PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Starting, stopping, & streaming

Episode Date: May 13, 2022

On today's episode, Jesse and Derek are discussing the upcoming series vs the Chicago Cubs, the major catalyst behind the D-backs' success this season, and why people are mad at MLB about baseball games on streaming services. 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.

and welcome to another edition of the PHNX Debaks podcast right here on PHNX. Happy Friday. Hope you guys are all enjoying yourselves and ready for another weekend of DBAX baseball. Of course, I am your mayor of PHNX. My name is occasionally known as Derek Montia. I'm joined by my vice mayor, my friend, my co-host, the one and only, Thunderstick Jesse Friedman. You know, Derek, the last few times that the Phoenix Suns have really messed things up in the playoffs

and made a lot of Arizona sports fans mad. The Diamondbacks have been there the same night to pick them up and make people feel at least a little bit happier. And that didn't happen yesterday. There was no Diamondbacks baseball on Thursday night. And I think a lot of people genuinely missed being able to flip the channel and watch Merrill Kelly or Zach Gallen dominate a baseball game when things didn't go so well for the suns like they did last night.

But we'll see what they can do this weekend. To be fair, to the sons, they've been towing the load for us, D-Bax fans for a while, right? That's fair. They were the ones that we had to flip over to get away from the horrors of what was going on on the baseball diamond. But now the tables have been turned a little bit. And unfortunately, at the wrong time, I think every Arizona sports fan right now would happily sacrifice Diamondbacks wins to see the suns go. on and do big things. And I still think they're going to. I'm still not panicked. I know that that last night's game was not great. And I turned it off myself in the third quarter, much like many of you

guys did. I watched the season finale for Moon Night, which was fantastic. And I ended up having a much better night than I would have watching that fourth quarter. And I suggest you guys do the same, especially once Diamondbacks baseball is back on TV at the same time as the Sun's game. But before we get too deep into this, we have to, of course, let you guys know that this show is brought to you by the fine folks over at the Draft King Sportsbook app. And speaking of NBA playoffs, action, you can get down on this semi-final round of basketball action. Over at the Draft King Sportsbook, new customers can bet $5 on any team to win, and you will get $150 in free bets if they do. And yeah, I don't know what's going on, Jesse. I don't have an answer for the Sons or the Diamondbacks.

I did do an interview with our friends down in ESPN, Tucson, Justin Spears, who is fantastic. Thank you once again to him for always having us on to chat about Diamondbacks baseball. But I kind of was taken aback because much like ourselves, you know, the finale in that three-game series against the Marlins made, had had some questions around it. People wanted to know what was up. And I just, I find it a little bit delightful that this team has gone from being so bad to being so good, so fast, and not even so good, just good.

Let's say, let's just call it. Yeah, they're 17 and 15. Yeah, they're not so good, but they're good. But this team went from being bad to good so fast that now people are questioning the losses, which I find to be amazing, you know, and I mean, we even did that, right? It was a blowout loss that was a lot closer than it seemed there in that ninth inning. And honestly, it's mostly because the Diamondbacks have been in so many of their games that people have grown accustomed really quickly to this team staying competitive in every game they've been in. Yeah.

I mean, things have shifted in a hurry around here. It's, it wasn't long ago that we were talking about a baseball team that was off to a pretty lackluster start, right? they were trying to even remember what i think they were three and eight something like that to start the season that it was it was not pretty you know everyone was was was ready to say that this diamond backs team was was simply about to repeat what happened last year and um you know the last couple weeks have been have been a nice surprise for people um yeah the the cubs are have been interesting this year um their batting average as a team is is a lot higher than the diamond backs batting average.

So they've done some good things. They're not really hitting home runs at all, which makes it hard to score runs, obviously, especially in today's game. A lot of times if you're not hitting the long ball, that is a significant deterrent to your offense. So, yeah, it'll be interesting to see what happens over the weekend. The Cubs are kind of on the other side of things where, you know, they're 11 and 19. and it feels like even though they haven't played well so far,

they're probably a better team than that record would indicate. So I know we'll get into this. I'm kind of jumping the gun here. No, no, no, no. Let's get into it because, yeah, the Diamondbacks are taking on the Chicago Cubs starting with a three-game set. We've talked about how this needs to be where the Diamondbacks eat. This needs to be a team that the Diamondbacks feast on based on those stats.

And really, I think the difference here, like you pointed out, between the Diamondbacks and the Cubs has been starting pitching. Because the Cubs do have some great stats when you take a look at their offensive numbers. And they have some really good players on their team. Wilson Contreras, Ian Hap, Nico Horner, rookie Sia Suzuki, Jonathan Valar. All of these guys are hitting close to 250 or above with Wilson Contreras hitting over 300. So offensively, they don't seem to have the woes that the Diamondbacks are. going through right now, unless you talk about like Clint Frazier, who's currently hitting 143, dodge that bullet. But the Arizona Diamondbacks definitely don't have that offensive

output. What they've had is the strong starting pitching, something the Cubs have not had. So it just goes to show how important starting pitching really is to keep a baseball team in a game consistently. If the starting pitching is good, you have a chance to go out there and win every single night, no matter who the opponent is. We saw the Dodgers just lose a series to the Pittsburgh Pirates, right? So, like, it's not to say that it really is a thing where any team can win on any given night. It's just what is working for your team. In the Diamondbacks case, it's starting pitching. That's the big difference between them and, and having a record that is more like the Chicago Cubs record. Starting pitching is huge. I mean, that's what the Diamondbacks

have, that's 100% why the diamondbacks are where they are. I mean, the offense hasn't been that good. And the bullpen is, is really ranked out as one of the worst in the game. The debacks defense, actually, we haven't really talked about this much, but they've made some errors. I don't think they're particularly high in the ranks in terms of preventing errors. But some of the more advanced stats really like the diamond backs from a defensive standpoint. And I think that has to do with a couple guys.

in particular, Christian Walker has really good defensive metrics at first base. Dalton Varshow has a really good defensive metrics in center field. And the Diamondbacks have gotten good things out of shortstop as well with Geraldo Pardomo and Nick Ahmed there, who always will do pretty well defensively. So that's been another big thing that has really elevated the Diamondbacks game, especially over the last two weeks or so when some of the airs have. been cut out of things. But yeah, the Cubs are, they're interesting.

I mean, you look at the roster and there are some names here that make you feel like the Cubs should be a better team than they've been so far. I mean, Sayas Suzuki has come over and done a phenomenal job so far. Just as exciting as we thought he could be, right? I mean, he's pretty much. I love that about the rookies this year. When you look across the board in Major League Baseball, the rookies are having a big impact on the game, including our very own Alec Thomas, right? So it's just, it's really fun to see these young guys come up, you know, Bobby DeWitt Jr., all these guys that like had a lot of hype around them.

And then they get here and they are exactly who we thought they are. I mean, look at jazz on the Miami Marlins. Yeah. If you didn't come to hate jazz in that series, two series at the time. I think most DeVax fans are there. Right. Well, if you didn't, if you didn't, you can't help but be a little intrigued by him, right? I mean, he really is the kind of player.

He's the straw that stirs the drink. You know what I mean? Like, I've never seen somebody that didn't have as, like had the numbers he had still feel like every time he was at the plate, he had this huge impact to change the game, right? And there's a lot of young players in baseball like that. The Chicago Cubs have that, but then they also have some older players that I think that that's what I think that's what confuses me. The Chicago Cubs roster makes me feel old, Jesse, because I still look at some of these names. I'm like, look at this thing. These guys, they almost got like an all-star team over there. But it's just because I'm once again remembering the glories of past performances for some of these guys. and not necessarily what they're currently doing in major league baseball. Yeah, yeah, no, that's a, that's a great point. I pulled up, I pulled up some of these defensive numbers just for fun. And the Diamondbacks are literally first in baseball in outs above average,

which is not something that I expected to find. Yeah, literally. Even right now pulling it. I'm kind of, yeah, literally. I'm smacked a bit. They are, so they're getting, they have more outs above average. from first base in any position. So Christian Walker has been really, really crucial here.

Nick Ahmed has played a good shortstop. And then Dalton Varshow has played an excellent center field. And that's really where the majority of that comes from. Yeah, I know Christian Walker leads the league still for first baseman in defensive run saved. And that's something like again, Christian Walker does not get the credit he deserves for his abilities over there at first base. I don't believe. No, no, he really, he really doesn't.

Cateau-Tal had a garbage throw, by the way, that he missed. And it was just this really bad throw. I mean, it was kind of a bang-bang play, so it's not to completely blame Cattel. But Catell seemed like he had enough time to make a decent throw. The thing I noticed in that moment was that Marte seemed to just assume that he could throw anything in the vicinity of, Christian Walker and he would be able to stretch out and scoop it up out of the ground and

and make a make a fantastic play to get the out. And it's like it's almost like he forgot that Christian Walker is an actual human being and not, you know, somebody with mutant powers to stretch their arms out or make their hands bigger or something like that. You know, like it was kind of incredible how bad the throw was because in the moment, it seemed like it was just like, oh, okay, I can throw anything kind of. it towards him and he'll gobble it up. That's actually what he's been able to do this year.

When you watch some of the, some of the throws to first base that aren't exactly on target, Christian Walker does an excellent job of keeping everything, you know, contained and does a great job defensively over there. And then infielding, he's been, he's made some fantastic plays, like some really good, you know, highlight quality plays.

So he's been doing a great job over there, as has been everybody on the infield with the exception of Marte, not to attack him too much, but I think maybe the expectations there of anything for this team that were set too high. It was Major League Baseball Network saying that Cotel Marte was going to be the best second baseman in all of baseball, which even at the time, we were like, what? We questioned that, right? Because that just seemed like a, that seemed like a pretty, pretty far long shot, considering that the guy hadn't even played the position for two years, right? So, yeah. And we're still seeing him.

him come around. We're still seeing Marte make some improvements and be better than in second case, right? His reaction times have gotten better. His throws could still use some work at times, but like I said, he has Christian Walker over there and he thinks he can he can just toss anything in his direction and he'll get it. But like, yeah, it's, it's, it's nice to at least see the progression. It's nice to see Marte and the rest of the defense. Like you said, play error free baseball lately. And that besides the starting pitching has really been the key that's kept them in all of these baseball games and has led to the success. The Diamondback, so I looked at errors,

and the Diamondbacks still have the fourth most errors in baseball. So it's not like they're not. They were not. They were not bad there in the first two weeks defensively. It wasn't just the offense that was off. Yeah, they really, I think the last couple weeks have been pretty good from an error standpoint. So, yeah, a lot of those, they accumulated over really just the first, like,

week or two of the season. And defensive run saved is a little bit less high on the debacks. They're 18th in the league in defensive run saved. So kind of more in the middle. But it's still a positive number. So, you know, it's still pretty decent in the end. And yeah, I think for Christian Walker, his defense is probably a big reason why the Diamondbacks brought him back.

There were a lot of people wondering if they would just non-tender Christian Walker based on the season he had last year. There aren't a lot of first baseman who, you know, slug under four. and have an OPS under 700 like Christian Walker did last year. But the Diamondbacks thought he could bounce back. And the fact that he's been a very steady defender at first base probably helped a lot in making that decision. We talked about the young, exciting players in the league and Alec Thomas being one of them. Obviously, we've covered him a lot this season.

And we're going to continue to cover him. And you can get my piece today over at go phnx.com, just talking about what a breakout series he had and that transitioning from being that top prospect to a big leaguer. You can get that over at go p hnx.com. If you are not a member already, sign up to become a member. You can get an annual membership that will get you a free t-shirt from our phnx locker.com. And we just dropped our brand new Sethserva shirt. I promise you that genuine will be spelled correctly when your t-shirt arrives.

But you can go get that shirt over at p.nx locker. Honestly, it's incredible. It's incredible that we design this. this shirt and and we're talking about like probably 50 different people. Maybe that's a slight exaggeration, but like a lot of a lot of people have seen it. A lot of people have seen the shirt. And nobody recognized that we had a word misspelled. I blame the fact that it was, I blame the orientation of the word. I blame the fact that it was on its side up and down. You just look at it. You assume it's right and you move on. Not to mention it's, it's, you know, it's a thing that

you see on beer labels quite a bit, right? Yeah, beer labels are always misspelled. I mean, let's be real here. Whatever. You're like, maybe that's how they spell it in France or something. I don't know. I assure you, like I said, they will be correct. Luckily, we snagged that before the printers got to it.

So definitely check out our shirt over at PHNX Lockar. Our Sethservaisa shirt, our Rattler shirt, our original logo shirt, all of those are available for at phtonx locker.com. If you sign up for that annual membership, you can choose any of those for free and you will get your free shirt sent out to you. If you're not interested in the annual membership option, we do have a month-to-month option, and we'll still hook you up. We'll give you your first month for just 50 cents. So regardless of your membership status, we want you to be a part of our PHNX family. We have members-only discounts for that PHNX Locker.com as well as our members-only

discord for you guys to join and chat with us about all of the professional sports in the valley, but mostly the best one right now, which is the Arizona Diamondbacks. And Jesse, we talked about the Chicago Cubs. We talked about the differences here. The Diamondbacks, like you said, they've actually been pretty damn good when it comes to the long ball. They're currently tied for seventh in Major League Baseball for the most home runs of any team. And again, that, like you said, that's been a huge part of their offense. And it's a huge part of any of the team's offenses. When you look at the teams right now that are leading the league in baseball with home runs,

they're all doing pretty good. You got the Los Angeles Angels and the New York Yankees up there at number one and number two. And the list from there goes down, you know, and you just see the success. Surprisingly, the Dodgers have not had a lot of home runs. They are middle of the pack with the Padres at 15th.

So Slam Diego and the Dodgers have nothing on the Arizona Dymabacks right now when it comes to home runs. When you look at the Chicago Cubs, meanwhile, they are not doing so well in a couple. of categories. They are 25th right now in baseball tied with the Baltimore Orioles for the most home runs. And their starting pitching ERA is also very, very low. It is right now round 4.22, which is, again, back of the pack for all of Major League Baseball. When you factor in the bullpen, the Diamondbacks are actually about middle ground as well. The Diamondbacks are 11th in ERA in baseball with a 3.55

ERA, and that's bullpen and starting pitching. So bullpen drags down that starting pitching ERA a little bit, but Diamondback's still in the top, they're 11th, so we'll say the top third of baseball in ERA, even with what the bullpen struggles have been this season. Yeah, the Cubs have, it's honestly mind-boggling to think about what's happened to the Cubs over the last few years. I mean, it wasn't that long ago that the Cubs were this dynasty franchise

that people thought were destined to become essentially what the Dodgers have been, a team that's going to be in the playoff picture year after year after year after year after a year. And it's just kind of crazy to think about how this is all unraveled. And, you know, I mean, they don't have many of the players that they did

back during their World Series run. You know, I mean, there's really hardly any I guess who's still there at this point. But it's just weird. I mean, Chris Bryant's not there. Anthony Rizzo's not there. Jake Arieta kind of hit a wall in his career. John Lester, of course, kind of aged out of being the incredible pitcher that he was for so long.

Kyle Hendricks is still there and is still pretty effective. But a lot of the pieces that the Cubs were building around just kind of very suddenly just weren't as good anymore. And, and it, I don't know, it's, it's just strange. It's strange to see a team that you expect to become that next big dynasty, just not really become that. And, and if, I mean, if there was ever a time where people were convinced that a dynasty was being born, it was that Cubs team. I mean, it felt like at every single position, they had a guy, you know, who was going

to be an all-star candidate every year. And, and it just hasn't really panted. out for them. And it's been like this for a few years. They haven't been that team for a while. I'll say this, Jesse, when you talk about teams that feel like they should be a dynasty, is there any team that you can think of that feels that way more than the Los Angeles Dodgers? In fact, the Los Angeles Dodgers feel like when you think about their past 10 years, you're like, didn't the Dodgers win three world series? No? Just one, huh? Wow. It's true. And I think a big part of them.

that is baseball is like that, right? Baseball is two things. And it's the reason why the Tampa Bay raise continue to be good, but not great, right? Baseball is that thing where there's not a big difference between a guy sometimes that you're paying $10 million more to for him to hit 263 instead of the guy you could have paid half a million dollars to that hit $2.45, right? Yeah.

That's proven. It's the money ball thing. You talk about some of those other stats, and those are the things that front offices and general managers try to tap into so that they can find those gems, right? Those hidden gems, the diamond in the rough, you're trying to find guys that, you know, have a high on base percentage. And you're trying to find guys that, you know, have, again, hard hit balls, but maybe not a lot of luck, a good XBA, things that aren't the conventional stats because people still pay very much attention to things like batting average and home runs and RBI. even though, as I've come to learn because of Jesse, those stats are very much situational and not a true reflection of what a player's ability is. When I say that,

I just mean you can be on a good damn team that has a lot of guys that get on base in front of you, and you just have way more opportunities than someone else for RBI, for instance, or, you know, things like that. But I will say that this game is weird. And the biggest problem is that when teams get good, players get expensive. And like you said, that team had an all-star team around it, but then what happens when contracts start coming up?

What happens when they feel like they need to make one trade to just make them that much better and get them back to the World Series the next year or whatever? And then things just fall apart. They had a certain chemistry. They had lightning in a bottle for one year, but it just doesn't last. And it's not just the Cubs, right?

Like I said, it's the Dodgers. It's all sorts of teams in baseball. New York Yankees right now. are all of a sudden the best team in baseball, but they've had the roster to be the best team in baseball for like three seasons, and they shit the bed continuously. You know, this has been the first year that they've been able to put it together and be dominant,

which is something you haven't been able to say about the Yankees in the past couple of years. The Dodgers are still running an all-star team out there from top to bottom, but there's like you said, I think you pointed out, there's still guys that aren't hitting very well, like Max Muncie and Justin Turner. And if those guys wake up, Can you imagine how dangerous that team's going to be?

Yeah. The thing is, though, they don't always wake up. Those guys were guys that were diamonds in the rough. Those guys were picked up off of other teams trash keeps. So now there's no way to guarantee that Max Muncie and Justin Turner are going to continue to be as good as they've been. Now that you have the likes of mooky bets and Freddie Freeman on the team doing the heavy lifting and being the guys that everybody's kind of looking to, to get the big hits and stuff. I think that stuff can change.

You know, it's different when you have a team like the Diamondbacks do. the diamondbacks have a team of guys that right now they can't really look to anybody. I mean, maybe they're even in beginning of the season, guys were looking to Catell a little bit too much to tow the load. And it was a bit too much pressure on Cotel. But the Diamondbacks right now are guys of our team of equals where everybody feels like they can contribute on any given night and be the guy that does the thing. And we've seen it. We've seen Pavin Smith. We've seen Dalton Varshow.

We've seen Alec Thomas. We've seen all of these guys contribute at one point in a meaningful way to the to, to, to the Diamondbacks winning without really having one guy emerge as the man, right? Not one guy emerge as their all-star player that right now, you know, hands down is going to be an all-star. As it stands,

if you're asking me personally, Dalton Varshow is a goddamn all-star on this team. What this guy has been able to do in center field and then transition to catcher because Carson Kelly is out and they're going to need a second catcher, and he's just going to switch it up and go behind the plate and still be as effective and call games and do. all the stuff he's done. It's impressive. You know, I, I talked about, you know, naming a more versatile player on our roster or naming a more versatile player in general, uh, in baseball than Dalton Varshot.

What was funny to me was the answers I got back were Shohei Otani and Bo Jackson. Okay, fine. If you want to start talking about Dalton Varsho being like fucking Shoheyotani or Bo fucking Jackson, I'm on board. I'm here for it. Right. So like if you want to talk about him being great like names like that then yes i and i know bo jackson was uh kind of mediocre sometimes at baseball but bo jackson was incredible in his prime right i'm just saying this team is built differently right now and yeah it does have that any time anyone feel like we talked about from years past when we we actually had that as our as our team catchphrase all right anybody anytime any that's right seven or whatever that was um okay this is i just is i just

found something that that I think might blow some people's minds. Do you know who by by wins above replacement, do you know who the best center fielder in the National League is right now? Is it Dalton Varsho? It is Dalton Varshow. No way. Holy shit. Oh my God. And it's not it's not like it's that crazy high of a number. He's at 1.4 wins above replacement, which is very respectable. I mean, that's on base for like a six or seven wins above replacement season. which is, I mean, that would be truly incredible. And this is from fan graphs. I think baseball reference has him quite a bit lower than this.

But yeah, Dalton Varsho, according to fan graphs, is why? Why would they, why would the two different websites have him differently? Yeah, baseball reference and fan graphs are are pretty different in terms of what they value in the player. I don't know exactly the differences. I know fan graphs values walks a lot more than, uh, than baseball reference does. I think baseball reference looks more so at just like, um,

you know, kind of the raw like power numbers and things. Uh, from a pitching standpoint, I also know that, uh, fan graphs uses fit as its main pitching metric, uh,

whereas baseball reference, uh, I want to say uses ERA or something like that. I'd, I'd have to check, but, see, see,

you, you, you asked me in the past about the stats thing. And let me tell you, this is the bullshit that people hate right here. The fact that you're telling me, there's two different occasions for war for two different websites. Right, right. Oh, well, there's three.

There's actually three. The baseball perspective has its own version of war. But, okay, I mean, aside from like, aside from, you know, the fan graphs and baseball reference in these different ways of measuring war, if you just look at like more of the normal stats that we're used to looking at, the center field pool and the national league, has not been good this year. It's not like Dalton Varsho is really the eighth best center fielder and the stack is just making it out like he's way better than he is.

I mean, I think Brandon Nimmo is probably the guy I would take over him. FanGrafts has him right underneath Dalton Varsho with 1.3 F4. Brandon Nimmo has a 413 on base percentage, although he does have a lower slugging percentage than Varsho does. So it's kind of a toss-up between those two guys in my mind who really the best center fielder in the national league is. But I mean, after that, Harrison Bader is sort of up there.

I mean, Cody Bellinger is hitting 205. I'm Brian Reynolds for the Pirates. It has been very good in the past, but has not played well at all this season. So Trent Grisham with the Padres has been a total mess. He's hitting a buck 44. I think it's like kind of legitimate. And part of it is because the center field pool in the national league has just been very bad all and all.

There's just not much there, but it is entirely possible that Dalton Varshow could be an all-star. And I don't want to say he wouldn't deserve it. But I mean, the field is totally wide open right now for him to go and claim that spot. Alec Thomas has a 0.5 war right now, by the way. And we also have the fact that just after like four or five games. I'm just saying when you talk about center fielders being bad, he already has a 0.5 war. But I don't know, man. I think that this is the reason why the diamondbacks didn't make any crazy moves this offseason.

And again, when you talk about finding the diamonds in the rough like a Zach Davies, like a Kyle Nelson, so far the diamondbacks have seemingly done a good job of bringing guys over that didn't have much of a pedigree or didn't have a very high value and now have been doing has been doing pretty good for this team. Meanwhile, the big acquisitions, I guess you could say, of Mark Melanson and Ian Kennedy, not so great. And I'm going to say this because we entitled yesterday's episode, Malanson Meltdown and stuff. I just want to say Mark Malanson is a very, very good closer. And I don't think that the Diamondbacks would have been able to get somebody better than him. I think that they would have been forced to find somebody within their organization that they needed to convert to a closer or something of the sort, but I definitely think that people should give Mark Melanson a little break. I think coming off of COVID, we talked about some of the exhaustion things and things like

that. LaVolo pointed out that really it's command for him, right? So if he's not landing his pitches, if he doesn't have his command, he's not going to be effective. And that's definitely what we saw in that blowout loss to the Marlins there in the ninth inning. But I still don't think we should be pushing any panic buttons because this team is still far out, uh, overachieving what we, what we thought they could do, right? I think everybody just needs to take some OGs,

come down, relax a little bit and, uh, realize that this team, I mean, even when they set that high expectation for winning for success, it's not going to be that all the time, you know, and we're, we're going to see, just like we've talked about, we're going to see the starting pitching come back down to earth a little bit, even though they're still doing very, very well.

We've seen that. We've seen the starting pitching ERAs level out and not be sub one and such like they had there for a minute. But we all just need to take our time with this team. They're going to overachieve. Let's just hope that the Diamondbacks don't do anything to panic and start making moves that they don't need to make to jeopardize the future of this team. Right. Yeah. And I don't think they will.

I mean, that's not. really the M.O. of a of a guy like Tori Labello or Mike they don't press the panic button very quickly. And Tori said that about like he said he wasn't even entertaining the idea of Mark Millanson changing roles, right?

Yeah. However, that doesn't mean that we all can't stop by our local dispensary and grab ourselves some amazing scratch made THC gummies from our friends at OGs. They have wonderful flavors that we talk about like blackberry cream, watermelon, orange creamcicle, I love all their flavors, Jesse.

The pineapple, Pinacolada, fantastic. And you would enjoy this, Jesse. We have a bunch of non-medicated samples at the office, and they're just there so you can taste how good the gummies are. And what does that say? If the gummies are good enough to just have non-medicate, like I don't understand the point of non-medicated samples. That doesn't interest me in any way, shape, or form.

But you want to just try how delicious they are. They'll prove it to you. But they're perfect if you're in the mood. for an uplifting setiva after a loss, or maybe I guess we want the uplifting setiva after a win. We can celebrate and cheer. We got the chill Indica for the losses.

But regardless of the mood you're in or the team you're rooting for and the outcome of their game, you can try the amazingly delicious variety that OG's brands has to offer by going to OGsbrands.com. That's OGEZBrands.com to find OGs near you. And I think people need to take some OGs gummies, Jesse, when it comes to streaming, baseball games because as it stands, some people are very, very upset about it.

They do not like the streaming stuff. They do not like the fact that MLB is doing some of the things that they're doing, to be honest. And when I say that, I say this kind of starts out with some of the complaints about Apple TV, which tonight's game for the Arizona Diamondbacks will be viewed exclusively on Apple TV. So don't look for it. I don't believe it's going to be on Bally's or anywhere else. It's going to be on Apple TV.

They are giving it to you for free. So there is no, there is no, you have to pay for it. You don't have to have Apple TV. I'm sure they're going to try to get you to sign up for it. I'm sure the free viewing of the baseball game is going to be part of their scheme to get you to become a member. But I feel like people are very upset about this because MLB right now has a viewership problem. They don't feel like it's a very popular sport and that is reflected by the viewership numbers and the ratings. And they truly feel like this.

streaming of games is killing off viewership more so. I have a bit of a different take on it, but a lot of it kind of stems from the first game of the Yankees double header the other day that was rained out, I believe. It was a Yankees White Sox game was rained out and they moved it to a double header the next day and put game one of the double header behind an Amazon Prime streaming paywall, which again, seemed to upset a lot of people. Now, I get people being upset about this kind of stuff, but sometimes, Jesse, I even forget what streaming services I have. So sometimes I find myself getting mad about something and then realizing, oh, wait, I have that.

Why am I mad? I can watch that Amazon. I have Amazon Prime. I can watch that baseball game. Do you agree with this sentiment that streaming is killing off viewership, especially when it comes to these type of games? I'm not talking about streaming like on the Bally's app, which I do all the time. I stream on the Bally's on the go.

I was in the airport. I was watching the game in Seattle. So that's different to me because that just gave me access to watching the team when I'm not able to. And I'm already paying for it. So I'm just with that Bally's app, I'm just signing in with my TV provider, right? With DirecTV.

Right, right. But yeah, these other games there on streaming services that require you to have at least I don't know, in Apple TV's case, log in, do you think that this really does impede people watching baseball games? It'll be interesting to see

once we have a little more experience with how the numbers are looking and whatnot. Yeah, I mean, I think that we can say safely that the Apple TV Plus deal was motivated by, you know, the league bringing in more revenue. That's why they did this. I don't think it had

anything to do with them thinking they were going to increase ratings. Right. And yeah, money. It's making money. Yeah, it's making, it's making money. And that was, you know, a part of the CBA negotiations was the league looking for more ways to bring in revenue.

And, you know, right in the middle of those negotiations, the news of this deal with Apple TV Plus came out. And I think you're right that at some point not too far from now, people will have to actually pay for this. And it won't be free for everyone like it is right now. But yeah, I mean, we'll see. If you look at MLB ratings over the last decade or two, you know, the numbers are fading. That is that is a real thing.

And so, you know, finding ways to get people in front of baseball games on their TVs or their laptops or however it is is really important. But you don't really see this in other sports that much. I mean, I guess, what is it, Thursday night football has been on Amazon Prime number of times. Those are garbage games. Nobody really cares about anyway. Yeah. Yeah, I don't get the sense that a lot of people really care about that. The NBA, to my knowledge, doesn't ever really do anything like that. It's all, I guess they have some stuff on NBA TV.

I think they have on YouTube like MLB did. But again, it wasn't, you didn't have to be a YouTube subscriber or anything like that. It was just free on you. It was just free. Yeah, I mean, I think when you do that, then you're expanding your viewership theoretically. I mean, you're kind of getting it out there on the internet. so that anyone can pull it up and see it without having to pay, where something like this Apple TV Plus deal is exclusive

and eventually will be behind the paywall and people don't have any other choice. You're just not going to be able to watch your team's game that night if you don't pay for it. So it's hard to believe that this is going to increase viewership in the end. It feels more like a money play on the part of the league. I'll take it one step further and say that there will be people that want to watch tonight's Diamondbacks game,

people listening to this podcast right now that won't. And they won't watch it simply because they don't have Apple TV right now. No interest in even going through whatever process is required for them to watch the game for free. That's how little people want to do something extra and new in order to watch a team or sport that they've already been watching all season long. Now, with that being said, I come from a, I come from a rare class of people, right? a rare group of people. I am part of the group that was young enough to still remember things being the way they were in the 80s when stuff was just terrible and expensive and hard to access and all of that.

And now I am alive in 2022 and I am still not too old to be like put off by technology and such. For me, when people complain about something like this, it's hilarious to me because it's like, when I was young to watch baseball games for out-of-market teams, not only was it impossible, but if you found a TV provider, a service to do so, it was going to cost you an astronomical amount, right? It kind of goes to, like, a lot of things for me. Like video games, whether they were bad or good,

still cost you $50 when I was a kid. They didn't give a damn about how terrible the game was. If they're putting in a box, you're buying it from a shelf, it's going to be probably $50 on day one. Now video games are like $1.99, and people like Jesse Friedman will still be like, no, two whole dollars, hard pass, right? And that's the way things are now, right? Like, things are kind of a la carte, but they're also much more accessible and they're

much more inexpensive than they were at one point. You're not signing up for Apple TV just so you can watch the Diamondbacks game today. You're signing up for Apple TV so you can watch every episode of Ted Fucking Lasso. That's what you're signing up for it. And if you haven't had a chance to watch Ted Lasso, it is by far the best show. on television today. It is funny. It is inspirational.

You'll be a better person for watching it. It's like buying our shirts at PHNXLocker.com. It magically transforms you into a better person. So I will say that if you are on the fence about it, try it out tonight. Who knows? Maybe you do buy the subscription and stick around. If you have an Apple phone and you haven't done it,

there's a chance you already have a free six-month subscription hiding somewhere in your account for Apple TV. So figure it out, watch the game, enjoy yourselves. don't let this stop you from enjoying baseball. This Diamondbacks team is great. I shouldn't have said that. The minute I said great, I felt like I needed to take the words out of the air back into my mouth.

This Diamondbacks team is very good, and it's going to be fun to watch them. So we need to continue doing the things that we're doing and watching this team. So we thank you guys. We hope you guys enjoy tonight's game. Go Diamondbacks. You can get us on Twitter.

I'm at Cap underscore Caveman with a K. Jesse is at Jesse on Friedman. Our show is at PHNX underscore. debacks, but of course, all roads lead to at PHNX underscore sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. If you're listening to us right now in your favorite audio podcasting app, please make sure to subscribe if you haven't done so already, and leave us a five-star review.

Then go to our PHNX sports YouTube channel, sign up, subscribe there, sign up for notifications, do all of that stuff that way you don't miss any of the content. Coming out from this PHNX team, we're having some fun and putting some good stuff out there, sign up for a membership over at go phnx.com and visit all of our sponsors, especially OG's gum. OGsbrands.com, that's where you need to go and get yourself some scratch-made THC gummies.

We thank you guys, again, so much for checking out the show. On behalf of Jesse and myself, we appreciate your time. Oh, and go to Draft King's Sportsbook. I know that we talked about accessibility, right? We have the ability on our phones right now to just hop on Drafking Sportsbook and put down a bet. I think we should all do that. I mean, like I said, at the Washington Nationals game, you know, you had to walk all the way down to the stadium. you know, if you want to do something right now, you can on the Drafking Sportsbook app.

Go download the Drafking Sportsbook app now. Use our code of PHNX and get down on the NBA action. New customers, of course, can bet just $5 on any NBA team to win, and you will get $150 in free bets if they do. Existing customers can get down on the same game parlayes by combining multiple bets, like which son's, which game the Sun's team will win, of course, sons are winning in seven. The Dallas Mavericks have been far more annoying than we thought. But you can bet on the sun's winning. You can bet on the number of three is made.

Total rebounds, all sorts of stuff. Add more legs to your parlay. The more legs you add, the more money you win. Also right now, all existing customers, new customers, existing customers, everyone can get down by placing a same game parlay with three or more legs. And you will get a free bet back up to $25. And like I said, you know what to do with that. You get your freak on with the first bet, right? Go 1,000 plus big odds. If that doesn't work when you get your free bet back, if one leg doesn't hit, you can turn around and make a more conservative bet. And before we go, I am going to give you my draft king's pick of the weeks this week. Of course, the Arizona Diamondbacks are currently for some reason, excuse me, they are currently for some reason,

not favored in the matchup against the Cubs. So I'm taking the Arizona Diamondbacks to win that game. I'm also taking the Los Angeles Angels over the Oakland Athletics, and I'm taking the LA Dodgers over the Philadelphia Phillies. I'm going to take all three of those games and add them to one multiple game parlay, and let's see if I can, let's see if I can hit on that one. Of course, you can get down on the Drafking Sportsbook app now. New customers use our promo code of PHNX, bet $5 on any NBA team to win their game, and you will get $150 in free bets if they do. that's promo code PHNX only at the Draft King's Sportsbook. 21 and over only Arizona only gambling problem.

1-100 next step. New customers only minimum $5 deposit required. Eligibility restrictions apply. See draftkings.com slash sportsbook for details. We thank you guys again so much for checking out the show on behalf of Jesse and myself. Of course, we appreciate your time. We appreciate you being DBAX fans. And remember, kids, baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun.

When you're starting pitching is really, really good. Thank you.