PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Spending the D-backs' Money

Episode Date: November 11, 2021

On this episode, Jesse and Derek are discussing Arizona Fall League updates, what it's like to be drafted as a high school kid, and MLB free agency madness, Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome to the PHNX D-BACs podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Montia, occasionally known as your mayor of PHNX, and also the mayor of baseball. Yeah, I'm just expanding it to encompass all of baseball. Jesse, you know what that means, though. That means you are the vice mayor of baseball. That's true. That's true. My co-host, it's the one and only thunderstick Jesse Friedman.

As long as you promote me along with yourself. with all of these lofty titles, then I guess I can deal with that. Here's the thing. We have been doing this now for just over two months, Jesse, and I don't plan on doing anything without you. I intend to keep you at my side firmly

for the rest of time, much like this iPhone 13 that I got, that I told you I got the terrible. Wow, I'm on the iPhone 13. It's Jesse. When I die, it's going to be Jesse in one hand, and this iPhone 13 in the other. But this show is brought to you guys.

Your wife and kid probably fit somewhere. Whatever. They're all right. They're all right. But they definitely don't back me up with stats the way that you do, my friend. Ah, that's what I'm here for. That's right. This podcast is brought to you by the fine folks over at the Draft King Sportsbook app.

Download the Draft King Sportsbook app. Use our code of P.HNX and simply for betting $1 on any NFL team or NBA team to score points of any kind, you will get $100 in free bets from the Drafking Sportsbook app. Go do it now. Obviously, this is for new customers only, but if you haven't signed up yet, go do it and bet some money on the coyotes to lose. That's my first piece of advice to all new gamblers. Jesse, I am sunburned.

I am dehydrated, but I have been having the time of my life out at the Arizona Fall League. obviously been watching the Salt River Rafters, the team that the Arizona Diamondbacks prospects are a part of, unfortunately, just

get bashed game after game lately. But you know what? It's because the D-Back prospects are the only ones that belong, right? I mean, they're the only ones doing anything good. There you go. It's all the other teams that just can't pull their weight.

I'll tell you, when I, when I saddled up and started recording buddy Kennedy, day and he hit a home run. It was immediately. That was very cool moment, you know. Yeah. Speaking of Buddy Kennedy, I got the chance to talk to him on field today. And just a great guy. Just a great guy. Our friend Patrick Lyons immediately made a connection with him because they're both Jersey boys. But yeah, just real cool individual. And I'm excited for his future. He had an interesting story that one of the top prospects, a guy that was drafted by the Minnesota Twins.

Chase Petty. Yeah. Apparently he called him up because he kind of wanted to pick his brain about like what's next now that I've been drafted. So Chase Petty called up Kennedy and wanted to kind of pick his brain about or I guess. get some advice on what to do next or what to do now. But he's only 18 years old, I think. He was probably right of high school. Correct.

And Buddy also got drafted right out of high school, went right into the Diamondbacks organization. It was an interesting thought to me, though, because here you are a high school kid. Obviously, if you're at a high enough level to get drafted in the first round like Petty did, he was drafted 26th overall by the Minnesota Twins, you have. You know, you've been working towards this. You're, you know, you're, you've probably been playing not only in high school, but in like travel ball leagues and, you know, all sorts of baseball your entire life. Now here you are.

You're at this moment where you're drafted and your dreams have come true. But you have no more school that's, that's kind of giving you a schedule or something to get up in the morning floor and go do, right? You have no, you know, like, yes, you have these set. practices, you have set workouts, you have all of this stuff that's that the team sets up and tells you you exactly when and where to be, you just also have all of this downtime in between. And sometimes you just don't know what to do with yourself, right? You know, do you get extra workouts in? Is that allowed? Should you not be considering that they have you on a certain schedule? You know, should you be resting, icing, you know, doing anything to just make sure that your body is, is ready, you know,

And it's just the thought of you being just out of high school, I had no fucking clue what I was going to do with my life right out of high school. I didn't know if I was going to college. I didn't know if I was going to get a job. I was so completely lost at that point. I had tremendous grades coming out of high school. I just, I kind of had a lot of wishy-washy advice from the people that I considered to be mentors in my life at the time.

Unfortunately, when you when you have people that didn't make great, decisions themselves, they tend to give you bad advice. Sometimes advice that's more complimentary to their story to the way their life went rather than telling you the right thing. It's sometimes hard to tell your friend like, no, don't stick around with me at this job we work at. Go better your life. Get the hell out of here, right? You needed a vice mayor back then too. That's why I've learned very quickly not to let you slip out of my life. not only are you there to correct me all the time but you're also there back me up and people people need both you need both right so but i mean just to think once again about being a high

school kid that's been drafted by an MLB team you're part of this system you know there's all of this excitement however as you know the system is long and arduous it's a it's a tough road and when you're starting down it you might be excited about the concept or the prospect of joining a baseball team at a major league level, but that is so far away from you at that point when you get drafted that, you know, you kind of have to reset your expectations and, you know, kind of slow down those, I guess, those expectations, like lower them just a bit and start to set, you know, more reachable goals in shorter time period so that you can move from one level up to the next.

Yeah, no, it's so true that there is just people don't realize the bizarre life circumstances that the game of baseball and really all professional sports puts, you know, these high school kids into, right? This is even more so the case in other sports, like especially the NBA where now it's very normal for guys to get drafted out of, I mean, generally you don't really play more than one year of college at this point. NBA draftees are pretty much all, you know, taken right after their freshman year. And it's a similar story in baseball, right, where these guys start their pro career at a very, very young age. And in baseball, it's more common for guys to maybe play a little bit in college, maybe a little bit more so than other sports. But it's still crazy.

Like, I'm guessing for most of our listeners, like, if you picture yourself, you know, back when you were 18 years old, you probably didn't have the level of maturity. that would have been needed in order to, like, in order to do much of anything, I mean, when you're 18 years old, I mean, you're still figuring out a whole lot of things about your life, much less, you know, trying to be a professional athlete who conducts themselves professionally, who puts in the work. And yeah, you're absolutely right. There is no well-defined routine for a guy taken, you know, out of high school thrust directly into professional sports. They really have to find their own way. And I'm not surprised in any way that, you know, Buddy Kennedy now is a guy who was in that position is now a resource for some of the younger players in the game who are like, I don't know what I'm doing.

Like, I'm really good at baseball and that's why I'm in this position. But in baseball, you've got a long ways to go from when you're drafted to when you're actually, you know, living your dream playing on the major league stage. So good luck to Chase Petty. and I'm glad he has someone like Buddy Kennedy in his life to, you know, help him along the way here early on. Here's the thing for me. I found myself relating to what he was saying. His advice to Petty was to get into a routine, you know, create a routine for yourself. No matter what it is, get into that routine.

Find a way for you to, you know, get some exercise in, find some time for yourself, you know. He said that, you know, when he was lost a bit, himself, he found himself playing a lot of video games, which, oh my God, that would have totally been my free time, you know, killer, right? Like, I mean, especially with the quality of games, I mean, if you find yourself playing MLB the show, you know this for a fact. That game is a high-level baseball simulator, and you can actually learn a thing or two by playing MLB the show. You can. I'm just say it. I'm just saying. The schedule thing, though, I found to be so true. I related to this so much with this job. I worked for a bank for 17 years, much like being in school or anything

else. I for 17 years knew where I was going when I got up in the morning. I knew how long I was going to be there. I knew when lunch was. I knew what was expected of me. This job is such an incredible opportunity. I love this company. I love working here. I'm not just saying that because right now I'm being recorded. I know I'm being recorded. My bosses don't listen to this. They're not a fan of one of the hosts of this show. And I'll let you guess which one that is. Jesse might lose some sleep, but I guarantee you it's not him. Anyway, I will say that, you know, again, doing this, you know, having this opportunity being a part of this is difficult because of the transition that I had from having some place to go, having something to do, trying to find time to be a sports reporter,

trying to find time to catch up on baseball news and watch games and all of that stuff, versus, you know, now I have all this time and it's a matter of organizing everything, organizing the thoughts for the show, articles, interviews. I mean, sometimes with interviews, you have to book them so far down the line that it's almost like Saturday Night Live where you need to have those cards We had to book Patrick like at least two months in advance, right? Oh yeah, Patrick, it's crazy.

He has an agent. You can't even go directly to him. You have to go through his agent and his agent's assistant. The shit out of us. It was incredible. I couldn't believe it. Like I was, you know, I was casually like, hey. And he gave me one of those.

Yeah, man, I hate to make you do this. But, you know, there's, there is a process for this and I was like a process and yeah that's when again as Jesse just said he told us about the agents and the stylists

and everybody that you have to go through you have to sign NDAs which I thought was excessive but I mean it's a podcast everybody's gonna listen to it right it's I'll tell you it's madness and it's not just madness

his situation with getting him on this podcast isn't just madness this whole thing isn't just madness with coming up to the major leagues. But it's free agent madness right now, Jesse. Despite the fact that we're very, very likely going to have a lockout and at least some sort of stoppage in baseball activity until a new deal gets worked out.

Yeah. People are going crazy with the baseball rumors. I've already seen Carlos Correa tied to like five teams. The big wave today is that he's going to the, Yankees. Cashman made some comments about how essentially they were all in. I would think that the Yankees would learn from this, but nope, they're just going to keep spending their way out of it, right? Did he say, all in on Correa or just all in on a big name shortstop free agent? I feel like you're making me have to go back and read Twitter news.

Probably didn't have very much validity to it. It's, there's, you know, there's these quotes. there are these things that happen. It's kind of like the news today about the Diamondbacks being in the market for a third baseman and, what, relief pitching? Like, yes, first of all, we know that. That's no surprise. We didn't need Amiel Saaday to give an interview and tell us that the Diamondbacks needed help at third base and in the bullpen. But I mean, it's still, for what it's worth. It's interesting, I guess.

It's information. It's information. Because he said apparently something like the snakes are never, like, out of it or whatever or complete. Because basically the idea right now is that they're going to tank again next season. Well, they're not going to tank tank. They're just not going to like meaningfully. Purposeful tanking is not something you can do in baseball, Jesse. Right.

So obviously that's not what I mean. But the idea here is that they're, let me put a different way, that they're not going to be competitive. in 2022. Well, I don't think there are that many teams that are. And I saw someone tweeting about this. There were a few people tweeting about this today. I don't remember the exact names, but reputable people. And they were like, basically, there's 17 teams.

That seems to be the magic number. There are 17 teams that are trying to compete in 2022. And the other 13, and I didn't look at any lists that they made. But I could bet the Diamondback are among the 13. Jesse, I'll let you $50 from my DraftKing Sportsbook app right now that the 9-A-Max are not one of the 17. They're not one of the 17. No, absolutely. But, I mean, Ami El Sade isn't going to give an interview and say otherwise, right?

Like, he's not going to say, yeah, we're packing it in. We're not really trying to contend next year. So he said some things that you would expect him to say. He said, I don't think we ever waived the white flag and say, well, we're giving up on 2022. Right. of course, that's that's sort of something that he kind of has to say. And in some ways, I buy it. Like the diamondbacks are going to try to improve.

They are going to try to get a third baseman. They are going to try to get some bullpen help. I think they realize that what they've done the last few years with their bullpen hasn't really done a whole lot. And maybe they go back and essentially try the same strategy and, you know, try to get some guys who are past their primes and, you know, in their 30s, but maybe have something left in the tank. That's probably what they're going to do when it comes down to the bullpen.

at the end of the day. But they're going to go out and make some moves. And so there's some validity to what Amil Sade is saying here. That's exactly what I feel. It's not going to be any of these top free agents that are going to cost them a bunch of money at this point because now is not the time to pull that trigger on that. One thing I've realized watching the World Series and the playoffs this year is not only do those big moves not really necessarily transfer over to being good in the playoffs. all of that, right? Like that's one of the reasons why some of these teams, despite calling them bigger small markets, don't make those big moves. It's because their philosophy is that why pay a guy

this amount when we have another guy that hits this guy and we have a good coach that can coach this guy up and make him better? And I mean, it's, again, the Goldschmidt Walker situation. If I can pay Christian Walker $500,000 versus paying Paul Goldschmidt. 20 plus million dollars a year. And they're going to hit like they did at least for that one season. Well, things changed last year, Derek. Things changed last year. But like that, you know, the one season that we had hope about it, right?

Yeah. For a while it looked really. They were like 10 to 15 batting average points off and a few, you know, a handful of home runs. As far as that goes, it's worth saving the money, right? The difference with Goldschmidt is he. He is an elite player. He is the kind of player that you pay the money.

You pay the money because you got him on a cheap contract, and the Diamondbacks owed him that money. The Diamondbacks owed him a big contract because in retrospect, he kind of got screwed on the big contract that they should have already given him, right? The Diamondbacks should have held on to him simply because he is not just a good baseball player. he's a great baseball player that has proven to do it consistently over an extended period of time. Baseball players come and go all the time. You know, certain guys on this team that are no longer on this team or we're on this team

hung their hat on one good season like Jake Lamb and others who really had one really great season and never lived back up to that same level. Well, Jake Lamb really had like two good half seasons. He was always great in the first half and not great in the second half. But you're right. If we put them together, it makes it. That's the two seasons. That's it. That's the one season. Those two seasons. Right. Right. But who knows. We're going to get crazy and we're going to talk just insane free agency wishes coming up here shortly. But before we do that, I just want to remind everybody of our draft king's offer. Draft Kings sportsbook app is the official sportsbook app of both the NBA and the NFL. And here's the thing. I went ahead and researched it. And there. There has not really been a zero-zero tie in the history of the NBA. So with their offer of betting at least on one team to score, at least one point, you're pretty good.

I did find in 2015 a boys high school basketball game between Bibb County and Brookwood and Alabama that ended in a. two nothing score and has been deemed the most boring basketball game of all time. Here's the thing. If you would have bet money on Bibb County to score points in that game, you still would have won. You still would have won the $100 in free bets. So go to the Drafking Sportsbook app, use our code of PHNX, and get that money. Then take that, because it's going to be free bets. I don't want you to be upset.

It's not going to be $100 in money. It's $100 in free bets. You can turn around, you take those free bets. You place them on other sure things like the coyotes losing once again, and you get your money actually back. You'll double that the free bet money and the real money. You get all the money. All the money is yours.

But again, draft king sports book customers can get in the game with same game parley. I'm Mr. Parlay. Not nearly as cool as Patrick's. nickname of Big Papa Parlay, which now I can't even sleep at night. I left that one completely on the table. But again, combine multiple bets from the same game for a bigger payout. You can do that in NFL, NBA, whatever sport you want. You don't even have to do the same game parlay.

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gambling problem, dial 1,800 next step. New customers only, eligibility restrictions apply. See draftkings.com slash sportsbook for details. Jesse, I want to get insane. I want to get crazy. Oh, man. We know the Diamondbacks aren't going to make any big moves, right? We've had this question a whole bunch.

And I know we're going to get around to more reasonable selections, probably guys that people don't really want to hear, guys that, again, though, are, like you said, veterans, people that they're going to bring in that they feel probably can maybe help out with the teaching of the younger players as well as contribute to the team. I know when we spoke to Jeff Bannister, he was very high on that. I know that's been a big part of his philosophy in the past. I wouldn't be surprised to see them do that. I feel like that was somewhat of their intent this season as well with the names that they picked up. with that being said i want to throw all of that out the window and i want us to just

pick which free agents we would get if the diamondbacks were just spending all the money if they were just spending all the money if the i'm not allowed to be realistic is that what you're telling me well you you can be as realistic as you want to be here is the only parameter for this selection and we are not picking teams we're just throwing some names out there that if it was up to us if the Arizona Diamondbacks wanted to really just spend money. Now, keep in mind, Arizona is in the bottom like 25, I believe, in salaries in the league. They easily could spend a lot more money. But for reasons that we've discussed at length on this podcast, don't necessarily have the same income that the West Coast, you know, California teams do with their merchandise and their full stadiums and all of the great stuff they got going on.

I think they're probably a little lower than, than the, you said they're, they're the lowest 25. They're in the bottom. Oh, I meant, I meant, I'm sorry.

Like, like, like, like, like bottom five. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, they're like,

yeah, you're, you're probably right. They're not in the top five and spend. Bottom 10, bottom 10, I believe, or bottom,

bottom five, one or the other, but I mean, I think they spent 80, you know, 80 million dollars last year, which is crazy considering, we know how much of that is Madison,

, love gardener's contract so yeah uh yeah you know let's just let's just uh go shopping with ken kendrick's money for a little bit and see who we would select i'm going to go ahead and let you go first oh okay all right um okay i feel like i mean there's no way this is going to happen people but if you could do it all over again don't you wish you could see our man robbie ray 100% 100% that was my number one pick

Jesse that was my number we keep letting me go first of these things no I am no I'm I'm so 100% on board with this go ahead although personally I would

I would dig Daniel Descalso if I really wanted to spend big shut your stupid stupid terrible team selecting mouth oh man listen to yesterday show if you don't understand

the insight It was quite funny. But yeah, no, I mean, Robbie Ray is, is a Sye Young finalist. And obviously, this was, this was kind of the, this was kind of the nightmare that we all envision that at some point the Diamondbacks might move on from Robbie Ray. For good reason, you just couldn't really figure things out here. He had a lot of trouble putting things together as command was, was as big of a mess as ever when he left. And of course, he goes to Toronto and, you know, is a Siong candidate finalist and led all of a, Let me do this. Let me do this.

2.84 ERA. 2.84. 11.54 strikeouts per 9. Oh. And here's the most baffling one. The 209 opponent batting average, that's infuriating. The six, Jesse, 6.9% walk rate. Oh, my gosh.

The 6.9% walk rate. that's not just like like that's not average like Robbie Ray didn't just figure out how to become average with this command which would have been extraordinary in itself he figured out how to become like borderline elite with his command that is essentially what happened and yeah I mean you're going to have to pay him a lot of money now Derek I mean he's probably going to get looks like MLB trade rumors hasn't pegged for five years 130 million which is interesting that's actually I believe that is exactly the contract that Paul Colchman signed with the Cardinals. Those are the numbers of pain here in Arizona. But, but yeah, I mean, you're probably looking at about 20, 25 million a year on a five-year deal for Robbie Ray. He's now 30 years old. But, I mean, it's hard. It's hard to argue with those numbers. I mean, he's a little bit more volatile than some of the other, some of the other guys on the market. But there aren't quite that many. There's not as many star starting pitchers as there are short stops on the market this year. So Robbie Ray is going to get big money.

and deservedly so after what he did this season. I am torn because I feel like spending a little bit of this money on an outfielder. Okay. And I have a couple of different ways that I want to go. I feel like it would just be fantastic to have Nick Castiano's here. Okay. I don't hate it. Two reasons.

Obviously, this keeps him with his hitting coach, Joe Mather, who was a big part of the reason why the Reds turned their batting average and their offensive numbers around so much in 2021, right? But here's where I go with this. And I'm not even saying this really in a joking way. I kind of mean this from deep down inside. how big would it be to have somebody that's already bought in to what Mather is doing and had success doing it, come over to this team and lead the way for the younger guys, for the other people on this team.

I think everybody on this team, for the most part, can completely agree that, you know, they did not have a good season. I think everybody on the Diamondbacks should be completely open to buying in to anything that Joe Mather wants to do, right? Just to have that person there, though, telling you why it worked, telling you what he saw on the Reds, and also contributing, you know, the way he did. You know, he had a over 300 batting average career best 939 OPS. And, you know, frankly, the big thing about it is the Diamondbacks do not have any hope. home run hitters. They need somebody like that. They need to open up the damn roof and those panels, even in the middle of July, and let someone like Nick Castiano's rip the cover off the ball and Chase Field. Yeah, that's a good one. Castiano's really, there aren't that many outfielders

on the market. I guess Chris Bryant, you could consider an outfielder potentially. He certainly can play out there. But other than him, Castianos is probably the truest outfielder of the bun. And bunch. So here's my concern. Yeah. Is I think both of these guys are going to want a minimum of three years. Talking about Castiano and Chris Bryant. Chris Bryant is another. They're going to want five years probably. That's what they want. But like there's a good chance they'll probably get, let's say between three and five years. I still feel like Castiano's has potential in them where I think that Chris Bryant is might be peaking or might have already peaked. might already be at the apex of his career.

I think that's the big difference for that as far as free agency commitment goes. I think Castiano's would be a bigger guy to build the team around and be a part of part of the team. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. I'm age discriminating there, I feel like, but it is what it is. I don't know. People age discriminate against me every year.

So, or every day, every year, every day, every day of my life. Jesse's always talking to me about what movies he hasn't seen. it's awful. That's very fair. All right. Who else you got? All right. Well,

I'm going back to the fountain of pain and bringing back Max Scherzer into a diamond back. You know how happy that would make people? Do you know how happy that would make people? It would. But Max Schrozer is also very close to 40 years old. He is 37. So you know,

you got to recognize that when you bring him on. But I mean, this last year, I mean, he's also among, the Cy Young finalists for a very good reason. I mean, he was, he was insane this year after he went to L.A. to pitch for the Dodgers.

So, but that would just be so satisfying. Just Maxxler's or not only is he, you know, coming over from the Dodgers theoretically, but also he could finish his career in the same place where it all started. And it would only cost about $40 million a year to make it happen. Oh, man. See, this is like that Twitter meme.

It's like how to rebound the franchise. Step one, bring back Max Scher. Step two, go back to the purple pin stripes. Yeah. And teal, purple and teal. And step three, profit. Just profit all day long. Just take the piles of money that people leave on your doorstep

and stick it in your pockets. look at the coyotes Arizona Diamondbacks people hated that goddamn Kachina jersey more than they hated most things that were new and different when it came to sports in this town. Yeah

and as much as I remember people wanting the Cardinals so badly to change their name and their logo they still fucking have it after all this time and they just refuse to do anything about it. As a matter of fact,

they're like you don't like the logo good we're keeping it forever and we're only going to change it slightly year after year they did add the teal back in like they clearly are aware that people miss that and they've done throwback thursdays they did that for a while but i'm but why why why just do it just do it just go back to it fully commit to it bring back the cool black jersey with the you know That was a cool jersey. On the trim that was like, you know, Arizona, you know, type design, you know, very Native American, very cool. Just bring all that back. Bring back Max Scherzer and just profit.

And bring back, you know, I don't know. Bring back Robbie Ray. Bring back Robbie Ray, Max Scherz. Let's have a big reunion here. Yeah. Bring back Goldie. In the old, you'll trade, I'll trade everything for Goldie. I'll trade Mike Hazen.

Oh, my gosh. Baxter and I don't know, a player to be named later. Gadzooks, I'll trade them Gadzukes. They can have Gadzukes. All right, so I would definitely still want to concentrate on pitching because I still feel like the Arizona Diamondbacks need that. And as much as I would like to be reasonable and go with someone that I feel like would be, I don't know,

a little less money. I like Marcus Stroman so much that I just want to say Stroman. I want to say Stroman. Okay. I, by the way, a step back to Max Scherzer, by the way, for, don't you think he would love to do that just for competitive balance reasons? He's such a fan of trying to put things back in the balance for the league. Just come on over. If he was such a fan of competitive balance, I don't know why he went to the Dodgers.

But I guess he didn't have a whole lot of things. He didn't have much of a choice in that one. Yeah, yeah. All right. go ahead. All right. Okay, I'm going to go a little more realistic here for our fifth free agent. So this is a guy, I don't think it really is that realistic.

I don't think the diamondbacks really have enough of a need to justify this. But he's a guy who's not unreasonably far out of their price range. It actually could theoretically happen from that standpoint. And this is not a household name. So if you don't even know who I'm talking about, I'll explain. I love Mark Kanha. from the Oakland Athletics. Mark Kanha from the Oakland Athletics.

Okay. I think I said that wrong initially. Mark Kanha, I believe it's his name. Yeah, I don't know. You might have to go back and edit that out, Derek. Let's pretend that didn't happen. My record is flawless. Oh, you don't make any mistakes.

Oh, it's only Derek that can't say name. Right, right. Yeah, we have to edit it out when I make a mistake. But we just leave it there. Now, Mark Kanha from the Oakland Athletics, this is a guy who is not necessarily, like I said, not a household name, especially because he played for the Oakland Athletics for so long. It's certainly not a big market team by any means.

But this is a guy who over the last three seasons has an on-based percentage in the three-70s. Very, like nobody really knows about Mark Kanha. And this last year was not quite as good of a season for him. But he still has continued to be a very productive player, obviously playing half of his games in Oakland. He is not going to benefit from the hitting environment or lack thereof in Oakland. So I think you bring him to more of a neutral sort of stadium like Chase Field now is after the humidor.

And I think you could really see his numbers tick up. I don't know if the Diamondbacks have enough of a need at a quarter outfield spot right now to want to spend money on a guy like Kana. But he is, he is someone that I love Derek, just because he's not going to totally break. the bank. Like he's not going to ask for Nick Castiano's type money. And yet he also low key gets on base about as much as any outfielder, any corner outfielder in baseball. So that's, that's a more, a little bit of a touch of realism, if you will, for our for our crazy free agent frenzy here. Sure. No, I completely understand that. And that's, I like that because I don't know what the Arizona Diamondbacks are going to do as far as their corner outfields.

spot. My last spot was actually bringing back a yet another player in Starling Marte. I don't, I, I, we're really just so sad that all these players have left. We, we just want, we just want all of the old. I want them

home to go out because, I mean, let's be honest, do we not also want Eduardo Escobar back? We want them all back. There's, give us all of our guys back. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, here's the thing. people are kind of mad, right, that the diamondbacks moved on so fast from some of these guys.

And Marte isn't one of those guys that you'd be bringing back, much like Robbie Ray. It's not going to be cheap. You're going to pay more than you would have paid just to probably keep them around. But, I mean, he hit 317, 359, 466 with 23 stolen bases and 34 runs scored in just 52 games with the Oakland A's. Wow. That's just in 52 games. He basically stole a base every other game. Well, he was playing next to Mark Kanthus.

So, I mean, that explains it right there, Derek. Right. And I mean, these are two guys. Honestly, like, target both of them. Bring them both over. I'm big on, you know, trying to latch on to something that was successful elsewhere and spread it, right? Especially with how humble Mather was about his involvement. with the improvements of this team.

I mean, come on. Yeah, the team bought in and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But obviously, you as a hitting coach had a big impact to turn the entire team around. We're not talking about, hey, two guys had a much better year than they had last year and it impacted our overall numbers. No, that entire team was hitting. And, you know, they made stars out of guys. Unfortunately, sometimes that results in losing them once free agency comes around. around like they're they're going to do with Castiano's just I I'm very big on you know looking into

what has been working elsewhere and trying to bring it here right now I think the Arizona diamondbacks biggest thing they need to address though is their their relief pitching and I don't even know where to go with that in free agency I really don't I think there's a lot that that they could do with their guys that they currently have on the team I know there's a lot of guys that they want to move around. I know there's some guys that they want to take other roles. I also know that they're very big on, you know, having prospects come up and get their initial experience as,

as relievers instead of making that jump immediately from the minor leagues into the majors as a starting pitcher. I don't know if that's the right move to make necessarily, but I would have to actually look at some numbers behind the success and, you know, success rates in regards to guys that did that first. before becoming big league starters. I don't know if I would say that the Diamondbacks haven't necessarily had a whole lot of success with that strategy. I mean, I'm trying to think of pitchers the Diamondbacks brought up straight into the bullpen who had success there.

Honestly, I really can't think of any in recent history, at least. Archie Bradley, obviously they moved over there, but he didn't start in the bullpen. Right. So. Yeah, and I think John Tupontier started as a starter. before he went to the whole time? I mean, he's hardly pitched anywhere still at this point in his career. So it's really hard to, it's hard to use him.

But on the free agent market, it's not really that deep when it comes to relief pitchers. The best reliever available is R.S.L. Iglesias. And he has a 257 ERA last season. That's what he did with the angels, which is really impressive. I mean, his peripherals are great. He's a really good pitcher. But this isn't the kind of season where, you know, even if the diamondbacks did have all sorts of money they were willing to spend, it's not really a slam dunk year when it comes to relief pitching. So it'll be interesting to see where the diamondbacks go with this.

And frankly, Derek, I'm expecting more of the same where the diamondbacks are probably going to do something like what I talked about earlier. They're probably going to find, you know, a few relievers in their mid-30s. You know, maybe they were big names at some point, not so much anymore. But that's probably the direction the diamondbacks are going to. to go and hope they finally, you know, hit on one of these guys and actually get maybe even a little bit more than what they're paying for. Well, I hope they steal John Gray away from the Rockies just to knock old Patrick down a peg or two.

But, you know, the collective bargaining agreement expires on December 2nd. So even though that free agents can sign, it's a question of if they will sign, if clubs and players are going to sign. There's so much to be figured out right now that I wouldn't expect any moves to be finalized. offers, compensatory, uh, compete, compens, compens, comp, that, compit story picks. That was the MLB luxury tax.

Yeah, without doubt. I totally cover up for you. Um, obviously competitive balance is a big topic and how they can, uh, do something to try to, you know, make it so that teams like the Dodgers can't outspend, you know, the next closest team by almost a hundred million dollars. Something's got to be done about that. Anyway, we'll see what happens.

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I might be getting a matching tattoo with Frank Sanders from the Cardinals, PHMX Cardinals show. Okay. All right. He talked a big game and then I somehow latched onto it and was like, oh, I'll get one with you. And then next now I'm being contacted about getting a tattoo.

What are you? What are you getting? It's an honoring Cliff Kingsbury. So it's a K2 tattoo. So we'll see what the final design ends up. But definitely check out the crew over at the pH. NX Cardinals. Obviously, check us out. Follow us on Twitter. I'm at cap underscore caveman with a K.

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