PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Spring Camp Roundup

Episode Date: March 16, 2022

On this episode, Jesse and Derek are joined by Patrick Lyons from DNVR to discuss what exactly the Rockies are doing by pursing Kris Bryant, ghost runners coming back to life, and updates on Zac Gallen. 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 DBAX podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Montia, occasionally known as your mayor of PHNX. And I am joined by my vice mayor, my friend, my co-host, the one and only troublemaker himself, Thunderstick Jesse Friedman. Why am I the troublemaker? When does that happen? You're the troublemaker. Don't talk.

Don't play dumb with me. Don't play coy with me, Jesse Friedman. But of course, I'm out here actually making trouble here locally. Jesse's making trouble from a distance. But we're good guys. We're just here to cover your favorite baseball team, your Arizona Diamondbacks. And this show is brought to you by the fine folks at the Draft King's Sportsbook app.

Go download the Draft King Sportsbook app right now because the biggest tournament of the year is going on. And everybody needs to get in on the madness. There's only a few days left to join in on all the action before the first team tips off this Thursday. New customers can use RCO to PHNX bet just $5 on any team to win their game. And should they win their game, you will get $200. and free bets. Jesse, baseball. Baseball is fun. Baseball is back. All the guys are back. Mark Malanson was out there today. His travel issues have been corrected and he was in camp. Most importantly, though, the guy that we had some questions about, the guy who you text messaged your

father about to get some more medical information seems to be doing okay. You make it sound like we normally text my father. It's just like a normal Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, he's a part of our main source for things around here. He's our go-to on all things medical when it comes to the Arizona Diamondbacks. But we got to talk to Zach Gown and the day. Got to see him throw a bullpen. He sounded very, very positive.

Things sounded very good from him. It didn't sound like this was any kind of hold up. He said he hasn't actually stopped his workouts or his throwing progression at all in any way because he didn't want to be behind. Essentially, the information. given to him by Scott Boris's medical staff during the lockout was that, you know, aside from the mild discomfort, if there was nothing that really affected him, you know, in a big way that he could continue on.

So this doesn't sound like this is going to be any big concern or injury for Zach Gallen, fingers crossed. Is he a Boris client? Did I miss that? Or is he just using Scott Boris's medical staff because he didn't have. access to, you know, like the normal team doctors. That's a very good question. And I think another good question is Scott Boris has a medical staff.

How big is Scott Boris as an agent for him to have a medical staff? No, I'm not. I can't imagine what his complex looks like where you go to work for Scott Boris. I'm picturing something with like, you know, like very futuristic long hallways. the finest meats and cheeses you could ever come across, just laid out in a spread. I don't know. There's some wild things going over there at Boris headquarters.

To answer our question, Zach Gallen is a Scott Boris client, which somehow I did not have on my radar. Yeah, for everyone clamoring for the Diamondbacks to sign Zach Gallen to an early extension, that will not happen. That ain't happening for sure right now. But that's good news. That's good news to hear that, you know,

I mean, Zach obviously is going to be the best source of information about this. And so it's good to hear from him directly. And yeah, I mean, the Diamondbacks are certainly not going to come out and say that he'll be ready for opening day if they're not totally positive that he will be.

So, you know, they're going to be, they're probably going to err on the side of caution with their rhetoric. And that makes sense. I think you also have the fact that, you know, obviously with Madison Bumgarner there, Zach Gowan isn't necessarily a lock for opening day. For those of us that follow this team, I mean, yeah, of course, he is a very likely candidate. And considering what he went through last season with the injury to start the season

and not being able to go opening day, that's probably still fresh on a lot of people's minds. Madison Bumgarner, though, he just, he definitely seemed to, to be in a much better place. He's not a different guy. You're not going to get any different Madison Bumgarner. But for Madison Bumgarner, he seemed pretty happy. He seemed pretty, you know, content and ready to really focus on this year and, and try to make this, you know, try to turn this thing around.

There's been a lot of, there was a lot of positive comments coming from players. And I guess the reason why it surprised me is a lot of them, were unsolicited, right? We would talk to the players about A, B, or C, and next thing you know, they're talking to us about how good they think this team is this year and how much talent they have. I feel like they feel very defensive about what happened last year, that they are not as bad as the record indicates.

And there's, I think I said it on yesterday's show, but there seems to be a bit of a chip on their shoulder about that, which isn't a bad thing. No, no, it's not. And it's interesting. I mean, obviously there's been a fair amount of roster turnover over the years. But if you look at the last few times that the Diamondbacks really had, you know, an extremely bad season, the general trend for the franchise has been they don't do that twice in a row, at least very,

very rarely. The last two times that the Diamondbacks, you know, had one of those 70 or even fewer win seasons. They've responded the next year, the most recent time they had a year. like that was 2016 when of course that granky came in and shelby miller came in and it was a very rough first year for them they came back the next year and made the playoffs and they had a similar season in 2010 uh when the roster just underperformed across the board and they made the playoffs the next year i guess the counter argument would be what about the last two seasons right 2020 and 2021 you know back-to-back years they weren't great but we all know that 2020 was just kind of you

know, it was a short year. It's hard to really read too much into a season that was only 60 games. So the general trend for this franchise has been if they have a down year, if they, you know, really have a clunker, they're going to respond and come back the next season. And, you know, the rhetoric during spring training is always positive. So you have to keep that in mind, right? You have to take all these things with a grain of salt. But at the same time, it's, you know, I wouldn't be shocked if this team comes, uh, comes around this season and does something similar to what we've seen them do in the past coming off a down year. Yeah, it feels it feels weird because it was such a bad year, right? So it seems like 52 wins is another level. Yes. Yeah. And you feel

like you're being optimistic or too optimistic by saying that they're going to be better. But it is kind of a sense of like, well, there's not really anywhere else they can go but up. You know, and that's the thing for me that really I don't, it's not that it bothers me, but it's like that I think that's where my hope comes from. I think that's where there's no where they can go but up. There's no where they can go but up. And I mean, and again, I, I, I've always been a big believer that this, that last season was one of those seasons that you could say whatever you want about it. But if you don't include all of the details about why this team was so bad, then you're not going to be able to see the full picture. I think it's really easy to just say this, this team,

was really bad last season, but they were healthy and everybody was on the field and they just didn't have, you know, the bodies. What the Cincinnati Reds are doing to their team is, is a crime. It's a shame. That's different, right? That's not a situation that the Diamondbacks are in.

The Diamondbacks actually are, believe it or not, they're in a much more realistic situation than a lot of teams are, right? And we're going to talk about the Colorado, Colorado Rockies pursuing Chris Bryan, again a little bit later in this episode with our pal Patrick Lyons from DNVR, but at the

very least, you're not seeing the Arizona Diamondbacks, and you're not going to most likely see the Arizona Diamondbacks do any kind of crazy free agency moves that don't really coincide with the current progress of the team and where they're at. I think

there is something that teams do where it comes to picking up a free agent, just for the purpose of making your fan base happy that you got a big name, right? And that's not something that the Arizona Diamondbacks really right now even need to consider doing. I don't think it's the kind of thing that's going to really make a lot of people happy because the team right now seems still so far off

that if you only brought in one big name like a Chris Bryant, I don't think people would feel like that's enough to get them back into being competitive. So like if the Diamondbacks went, got Chris Bryant, they're probably still, you know, they're not exactly favorites to win the N.L. West instantly. It's probably fair. That's exactly it, right? And not just that, though, right? I think it's also the fact that if they, you know, again, like what we saw with the Texas Rangers still doesn't seem like it's going to be enough to make them good, but we still don't know that, right?

We don't know how good the Rangers are going to be with their additions. At the very least, though, they added several pieces. They spent a lot of money trying to make their team good overall, right? I don't think, I think there's a lot of teams that aren't just one piece away. That could change throughout the season. You know, hey, maybe the Arizona Diamondbacks go on a roll with their young guys and they want to, you know, kind of supplement that talent with a trade or something later on in the season.

But right now, I just would like to see them kind of come together as a team and address their particular needs in a way where they can afford to address those needs and not just have it be one position that they pick up. We talked about how much we like the additions to the bullpen. Ian Kennedy and Mark Malanson are big. It's big pickup, big acquisitions because they're addressing a need. It's not like those are big names. It's not like those guys are even the best relievers available on the market. The point was, though, is that they went out and they got a couple of pretty good relievers to address a need, which is that their bullpen has historically been awful since they started.

Yeah, I wrote about it a few months ago, the Diamondback, since their inception in 1998, are 29th in wins above replacement out of the bullpen. It has been a struggle to say the least, but it's encouraging to see the team go and make some more serious moves on this front. I think the last several years, the Diamondbacks have relied on guys who are honestly a tier below Mark Malanson and Ian Kennedy, right? It's been more like Fernando Salas and Hector Rondone and Junior Gera and guys who have been a little bit more up and down than Mark Malanson and Ian Kennedy, who've both generally been very, very steady out of the bullpen. So I really like the reality that they are willing to actually throw some money at this.

And it's not crazy money, right? They're not giving out, you know, like what Kenley Jansen is probably going to get or anything like that. But they're willing to spend some serious money on a roster that's not expected to contend. And like you said, the Cincinnati Reds are showing us that some teams are not like that, right? Some teams are tearing this thing down while the diamondbacks are modestly, but the diamond backs are building it up. There was a comment once again about how this team is not in a rebuild. and that received a bit of talk, a bit of skepticism from the fan base

about them not being in a rebuild. How would you classify where this team is at? I think the Diamondbacks have used the word retool for many years now. I don't like that at all. I think it's always been anything. It's always been like the cop-out word, like if you don't want to use the word rebuild,

which like we all know what that means right use the word retool instead but yeah i don't know exactly what the right word is for it i think the diamond backs are in a position where they're not necessarily expecting to be that great but they're also not trying to tear it down right they're they're not they're trying to be good even if they don't necessarily know if they will be and and i think that's the right path for them right now right um it's this is probably not the time to throw a six your contract at someone. But it is a time to go get Ian Kennedy and go get Mark Malanson. And I think you and I both wish that maybe they would push the envelope even a little

bit more than what they're actually doing right now. But nonetheless, it's good to see them trying to go forward and trying to win. And when you have young guys like Alec Thomas and Geraldo Perdomo, you truly never know what can happen. And I think the Diamondbacks know that. And they're trying to prepare in case something like, that does happen. You've got Mark Malanson closing games, you know,

rather than some of the guys that we've seen the last few years. I talked to Tori, and I think I brought this up yesterday, but I talked to him about that extra time that they got seeing some of these younger guys, right? The fact that they got that extra couple of weeks where

it was just the minor league guys, the coaches couldn't really have interactions with them, but they could sit and watch and they could talk with each other, and they could connect with the coaches. So they were still able to connect with minor league coaches, which is something that Tori said they haven't had a chance to do very much over the last couple of years. In some cases, it's been years since he has had an in-person conversation with some of the coaches from their minor league team. So for him, it was a blessing in disguise as far as getting a chance to see

this team as a young, you know, seeing the younger players on this team and just getting that exclusivity to be able to see only them without the other 40-man roster guys in camp, right? Especially for a team that has said that they're committed to the youth of this, of this team, to the future of this team, right? It's easy to get certain guys up there and have them be part of the, you know, spring major league camp roster, right? Alec Thomas is up there, Christian Robinson. I saw both of those guys hitting today in the cage,

and they just both look so good. Alec Thomas, though, his video, one of the ones I posted, posted he just his his swing looks so natural and effortless very pretty yes yes he's just he's just an incredible hitter and i mean again it's yeah it's easy to say that against you know uh a coach tossing tossing you know beatball but i mean when you watch when you sit there and watch guys at batting practice even at batting practice even when they know what's coming and it's not a pitch that's trying to trick them in any way. It's like what you said about Dalton Varsho

trying to hit that ball from Caleb Smith. You realize how hard it is because some of these guys get out there in the cage and they still can't really hit the ball well even though it's being thrown to them perfectly where they want it. It's always concerning, right? Like you go out to watch a guy take batting practice

and he like grounds out to the shortstop three times in a row and you're like, uh, yeah. But that happens. That happens. Yeah. Paul, I remember Paul Goldschmidt being one of the least exciting players to watch. And bad and practice? Because he

would. He wasn't trying to do anything. He wasn't trying to crank home run. He was trying to work on a very specific thing. And it would look like he was really struggling. Yeah. Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off there. I know exactly what you're talking about, though. It's like Goldie with the, like what I've said

about the clutch thing, right? So there's just stuff you start to notice, no matter how good a guy is that you're kind of like, I don't know. I'm seeing him at times also be very bad. even hitting the ball in the in the simplest way you know sure but yeah yeah it's it's it's just great it's great to see christian robinson that is a guy that i can't tell you how great it is to see him just out there as part of this camp you know yeah like it's weird because i still have so many

questions and i still wonder so much where he is on his progress it's a very good sign though that he is part of the major league camp and he is one of the non-raster invitees i'm not even sure about that. I'm pretty sure he's one of the non-roster invite. He's right? That's how it works if he's still a minor league guy. Yeah, he's still a minor league guy. So yeah, he'll probably, I don't know if he'll, I wouldn't expect to see him play in major league games most likely. Sure. I think he'll, he'll probably stay on, you know, the back lot fields and, and those kinds of things. You don't, you, you, you, you don't think we'll see him in like the spring training games at all, because Levollo did say that those first two games, it's going to be comprised of the minor league guys. Yeah.

Yeah, they might borrow some minor league guys for the first few. I could see that. I wouldn't be shocked. But I think in particular, Christian Robinson, I mean, look, the guy hasn't played organized minor league baseball since 2019. It has been almost three full years since he's been, you know, in a normal rhythm of playing baseball. I was talking to someone the other day about this. I think that Christian Robinson is probably going to. spend a couple months potentially at the Arizona complex.

Once the minor league season begins, I'm not sure Christian Robinson will actually go out and be sent to Hillsborough or Viceroy or wherever because it takes a long time to get your timing back and to get used to facing professional quality pitching again if you've been away from the game for as long as he has. So as far as he's concerned, I'm with you. Like just the fact that he's out there,

the fact that he's, you know, getting back into this process of getting ready for the season and taking grounders and all these things you do at the beginning of the season, that in itself is a win for him. But I think it might be a while before we start to see him in games. And I, you're probably fairly accurate about that. But again, it's just for somebody that was such a talented player and so high on their prospectus at one point. Yeah. It's really good to see him back and hope.

hope the best, hope that he can get everything back on track as far as what you're talking about, but definitely looked good. He looked in shape and, you know, he looked ready to play baseball. So that's what's important at this point. That and, you know, obviously his mental health, right? Like that that's another big thing is that that entire situation wasn't great, but it at the very least got, you know, figured out. It could have been way worse for him in several different ways. and it's just good that we're past it. So, yeah.

But before we go on, I did want to take a step back to Jesse talking about his work that's been on GopHNX.com. You can make sure to check that out, especially his piece there on everything that we've covered throughout the offseason. Go back and read all this stuff again once you become a member over at go phnx.com. Just just do it. I promise you. None of it was really time specific because there's not a lot of time.

stuff out there. And yeah, you could go laugh at that article where I talk about the games being delayed until March or April 14th, because that's not happening. But we thank you guys, again, for checking out the stuff. If you're a member, if you're not a member, sign up to become an annual member, you'll get a free t-shirt from phnxlokker.com. They are soft. They are comfortable.

They'll make you look better as a human being. But also, you'll get access to our members-only Discord as well as members-only discounts over at the PHNX Locker.com. And that's all the time. You'll always find us giving you out free or extra special discounts to our members, as well as getting in on the Discord where we love to chat with you guys about the baseball season,

who you guys like, who you guys want. Here's another option on the members-only Discord is you can tell me who you want me to post video of while I'm out there, and I'll go, I'll do that thing. Because they're all just doing their stuff. I could really get anybody at any point, but you don't want to see 15 videos of guys taking batting practice.

As I know, as much as you've missed baseball, I guarantee you don't want that. So send me a message, let me know who you want. That's how we treat our family members over here at GoPHNX. And make sure to sign up to become a member if you haven't done so already. Jesse, I thought we were doing things that were for the better of the game. I was excited about some of the progress we've made, not only the new rules to make the game better,

but some of the old rules that we were bringing back, some of the things we were going back on. No more seven-inning double-headers, though Madison Bumgarner did have a very funny answer about that, his thoughts on that. But most importantly, we were getting rid of the ghost runners. But they don't call them ghost runners for a reason, Jesse. They're back.

They're back. They came back to life. According to Jason Stark and Matt Gelb of the Athletic, players heavily support the new feature of the ghost runners, and they want it to be reinstated. back in the game, it's actually expected to be enacted this week as part of MLB's health and safety protocols. Now, that was originally put into place as a response to COVID, just to keep the game short and to not unnecessarily have those marathon games. But that's exactly why players like it and want

to get rid of the unnecessary marathon games. So, Jesse, we thought the ghost runners are dead, but they're not. What are your thoughts on having this guy back on second base to start extra innings? This is a rare situation where I think the, I think the desires of the players are actually different than the desires of fans. Usually those things align. Players want the game as exciting as it can be and fans do too. So normally they're on the same page. But this is one move.

It's even safety stuff. Safety stuff too, right? Like there are some things that even we as fans aren't completely thrilled about. But we are on board with when it comes to the safety of either the athletes or us, like when they put up the extra netting around the field or things like that, just to make the game hopefully more safe. Right. So that kind of stuff.

Yeah, but this, uh, not so much. Yeah. I, I think that fans really thought it was weird. Uh, fans from what I can tell, just didn't feel like it was baseball anymore. It felt like extra innings was, kind of a different sport. It's like, you know,

it's like a mini game or something where you're trying to get the guy in from second base and, you know, do you bunt and then try to hit to sack fly or something or do you just, you know, try to knock one to the outfield and get the guy in that way. I can see, though, where

players are coming from. I don't know if the, I think part of the reason people don't understand the ghost runner rule is that I think there's a perception that it didn't really work, like that games would still, like we still saw games that were 11 or 12 innings pretty frequently.

It wasn't like every game resolved after 10 innings just because of the new rule. So there was this perception that things didn't really change anyway, so why are we bothering? But on the other hand, at least to my knowledge, I don't recall any, you know, 17 inning games last year,

18 inning games. Right. Those insane ones really are almost impossible under the ghost runner rule. So I think it's more, it's more has to do with those, with those types of games no longer happening. But yeah, I don't think fans are going to be very happy about it. So we'll have to see what the reaction is.

I think, by the way, the longest game apparently was a 16 inning game that we had. So, and that was between the Dodgers and the Padres. and if I'm if I'm not wrong about that that was an amazing game too if it's the game I'm remembering but yeah it was basically the longest game in MLB since the runner on second rule was implemented so like you said it's not like every game was 12 innings or 11 innings we still got some pretty long games it's just not I don't think as regularly you know we're not getting those long games as often and those long games just can really screw grew up, I think a team's bullpen, their rotation, their everything for like a week or two even,

where it takes them a while to get everybody rested and back on track after experiencing those games. Not to mention, we've seen extra inning games in series before where multiple games in the same series went into extra inning. So that's just very difficult to manage when the season is 162 games. And you have so much, you know, so much to deal with there. I just, I hate it. Being frank, I can't stand the runner. You hate the rule or you hate, okay, so you don't want it to come back. I don't want it to come back. And it's one of those times where there's a lot of things in my job, Jesse, I wish could be different so that I could go home earlier too.

But that's not the way it is. When I have to wait for post game access to baseball players, they get to shower, they get to go into the trainer's room. They get to do all this stuff. I'm there sometimes an hour, two hours, three hours after the game waiting on these guys to come out and eventually talk to us. And don't get me wrong, sometimes they win. Sometimes they hold out so long that we as the media just leave. But I can't tell you how many nights I've spent waiting around because I had nothing better to do. It's 1045 on a Wednesday.

I mean, nobody I know is even awake. So I might as well just hang out in the clubhouse until Zach Granke can finally come out and talk to us. But yeah, if I could, I would change. lots of things about like that kind of stuff when it comes to uh you know covering baseball games and and doing stuff it's just part of the game right you know that these guys a lot of times win or lose they want to they want a moment to to cool off to calm down before they talk to the media they want to compose themselves a bit especially when we go into like a reliever's locker right after he blew a game and stick microphones and cameras and lights in his face

and go, what do you think about how you did tonight? Like, that's kind of a shitty situation for any human being to ever be in. So I understand them needing to compose themselves and needing that time. So sometimes there's a reason for it. With the extra innings rule, as crazy as it sounds, it just seems like an easy out. You know, like, if you're going to do that, why don't we just do a home run derby in extra innings and like, you know, or play three innings. And if no runners are scored in three innings, then we go to a,

a shootout, which is like a home run derby. And you know, send your, you know, best five hitters up to take five wax at pitches and whoever hits the most home runs wins. I don't know. There is, yeah, there, there is an element of this where it feels like, I think the, the problem from a just kind of entertainment standpoint is that baseball is one sport where when the game gets longer, it doesn't necessarily get more entertaining. Sure.

I've seen a lot of baseball games in the 10th, 11th, 12th that feel like they're dragging. It's not the same experience if you're at an NBA game and it's in, you know, it feels like in the NBA, it escalates, right? Like double over time is more exciting than single over time and triple over time. It's more exciting than double over time. It's shit. It's awesome. Yeah. That's kind of like what the criticism of the NFL is, right?

The NFL people don't like their rules because they wanted to see like the bills versus the chiefs go to 470. to 395 before the game was over or whatever they want like they wanted that game to never stop. They wanted those guys to keep playing until, you know, whatever. There is something about that. You're right. That's exciting in other sports, mostly because, you know, I don't know, you know, if you can tie it up or whatever. Baseball goes to 15, 16 innings just because no one's scoring.

You know what I mean? Like that's why it goes that leap. There's not that run. It's not like, okay, two runs scored in the nine. ninth and then you know they scored two more in the ninth to tie it and then they scored three in the 10th and then they scored three more in the 10th that's not usually what's happening in those kind of marathon games so yeah i absolutely could see uh people being bored with with extra innings i just i don't find the ghost runners thing to be the solution i think there's other ideas but that for me that's not it yeah i i'm with you i don't think it's a great solution either but i do think that there should be some solution that's one of that's one thing that uh you know the baseball traditionalist will probably hate me for

is that i i do think they should find a way to make baseball games resolve sooner it's it's already we are already play 162 games right like it's not like you really feel that you absolutely have to have you know you absolutely have to sit there for six hours or seven hours or however long it takes we have these games for for the best teams to wind up with the best records at the end of the year. So, you know, why don't we kind of expedite the process and, um, yeah, let some of these players escape those six, those six hour marathons that happened from time to time. 12 teams are in the playoffs now, Jesse. 162 games is completely unnecessary and irrelevant at this. Well, I'm glad to you, I'm glad to you understand that because you, at some point, not long ago,

Derek, you were very on board, make it 14 teams for all we care. I like four. I still like 14. I still think 14 was a good. I like the idea of. one team getting a buy. I still think that there were so many people that I just couldn't even agree with what they were saying when it came to like division winners and this. Yeah, great. You win your division, you're in. That's fine.

And I understand the idea of wildcard teams still get like, you're a wildcar team and you get the same advantage essentially as playing one of the division winners. But the idea there is, is they're a division winner. They should be better than you. And you have to play them as a non-division winner. So it's, you know, again, just like any other sport, putting a higher seat against the lower seat.

The difference there for me is that it's really that that one team getting a buy. I just liked that idea so much because it really gave all the teams something to fight to the end for. You know, like, yeah, obviously this one team could run away with it just like they could the division. But for the most part, it makes it exciting. and it would have made that, you know, Giants, Dodgers division chase even more exciting because not only would have been for the division, but it would have been for the best record in the NL. So I don't know. I'm completely on board with more teams. I think you're going to get it.

These and games, all of that. I'm on board with all of that. You're probably going to get it in the next. I'm going to guess the next CBA. I don't know. I wouldn't be surprised if the next CBA brings it to 14. And I also wouldn't be surprised if part of that is expansion. I think that I think 14 teams in the playoffs is inevitable because I also think that we're probably going to 32 major league teams at some point, in which case. But Jesse the prophet back up.

He's over here talking about prophetic nonsense again. He's over here spewing his from his crystal ball with Derek's head in it. Here comes Jesse talking about expansion teams and 14 teams in the playoffs. Ooh. I don't know why I have to mock you with that. You're probably right. I'm just saying. I know.

I mean, expansion actually at that point doesn't seem like it's too ridiculous. Yeah, I still probably wouldn't like it then, but I could at least, I think that's the compromise that's waiting, right? People are not going to want it, but they're going to add two more teams and that's when it's going to happen. Yeah. And I could see that very well being at that. But I will say that we're marching on our way to, you know, being 60 plus teams. and that's really the goal here. So we can have a March Madness like tournament in baseball

with all the teams making it into the playoffs. Did you say 60, 60 teams? 60 plus, yeah, we're going for 64, just like March Madness tournament, which you can get in on right now over at the Draft King's Sportsbook. Of course you can because it is that time of year. And there's only a few days left for you to join in on all the action

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21 and over only, Arizona only gambling problem. Dial 1-800 next step. new customers only minimum $5 deposit required. Eligibility restrictions apply. See draftkings dot com slash sportsbook for details. And Jesse, I have to shame

Patrick Lyons from DNVR. Wow. I have to shame him because Patrick thinks that Phoenix is some sort of big metropolis or you know, some sort of big metropolis where you can just get a lift or an Uber at

any time and have it be there in a reasonable amount of time. And that's not our city. Our city is spread far and wide. And if you want to get to someplace or somewhere in a quick amount of time, you need to be a little bit faster on the button when you're in Phoenix. That's a pro tip. For you guys coming out for spring training, you know, check out the lift times, the Uber times, about a half an hour before you want to leave your function. So that way you don't have yourself stranded on in the East Valley at a at a you know burrito joint waiting to join our show and not being able to get a lift but if if if Patrick was here uh I would I would probably not shame him this much because that would be we would still shame him just just a little bit less yeah I just have to ask

and Jesse I'm going to ask you again we talked about this the Chris Bryant thing still seems to be like a thing Chris Bryant to the Rockies and it's a I don't know. Is it, it's a gaining steam? And is it, I mean, it feels like it's progressing like it actually might happen.

This would seem just like a crazy free agent to acquire when you let two of your very own talented players walk that you could have kept. And honestly, arguably might have been better than Chris Bryant or at least equivalent, right? Like I just, I'm not exactly sure on this move and what it does for the Rockies. It is very confusing. And yeah, we heard today, it's still very much a thing.

I don't know if I would say it's gaining steam. It's kind of hard to tell if anything around baseball is gaining steam right now. It just feels like we're kind of in limbo on Freddie Freeman and Carlos Correa. And, you know, you hear some ramblings pretty much every day, but you don't really hear anything concrete coming close. So we'll see exactly what happens. But my guess is the Rockies miss out on Chris Bryant. There's a lot of teams in on him right now.

they're certainly not the only ones. But my guess is that if they're in on Chris Bryant, they're probably also in on someone else, you know, like a Kyle Schwerber or, you know, some of the other bats who are available, who would offer something like what Chris Brian offers,

you know, a genuine middle of the order bat that the Rockies don't really have. I mean, if you take away Trevor's story from that roster, there really isn't that kind of clear middle of the order bat left over. Charlie Blackman is not what he once was. Ryan McMahon's had a nice, you know,

a nice season, but I'm not sure if you'd really put him in that category either. So I think in some ways it's like the Diamondbacks, right? I mean, they want to put themselves in a position to make noise and make their team better, even if they also, you know,

are not necessarily going to put themselves over the top by adding, you know, a Chris Brian or a Kyle Schwabber or whoever it may be. Right, right. And I think that's where I'm at. I think that these, They definitely have a talented team.

I think they have guys that are, you know, definitely, I don't know who their core would be that they would build around, but I definitely know a guy that would tell us that. And his belly is full now, and he is still able to join us. So, of course, we're going to have him on. It's none other than Patrick Lyons from DNVR. What is up, my spring training brother?

How you boys doing over there? We're doing good. Actually, how are we doing in Phoenix? How are we doing? Yeah. Yeah, I know. I'm not thrilled about it myself. Let me tell you.

So how has Rocky's camp been so far? And can you explain to us a little bit about this fascination with trying to go after Chris Bryant? That I'm not going to discuss because I'm pretty much as flamex as you guys are. But I'll tell you how Rocky's camp is going. A lot of new guys in the clubhouse. So many familiar faces. of course, John Gray and Trevor Story, not there. Those being the two biggest names, you know, players obviously missing those guys,

but wishing them the best of luck. Gray, of course, signed that four-year, $56 million deal with the Texas Rangers. Trevor Story, still dangling out there in free agency. Where is it going to end up? Minnesota Twins? I don't know, but the Rockies have Jose Iglesias on a one-year deal for $5 million, and that all but closes the door on the Trevor Story era. that's wild and again that's part of the confusion on our part is that uh you know at the very

least with the arizona diamondbacks we're not seeing them now pursue high price free agents after letting guys go right like that that to me especially after losing guys like trevor's story and nolan oranato it just seems a bit weird that you would be in on chris bryant but i also don't know if these uh players leaving is of a person personal nature or some sort of problem within the organization. They just, they've seemed to be guys that the, the Rockies fans kind of loved.

And, you know, some of the guys you have talked in the past about fans being upset about them, parting ways with, yet here they are now in on another, you know, equally big name as far as how much money they're going to spend. Well, you touch on it there as far as there being a problem with the organization,

where they just don't, I'm not going to say they're rudderless, but they don't have the direction that, they really need to have. Now, they do have a new GM in place. He's done a really nice job so far. We'll really have to wait and see what Bill Schmidt is going to do going forward. So maybe this is just an example of him starting to put his own guys in place.

But as someone who's been with the organization for 20-some years and drafted Trevor's story and drafted John Gray as ahead of draft and development there and controlling everything that goes down every June in the draft. for the Colorado Rockies, you know, Bill Schmidt knows these guys really well. So to let them go and to have just recently traded Noel Aronado to get that money off the books and then to go and sign up to bring more money onto the books does seem strange. The thing with story is you go, well, why wouldn't you have thrown that money at him? And I don't know that they ever really made an attempt to do that, but I think there was somewhat of an understanding that, look, Trevor just saw how the organization treated

the guy whose locker was right next to him. The guy who spot in the infield was right next to him. And so you go, well, look, if you're going to make certain promises, certain overtures, and not follow through on it, you're going to say the same things to me, but I'm going to know it's not true because of what just happened to my guy, Nolan. And so maybe the organization didn't even want to bother making that attempt. Not sure, but maybe they can cook somebody new it and say,

hey, you know, we'll give you this money, but also we'll really make a super strong attempt to win, going forward, even though they haven't always followed through on those promises. I want to ask you, Patrick, I feel like, sorry, sorry, Derek. I want to just ask, I want to ask real quick, do you feel that, so like, we're all sort of brothers in the, you know, the bottom part of the NL West, right? I mean, let's face reality here. The Padres and the Giants and the Dodgers are all thought to be very good.

I personally think the Padres are a much better team than they showed last year, which is horrifying. Because there are two other teams who won 100 games already. So it's a scary division right now, Patrick. And something that we think about a lot over here is just what is the end game here? Like, how exactly do you contend in a division where you have the Dodgers who are spending 250 million or so every year? you now have the Padres who are also in that same general vicinity when it comes to their spending. And not only that, but both teams have very highly regarded farm systems. They both have proven to be reasonably successful at developing young players in a way that the Rockies and the Diamondbacks haven't.

Patrick, are we stuck forever just underneath all of these other teams who are having so much success right now? In a word, yes. Great, great. All right. Multiple words. All right. Here we go. Well, I'll say this.

You know, I've been a fan of what A.J. Perler has done over in San Diego. But we are kind of getting to that point now where I'm beginning to think that maybe there's going to be some problems over there in San Diego. And maybe we'll be launching down in Southern California. It will be SDGO. And they will also go down in the bottom. We'll be the bottom. others. I'm fine with that. But it's alliterative. I don't like the name though. Yeah, we're going to have to workshop that name for sure. But yeah, no, I mean, it's what it is. But now with there being six wildcards, I heard you guys briefly talking about that in the previous segment, you could actually have three wildcard teams coming from the same division. Very true. Obviously, it's improbable because you're all playing within that division.

so many times, but certainly next year in 2023, when every team is guaranteed a series against another team, that schedule is going to really lay out, and you're not going to be able to beat up against the same teams. So really, a better division overall could actually have four postseason teams. And really, that might be the best bet right now for the next couple seasons for both the Rockies and Diamondbacks if they want to make the playoffs. My thought with the playoff format, if we move to that, that type of scheduling is absolutely the best for it.

Because right now, if you are in a division where the number one team in your division just beats the hell out of the other teams, then that's really not giving them a chance to see what they can actually do against other good talented teams, right? Or just other teams in baseball, you could get slaughtered by the Dodgers over and over and over in the division, but still be pretty good against the rest of baseball. and, you know, still earn a chance now into the playoffs. With the playoffs being expanded, though, the idea of the 162 games season where you play those games against your division mostly are over, right?

Because that, and I mean, that's the part where we kind of lost our way. That was the playoffs in a way. That's why we had such a long season. That's why we played division opponents so much. That's why there was no interleague play is because they wanted you to kind of decide between amongst you and the other teams in your division who was the best first and then you could go out and play other you know other teams and like again that's why i'm so big on shortening the season now at this point if we're going to do this that and the other thing then i mean we could

literally shave 62 games off of the season and nobody would bat an eye people would say oh the baseball season's still a hundred games long okay like that still seems like a lot and that's 62 games we could shave off the schedule. And I don't know. I'm not, I'm not, I'm, I don't want less baseball, but I will admit that it is one sport where the season is just absurdly long. Yeah, I think, you know, all the, all the tickets that they, that they sell for those 81 home games and all the television rights is going to be one of the reasons why we probably don't eat that much.

I mean, maybe even slightly, uh, players are not going to want to give back, you know, any of that money. But to your point of how you started, I mean, look at the NL Central. Pittsburgh Pirates have, again, just haven't been anything going on a decade and really two decades before that, besides those three wildcard appearances in the early 2010s. But now you have the Cincinnati Reds trading, you know, everyone in their mother away. And that NL Central division, you know, is pretty weak in a lot of ways. I think you could say the same about the AL Central in a lot of ways with Kansas City there. And, you know, I hesitate a little bit with them just because Detroit's trying to get

better. They're still going to be bad this year, but they're on the way up. Cleveland somehow with a payroll of, I think, don't they sit at like $29 million right now? It is impressive. It is really impressive. I don't want to hear anyone complain about the Diamondbacks as long as that's how much Cleveland spending.

Yeah. So you're right. I think it'll think it'll be a lot more of a really positive balance. And think about it. If you live in Milwaukee, you may actually have a shot. And again, we'll see how the schedule plays out. But maybe, just maybe every other year, you could actually see Shohayotani play in your ballpark.

And that was something that you could say really only one every six years. Here's something. The Rockies have only been to Toronto three times in their franchise's history. They've lost all nine times. They're 0 and 9 north of the border. The Colorado Rockies. have been around for what 30 plus years right and they've only played 30th season yeah yeah it'll be a 30th year that's crazy and they've only played three times in toronto that's nuts

well patrick we we love you we appreciate you being on and we'll get you on again before you take off out of phoenix so we can chat more about this entire weird free agent frenzy that hasn't been much of a frenzy as much as just a mild fervor a free free agency fervor for right now. It's still going down. I can't believe it. So Chris Bryant signs with the Rockies. You'll definitely have me back. What about Jack Peterson? Does that move the needle or not? We'll see. If it's a slow news day, we'll contact you. If you still have a sick wallpaper background like you have right now, then you might just get an invite pretty soon here, Patrick. So we'll see. Thank you. We appreciate you. We appreciate you, big pop-a-parlay. All right. Well, we thank him for being on. We thank you guys for joining us.

And of course, we will definitely be chatting with Patrick again before the end of this spring training season, if you want to call it that. Things are happening fast. I don't even know if we can call it camp. Camp is one more day. There's one more day of camp. And then we move into spring training games. So this stuff is happening fast. But we appreciate you guys. Tune into the show. You can follow us on Twitter. I'm at cap underscore caveman. with a K. Jesse is at Jesse and Friedman. Our show, of course, the premier leader in spring training coverage. I can't say that for too much longer because they're going to start televising games, but I'm going to get it in there while I can. That is at PHNX underscore D-Backs, but of course,

all roads lead to at PHNX underscore sports, and that's on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. If you're listening to us right now on your favorite audio podcasting app, please subscribe to us there and sign up or leave us a five-star review. We'd love you for it. I know I'm not. I don't deserve that, but Jesse deserves it. Also, go over to YouTube, subscribe to our PHNX channel there and sign up for notifications. That way you don't miss any of the content coming out from the PHNX team. We appreciate you guys sticking around for this one. We appreciate Patrick joining us and I hope the burrito was worth it. That's all I have to say.

Even after we throw shade, we throw it so much shade. Oh, yeah, we throw shade and then we have you on immediately. That's how this works. But we thank you guys again so much for checking out the show on behalf of Jesse and myself, we appreciate you as always and remember kids. Baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun when Zach Gallen is okay.