,

it's not franchise altering. But I thought that was a good move. I'm like, this is a good connector, a good vet. Somebody's going to help this team win. And then fast forward, obviously, none of that works out. He's not happy. He doesn't perform well, everything like that. It's like, is that worse or is that better than if they signed somebody else.

I was like, I just don't like that. You know, because at least you're expecting it. Like, when they extended Kime and Kingsbury, I was like, that might be the dumbest thing I've ever seen in my entire life. And so it let me kind of deal with it better. I think it's worse, though, because if you and I sitting here can see the car wreck before it happens, the people signing the million-dollar checks, you would hope were capable of seeing that as well. I think that's worse because hope you can at least go, they thought this guy could be something, and we all thought this guy could be something. When you look at a contract like the

Kime and the Cliff Kingsbury extension. You go, we all know this is bad. Why do you not know this is bad? Yeah. I think that's much worse because you can sell me on hope. You can't sell me on stupidity. Yeah, maybe. Maybe sell a little bit on stupidity.

Just the tad. You can pray on stupidity, but you can't sell me on it where I feel any better. Oh yeah, well, he's stupidity. He made that siding, but I believe it's going to get better. So we've got, I think we've got the Cardinals for the most part locked in. I got one more for Cardinals. What do we got? It's Kevin Cobb.

Kevin Cobb, sure. But that was kind of a trade. They had to get. You're still paying six years, $62.1 million. Not great. But again, Hope. Who's QB one? Yeah, but it was, it was Hope.

That's so sad. He played. Right. He played well as a backup in Philly. Concussions did him in a large part. And I think it's tough when a health issue, especially like that, comes into play with the contract, you can't project concussions knocking guy out of the league, right?

I think that's a tough one to me from that standpoint. The 2012 season, then he went 4 and O, I believe, was their starter, and then dealt with a rib or sternum issue, kept him out, team imploded. That was the end of the Wizzing era. Yeah, I think he's more of what could have been kind of thing. It's fair. It could have, shoulda, than a horrible contract in my mind.

Okay, so we were moving on from the Cardinals. I think we've got the dime back. Dimebacks have a couple in there. I think you mentioned Russ Ortiz in our text conversation. You go back and look, and again, it's one of those in the time the money looked ridiculous, but as you get a decade, decade and a half away from it, you go, oh, that's nothing compared to now.

Right. So it's hard to contextualize that, right? But Phoenix Suns, there's got to be a, couple in there. Hakee Warwick. Banks? Marcus Banks. Marcus Banks was bad. Again, another one you look back in, you know, okay, money-wise in today's world.

A lot of the NBA contracts back then would be absolute steals now. Earl Watson getting the head coaching job. That one was being gone. Yeah, was a bad contract. It's tough because the sons went into that, you know, we're, we're hopium playing on the draft, right? So it's tough to call those bad contracts because they're all slotted. But the one that comes to mind is Trevor Areza.

Yeah. One year, I think it was $15 million. Dude never visits here, gets here, and was like, this place sucks. It's like, well, hey, that's on you, jackass for not coming here and realizing there was no personal chef or this or that and complaining. But when you had to then turn around and deal him. Right. Because you had made such a bad signing.

That one, money-wise made a bad marriage. It was like, hey, what's the, like, the littlest time we can spend together before we get this thing annulled. And you were just biding your time before you could trade them within the NBA rule. Yeah, you're like, oh, we've got the annulment in the works. Two days after we got this done. Yeah, I think that one was a. What was the deal after that 48 win season and not make the pay? postseason. But there was so much

excitement. It was Isaiah Thomas. Did they sign them or they trade? They signed and traded them and you got the point guardians of the galaxy. Look where we are right now. No point guards. I mean, that's Phoenix. This has been a city known for point guards and now there are no. But luckily, when you're in the second apron, you can't sign bad contracts because

you can only sign that minimum. I don't know where we fall into I know talking trades and stuff. I feel like if you're talking about contracts in the Phoenix Suns right now, a lot of eyes are on Bradley Beals contract. I know that you didn't choose to pay him that amount of money, but you did decide to trade for him. Where does that fall among all of this?

Too early to tell. Yeah. You can't judge him on the first injury-riddled season. Now, if it plays out like that for the next two, yeah, one of the worst deals ever from a trade perspective, from a money you're paying, well, maybe not from a trade perspective. You gave up the courts of CP3 and Andrew Shammett and some second round picks, but from a contract perspective and what it will mean for the organization if he doesn't

bounce back. Yeah, that would be an all-time bad one there. Do you consider like that in the same category? No, I think it's especially when you look at just like full context, where they were as an organization, what they wanted to do, who was available. and the fact that you could get Bradley Beal to come to Phoenix and try this. It was experimental where I think when you're looking at just straight free agent deals and the very little cost, all it's going to cost is the dollars and cents attach to the contract.

I think it's very different. Like that's why I felt like with the Cobb situation, you felt like, hey, this Cardinals organization desperately needs a quarterback who's available, much like Bradley Beale. And you go out and you give up the assets in order to do. do so, but we're free agency. Like, I think the opium is even more so. Like, you're going out there, you're not having to really give up any assets. All you have to do is really agree to the terms and then put pen to paper as far as signing

your John Hancock. And like, we're just riddled with bad deals. As is every sports market. Like, every sports market can have this conversation. But, man, these are the ones that just kind of haunt Valley Sports forever. Can I throw one more? Yes, please. purchasing the Herm Train.

Herm Edwards with ASU. I would argue, again, that was personal relationships leading to a contract, which I think is always a bad way to go about it. I mean, I did think about that and also think about the fact that ASU was still paying Ray Anderson, the original contract that they agreed upon just to be a teacher and an athletic director. I think that is up there as well. I'll end it, though, on kind of like a funny note.

In doing research for this, I stumbled a... upon Arizona sports fans.com, which is an old forum that people used to use. And this is from 2004. Is this me? I don't know. Are you E. Lindholm? No. I thought for sure, because that was a favorite of mine back in the college days. Well, maybe you'll remember E. Lindholm complaining about Sean Marion's contract and Jerry Colangelo maxing him out a little bit prematurely, he said. I thought you're going to say 2004. I thought you're going to say he was. going to complain about the Nash Con. Complained about Sean Marion making $10 million in the contract going on forever.

And everybody in the comments is like, yeah, I think this is one of the worst contracts. I think the Charlotte Bobcats wouldn't have drafted Sean Marion because of his contract in the expansion draft. And I'm like, man, like you look back at like Sean Marion and his time here. It's like, that's not the sentiment that a lot of people I feel like have now. And so I thought it was funny to like go back and tie. I'd be like, you know what? As sports fans, like, we really haven't changed.

All we want to do is complain about the contract and paying and everything like that. Now. You had to search this out of form back in the day. Yeah. Now you're just like, oh, that app and Twitter and I'm firing off every thought I ever had. See,

it's weird how time heals some of those wounds. Like you forget some of your beloved sports stars. You remember them or misremember them like as not having any kind of rocky, you know, times outside. Like I remember, you know, the Matrix forced his way out eventually.

But right. That was before he became universally beloved for the most part because of how he played. that time and that your sport, Jake Plummer, now beloved. But I remember times where he was throwing passes behind his back and Cardinals fans were losing their ever-loving mind

ready to move on. He had four seasons of 20 interceptions. Four seasons. Yeah. That's kind of unheard of at this time. And like his contract, if you look back and we've talked to people that played during that era, like it wasn't necessary

at the time. And It cost them, you know, some big-time players, including like Larry Centers, who they had to say goodbye to. Lomas Brown. In order to, yeah, to make Jake the Snake steal work. It's, uh, that team that we love so much that made it's what of the postseason and won a game, it was, it's, you know, quickly deteriorated because Palmer had to get that big deal. Oh, Bo, I know we have to give you your big deal.

So, Eric, I'm sorry, but Bo will be hoping from now on. It's fair. I mean, it's, it's fair. I will say as my parting gift with Southwest bias then. I want to remind people that time is a flat circle because Chris Sanders, May 11, 2004. As to why Suns fans whine about Marion's contract, well, it's because it seems that some people aren't happy unless they're whining about this team in some fashion. And if that ain't the truth, then I don't know what is. Remind you guys. It doesn't get any better.

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