PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - The Arizona Diamondbacks are the best MLB team that no one is talking about

Episode Date: May 22, 2023

Despite an ugly loss on Friday behind Zac Gallen, the Diamondbacks stormed back to take two out of three from the Pittsburgh Pirates and get to a season-high seven games over .500. We discuss how the D-backs are perceived around the league as well as your Mailbag Monday questions on whose rotation spot Zach Davies will take, potential trade deadline targets and more.WATCH YOUR FAVORITE TEAMS HERE: https://www.fubotv.com/phnx SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports PHNX Events: Get your tickets to the Keepin’ it 100 Golf Scramble, D-backs Takeovers, Knockout Nights & Suns Watch Parties at BetMGM, and MORE here: https://www.eventbrite.com/o/phnx-56002330273 Gametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase.Manscaped: Save 20% Off and Free Shipping with the code “PHNX” at Manscaped.com. BetMGM: Download the BetMGM app and sign-up using bonus code PHNX (betmgm.com/phnx). Place a pre-game, moneyline wager in the amount of at least $10 on any market at standard odds price. You will receive $200 in Bonus Bets instantly regardless of the outcome of your wager! Just make sure you use bonus code PHNX when you sign up!Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER (CO, DC, IL, IN, LA, MD, MS, NJ, OH, PA, TN, VA, WV, WY). Call 877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY). Call 1-800-327-5050 (MA)21+ to wager. Please Gamble Responsibly. Call 1-800-NEXT-STEP (AZ), 1-800-522-4700 (KS, NV), 1-800-BETS-OFF (IA), 1-800-270-7117 for confidential help (MI). Visit BetMGM.com for Terms & Conditions. US promotional offers not available in DC, Nevada, New York or Ontario.Pins & Aces: Check out pinsandaces.com and use code PHNX to receive 15% off your first order and get free shipping.Circle K: Text PHNX to 31310 to join the Circle K SMS subscriber club and get BOGO 32 oz Polar Pops! Head to https://www.circlek.com/store-locator to find Circle Ks near you!OGeez!: Learn more about OGeez! at https://ogeezbrands.com//. Must be 21 years or older to purchase.Four Peaks: Follow them on social @fourpeaksbrew & @fourpeakspub! Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. When you shop through links in the description, we may earn affiliate commissions. Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. 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 in to a Monday episode of the PHNX VEbacks podcast right here on my name is Derek Montaia of course I'm your mayor of PHMX this is your vice mayor also your thunderstick Jesse Friedman the diamondbacks are seven games over 500 there there are seven games over 500 they have the third best record in the national league behind only the Braves and the Dodgers just as be all expected can I get you right can I to say seven games above 500 one more time. The Diamondbacks are seven games above five years? Can we get little mini-Katel going up to the mountain?

No, when would they stop? I just, I love that little thing. But yes, the Arizona Diamondbacks come fresh off their 12th series win or split. I got to put that part in there because they have split a lot of series. Non-loss. Non-loss, non-losing series of the year, which is fairly impressive because this team, of course, not a lot was expected out of this team. And we knew that once they got into May

that they should be winning a lot of these series. But as we saw in game one against the Pittsburgh Pirates, that's not, it's easier said than done. We had Zach Gallen on the bump. Zach Gallen obviously had one of his worst starts of his career. And, you know, things didn't look so great, especially with the Brandon Fott on the mound in game two. But Fott had himself another solid outing,

another very encouraging outing as far as his development as a major league pitcher. Yeah, yeah. I thought Brandon Fott looked better once. again. He, I mean, it was a heck of a pitching matchup, right? It was Brandon fought against Mitch Keller. You know, it sort of felt like you could shock that that came up as a loss, almost from the beginning with how well Mitch Keller is pitched this season. But, you know, Brandon Fott didn't outpitch Mitch Keller, but he held his own in that game. He did. There were, there were still some, some ugly moments, you know, some things to work on for him. But he was able to hang in there and give the D-backs a chance to win. And the Pittsburgh Pirates Bullpen was not at all good in this series. The Diamondbacks took advantage of that a couple of times, really, in both the Saturday and the Sunday games. But, yeah, somehow things were ugly on Friday, Derek.

Of course, that was the one game of the series that we were here doing a post game show. Of course. But it seems to be a trend around here. We always pick the best games to do post game shows. But yeah, you lose 13 to 3 with Zach Gallon on the mound. You know, that's a real gut punch. And the debacks bounce back is they have often done this season. and somehow we're talking about a series win over a pretty good Pittsburgh Pirates team.

Yeah, a series win that saw starting pitching not be very good across the board for the Arizona Diamondbacks. In fact, Brandon fought going five and a third, giving up six hits, three earn runs, and two walks with three strikeouts was probably the best performance in the three series. Merrill Kelly was doing fairly well yesterday and then he ran into a bit of trouble that kind of an inning that seemed to never end, which happens at times for this team. But I think the most impressive thing has been the bullpen throughout this series, right? The way the bullpen has been able to not only give the Diamondbacks length, but also to help them maintain these leads and win these games. Yeah, I mean, the Debacks bullpen had a bit of a clunker in the Friday game, but everything was a clunker out Friday.

Everything was bad at that. Nothing worked. And two of those five runs that the bullpen gave up were by Jose Herrera. I guess we have to point that out. No, we don't. Jose Herrera deserves his flowers for what he did on Friday, to be honest. Maybe you, honestly, honestly, I joke about that. But what Jose Herrera did maybe permitted the Diamondbacks to be able to win these other two games because of the fact that he gave them.

Just not having to use another bullpen arm excessively in a series that they did use their bullpen a lot. That's fair. I'm not trying to act like he saved the day. We should be giving Jose Herrera the king snake. Yeah, absolutely. Joseira, you're our king snake. We're alter. Get that changed up there.

No, I'm just joking. You see those 56-mile-hour breaking balls there? They were gorgeous. And then he switches speed between 56 and 82. Who does that? Yeah. That's a 26-mile-hour gas. Who does that?

That's legit. No, but yeah, the D-Bax bullpen really is, it was a huge part of why they won the Saturday and Sunday games. Yeah. And yesterday's game on Sunday, four innings, no runs. McGuff and Ginkle. Those two guys combined to get them through. And yeah, I mean, the D-Backs opened up a pretty big lead there. so wasn't necessarily high leverage at the end,

but it was a close game when Scott McGuff was on the bump. And then in the Saturday game, very close game all the way through three and two thirds innings, no runs there following up what you talked about before, a pretty decent Brandon fought start, but not the kind of start that, you know, like we said, he didn't really outpitch Mitch Keller. He kind of just kept the debacks within a run,

kind of, you know, got them to a point where they were hanging around. And Palm Beach Garden Zone, Pavin Smith, was able to, you know, hit that two-run shot, that they gave the debacks the lead there. Let me say something crazy. I actually think the win on Saturday was potentially one of Tori Lavallo's best managed wins because of how well Keller was pitching and the way that the Diamondbacks were able to put something together there when he was, his pitch count was only at like 80 pitches.

And to be honest, there's a good chance that he might have been able to even go two more innings, not just one. The Diamondbacks were able to get into the bullpen just by, you know, by trying to score a run, by trying to manufacture runs. And it really felt like, it wasn't like I would have felt the opposite way if I was a Pirates fan. Like I would have been mad that they pulled Keller out of the game with the way he was pitching,

regardless of what the Diamondbacks were able to do against him there in his final inning of work. But it was a well-managed game that was a close game and the Diamondbacks were able to steal that one. They've been fairly good at times in these close games. And that's something that they really weren't last year. So that seems to be making the difference as far as them being seven games over 500.

The other thing is they are just taking care of business against teams like the Pirates. That first game was ugly, but to bounce back and still win the series after that first game, it shows a lot about this team, right? It really shows the answer backs thing feels like it's bigger than just a catchphrase. It really feels like this team does answer back. Yeah, I mean, the debacks were down three to one going into the sixth inning in that Saturday game. It was not really a game that was setting up to be a win for them. and you were probably willing to accept that.

It's like, all right, it's Brandon fought against Mitch Keller. Like, you know, hopefully in a couple years, this is a start that Brandon fought can win, but you don't necessarily have, you're not necessarily expecting that from him at this stage, given the early struggles that he's had in his career. So that was huge for the debacks to come back. And something that's really just occurred to me in the last week or two is that for the diamond backs, the pitching matchup does matter.

I don't want to say it doesn't. But the Diamondbacks are 27 and 20, despite having three-fifths of their rotation, giving them very below-average performance, right? Tommy Henry is a 5-E-R-A. Ryan Nelson is a 5-and-a-half E-R-A. I don't know what Brandon Fotz ERA is off the top of my head, but it's still very high. And the debacks, despite having three-fifths of their rotation, composed of guys who are not pitching well on the whole, the debacks are 27 and 20.

Like, they've had a lot of pitching matchups that have not gone their way, and yet they're finding ways to win these baseball. games anyway. It's incredible. It's because of their position players. It's because they have Corbin Carroll and Lordus Gurriel and Christian Walker and Geraldo Perdomo and Catele-Marté. And it is the deepest lineup that we've seen in a long time and that allows you to win games where where the pitching matchups like, oh man, we got no shot. Or oh, man, this is pretty lopsided. And there's another one of those this afternoon, right? It's Tommy Henry against Zach Wheeler for the Phillies. And yet you feel like, okay, you're not necessarily.

going to bet on the debacks to win this game. This is probably the one that's set up worst for them in this series against the Phillies. But when you have the offense that the debacks have, you can't really count them out against any opponent. William Laguna says Zach Gallin's worst game, but when the series is great to expect going forward, we can do what we can do.

Oh my Lordis, Lourdes continues to be incredible. He increases his career high hitting streak to 14 games. Ketel-Marte extends his on-based. streak to 21 games. And like you said, they're just getting it from everywhere. When you take a look at the contributions from this team, it's hard for us at times to pick a king snake because the contributions kind of came from everyone. You can't really pinpoint a specific person at times. That was the reason why. But the position players are doing great things. And honestly, the depth that the diamond backs have in their, you know, in minor leagues and these guys that have been able to be

called up like Dominic Fletcher and add something. to the lineup, not just add, but Dominic Fletcher continues to be just an absolute nightmare at the plate for opposing pitchers. So this is, this team is really rolling on all cylinders, right? Or not, I shouldn't say that. That's what I just said was completely wrong. They're not rolling on all cylinders. But the offensively, the position players are doing well. And this team is seven games over 500 without having all of their parts working all the time at the same time. Right now, during this series, it was really starting pitching that struggled. And if we take a look at the numbers in the series, you can kind of see here how valuable the relief pitching was there

compared to the Pirates relief relief pitching. Still, even winning two games in the series, 19 runs to 15 runs because of that first game. Well, yesterday's, I mean, the Sunday game was setting up to be like a really close, like, you know, maybe like a one run win, something like that, right? And if that had happened, the run differential would have been enormously in the Pirates' favor. only because the D-Baks were able to scratch across a few more runs in that Sunday game

and open up a bigger lead. We're only looking at 19 to 15 difference here. But yeah, on the whole, I mean, the D-Backs probably got outplayed in the series. I mean, they didn't have as many hits as the Pirates. They didn't score as many runs. The Pirates hit 400 with runners in scoring position in this series, which is insane. But the pirates did almost all of their damage in that Friday game, right? It's the age-old, like, save some for tomorrow.

right? I tell you. The Pirates didn't do that in this series. Baseball series do not have aggregate scoring. So there is no carryover from one game to the next until we look at these numbers. And that's what's been funny about these numbers when we look at a series. All of these series for the Diamondbacks get really close, no matter how much the Diamondbacks blow out a team. When it comes down to the series numbers, this is one of the few times where it just looks tremendously in favor of the pirates.

When you look at the starting pitching ERA and what they were able to do with runners, in scoring position, even outwalking the D-backs. And yet the Diamondbacks were still able to walk away with two games in the series. The errors for the Pirates really were compounded. The Diamondbacks did a good job of taking advantage of that. That was so ugly. How many Wild Pit like what? There were moments in that game where the Pirates did not seem like a Major League Baseball team.

And the Diamond. I mean, the Debacks had their issues too, but it was kind of a weird game all the way around. But, you know, those are the, those are the, not every win has to be pretty. And Sundays wasn't at times. But we're not all pretty every day. All right. Speak for yourself, Derek. I mean, Jesse, let's say, let's go on.

You've had some days with some bags under your eyes after staying up until 3 o'clock in the morning. Not the only one seeing that. Clutch Connect says we are slithering in all cylinders. I like that very much. So Gabriel Ferrer says love seeing Carol walking so much that fraud outman has like 60 strikeouts and 10 walks. Rookie of the year, my ass. Let's talk about it. Talk about it.

Let's talk about it. Say it louder for the folks in the back, Gabriel. Brett Johnson says, do we have any word on if they are going to have a replacement for the home run snake? They got rid of that thing so incredibly fast that I would say no. But yes, I was looking up new headpieces yesterday. I did find a Medusa headdress. That was very fetching. I thought it would be great.

It looks like a crown. Skeletor is in the chat. It's always great to have Skeletor in the chat. Amen. He says a pretty sloppy series overall, but we are quite scrappy. And that's exactly a great way to talk about the Diamondbacks, right? Quite scrappy. In fact, per fan graphs, the Arizona Diamondbacks playoff chances now sit at 47%.

Not quite to 50. But we're so close. It hasn't quite tipped over above 50%. It's not likely, according to Fangraph. So 47% is a lot higher than it was at the beginning. It was a lot higher than it was beginning. I believe, weren't they in like the 20% range or something? of that?

Might have been. Yeah, I think it was 20, maybe a little under 20. Sixth highest, by the way, playoff chances per the National League behind the Braves. Dodgers, Brewers, Mets, and Padres. D-backs are projected right now to finish 84 and 78. You're such a fraud. Get out of here with six games.

I mean, that would mean they would go one game under 500 the rest of the way. That's right. Impossible, but I'm impossible. Yeah, you're right. More teams just behind the debacks and playoff odds, the Phillies, which are 40. 44.9%.

St. Louis Cardinals, which are inexplicably at 44.4%. And the Giants at 38%. Fan drafts will not give up on the St. Louis Cardinals. No, nor should you. Have you seen the way they're playing lately? We are playing really well. We are playing pretty well. But I guess the question there is, is are they too high on any of those teams?

Maybe the Giants? That seems fairly high on the Giants. At 39% like right behind the debacks. I don't know about that. I could maybe see where, you know, like the rest of the way, if you project the Giants to maybe be about on par with the Diamondbacks, I don't personally agree with that, but I could understand why like a projection system would maybe think that.

But at this point, I think the Diamondbacks are a better team than the San Francisco Giants. The Giants just, there's a number of guys in that lineup and in that rotation that they were relying on in a big way this season. And those guys just haven't really panned out unless, you know, multiple guys suddenly turn it around. I don't really see it coming together for the Giants. Talking Jake, Brett Johnson will never let you forget under 74 wins. Yeah, 73. That was his projection. Nope.

We should keep a running tally of like how bad the Diamondbacks would have to be the rest of the way for them to actually finish with 73 wins. Because at this point, you have to really hate the Diamondbacks to get them to 73 wins at the end of it. And how can you hate the Diamondbacks, right? I mean, the Diamondbacks just seem like one of those teams that would be hard to dislike, Even if you're in the NL. West, could you not have a little respect for the scrappy snakes from the desert? Come on. And speaking of scrappy snakes from the desert, we have our king's snake for this series.

And of course, it's our baby boy. It's Jose Herrera, right? It is. Yeah, it is Jose Herrera for that inning of relief pitching. No, it is Corbyn Carroll. Let's go, Corbyn Carroll. Three for eight, one home run, three walks, three stolen bases. The fastest man alive is back.

Yeah, he really is. Corbyn Carroll had not stolen, he had not attempted a stolen base since the knee injury entering that series. And you kind of felt like that wasn't a coincidence. And maybe the Diamondbacks were telling him, all right, you know, kind of get your feet under you a little bit. And yeah, I mean, obviously the base stealing game is a huge part of what Corbyn Carroll brings to the team. And he was three for three in the series. That was great to see. Also the walks, people were mentioning before we had three walks in the series.

on the season, Corbyn Carroll is hitting 284, 382, 507, which is a superstar level of performance. And somehow, some way, at 22 years old, that's basically what Corbyn Carroll has shown himself to be at this point, which is really remarkable. And going back to the James Outman, Corbyn-Carrel comparison that I know everyone is... There is no comparison, Jesse. James Outman has a 33.1% strikeout rate, which is extremely hot. very hard to maintain good offensive numbers over the course of a full season striking out that much. And we're at the point where although his numbers for the season are still very good, James Outman is still having a great season overall.

They are not as good as Corvin Carroll, Derek. At this point, at this point, Corbyn Carroll has the better offensive numbers. He has a slightly higher in Fangraph's war. He's obviously bringing more on the base paths defensively, probably bringing a little bit more. I think Corbyn Carroll is back in the driver's seat for rookie of the year, even though it's May, and we probably shouldn't be talking about this. But everyone wants to. We're going to absolutely talk about it all year long. I'll play the game. Corbyn Carroll is in the driver's seat right now.

I will defeat James Outman. That's all that matters. That's all we really want. Clutch connects is, how can you not love Corbin's hula hoop batting stance, that little shimmy? The shimmy. It's akin to a snake, right? It's letting you know that something bad is about to happen to you. It's trying to warn you, right?

That's what that shimmy is about. It's like what we said about Corbyn in the beginning of the year, though. And I think when James Outman got the rookie of the month or whatever he got for April, there's going to be guys that come and go, right? There's going to be names. There's going to be guys that for a week are going to be the talk of baseball. And then next thing you know, you're going to hear about them getting set down to the minors. The difference between the other rookies and Corbin Carroll was that we just had this hard-to-shake feeling that this guy was not going to be one of those type of players.

He was going to be a guy that came up to the Major League stayed here and contributed to his team winning all season long. Outside of that injury, we haven't really seen him slowed down. And like Jesse said, there's a good chance that the reason why he wasn't attempting stolen bases on the base path was because he was told not to. They're still going to be extremely cautious with Corby and Carroll. Maybe Zach Gallen is the only other player right now in the roster that they would be more cautious with perhaps. But there are guys that mean so much to the future of this team that the Diamondbacks are not going to jeopardy. You know, their health in any way just to win a few games or whatever. If they have to take it easy with a guy and that means them not being able to produce as much or add as much to the team,

they're going to take that, you know, that precaution, especially with the youth that they have on this team. It's always going to be these guys' health as a priority over, you know, the team winning. But at the same time, it's great to see Corby and Carroll getting three bags in the series because that really means Corb him is back. What really stands out to me, too, is like just thinking, over the history of this franchise. The debacks, the debacks have had some big name prospects for sure, but they haven't had that many big name prospects who came up and had this level of impact right away, right? I guess Paul Goldschmidt, who was not actually that highly thought of when he was first called up. He was pretty good right away. There was the game against Tim Linzacum, right? He was

absolutely destroying Tim Linzacum from day one. And to be fair, and he had a pretty, he wasn't a superstar in his first full season, but it was a pretty good player that year. He became a fan favorite right away, though, simply based on his name. His name was like just something that people instantly were like, Goldschmidt? Well, and he became a

fan favorite because Tim Linsicum was a really freaking good picture at the time. We hated him here in Arizona. Well, we still kind of hate him. Loving Tim. Tim Lincolm, like, looking back, Tim Lincolcum was one of the more fun pictures to watch. Oh yeah, I'm not saying it wasn't. I'm saying it's kind of like Brandon Crawford, where

he just slaughtered us all the time. It was hard to like him. You just when he just, yeah, Brandon Bell. That's what I was thinking about. He was a proffered, but. Brandon Bell was the one I was actually thinking of him. Brandon Bell was a hardcore diamond back killer. Oh, he kept him employed, Jesse.

Yeah, that man. What do you mean he's a hardcore diamond back killer? We kept him employed. The fact that he had so many games against us in the season. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Speaking of millions, you can make millions perhaps about millions upon millions. You can be like our DNVR crew who bet on the nuggets to win the whole thing over there. and maybe they might end up with a whole lot of money if they do.

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You can send them to us in the Discord, but we also do this thing on Twitter that many of you know about. Every week on this show, right? Jesse makes me say this, but every week on the show is Shark Week. Every day on this show is Earth Day. But every Monday, we go to the mailbag. Damon, let's go. My mailbox. Always something interesting in my mailbox.

trying to get to everything in my mailbox. And then once in a while, he is the one that makes me say Shark Week. He just argued with me about it. Well, you know, it's true. All right, what do we got, Damon? First question in the mailbag. It comes from Joey, Yehomi, on Twitter.

And Joey asks, who will be the odd men out when Zach Davies returns? Zach Davies, according to reports, looks very good, Jesse. Yeah, well, it's mostly because those poor AA hitters have never seen a change up like that. How dare you? It's funny how, like, you know, nobody. Everybody is watching Zach Davies pitch in the big leagues and, you know, being like, oh, this guy's, this guy's a number one or number two starter, right? Wait, wait, for a week, we said that. For one week on this show, we said that.

He's the best pitcher on the debacks for the first week of the season. But, uh, but yeah, it's funny how you take a guy who in the big leagues is kind of mediocre to maybe a little below average. And then you stick the guy in double A for a rehab assignment and he looks like a freaking stud. It's amazing. It's amazing. But yeah, it's because these four hitters in double A, I mean, they're trying to hit what is basically the best changeup in all of baseball or one of the best changeups in all of baseball. Zach Davies has made a living with one incredibly elite pitch and a whole bunch of not very good pitches. And he kind of makes it work and turns it, you know, it turns himself into a number four starter or so.

As far as who replaces or who he replaces when he comes back, Derek, it's a pretty tough question to answer at this point. From a scheduling standpoint, I think he would line up to start the same day that Brandon fought would line up to start for whatever that's worth. We've seen the Diamondbacks do some gymnastics in recent weeks as far as those things go. So if they want to remove someone else from the rotation, I think they could probably find a way to do that. So yeah, I mean, you've got Tommy Henry starting today. This is a big start for him. I think if Tommy Henry has a real clunker, then maybe you look at him as being the guy who would be most likely to go. Ryan Nelson starts tomorrow, starts on Tuesday.

If he has another good start after his pretty solid outing against the A's, then it'd be pretty tough at that point to move him out of the starting rotation. So I don't know is the simple answer. I mean, it's, it is close on all fronts right now. What's your gut feeling? Like, I mean, I know we have nothing to go based on anything. We haven't heard anything. But what do you feel like? Because I feel like still at the end of the day that Ryan Nelson is their guy to keep in the rotation.

That's what I feel. I feel like Brandon fought in his last two starts has done enough to encourage me to say we don't need to send Brandon fought down. Is that going too far, considering that they weren't against extremely strong opponents? Yeah. It's hard to say. I, Brandon fought from, you know, the results have been better, and he has pitched better, but I still wouldn't say that these last couple good starts that he's had have necessarily been, oh, like that guy is flashing number two, number three starter stuff.

It's still like, okay, he's not really getting guys to chase much out of the zone. He's not really getting guys to swing and miss quite as much as you kind of hoped he would. So I still don't really view it as being like a full-scale turnaround for Brandon Faw at this point. That being said, he's trending in the right direction. And unfortunately, the bar that the debacks are setting right now with these three spots is not particularly high. All these guys have struggled. I checked the other day, I'm pretty sure that Tommy Henry and Ryan Nelson opposing hitters have exactly an 837 OPS against both of that. Literally the exact same number.

So I would lean towards Ryan Nelson's staying based on the A, like you said before, based on his start against the A's, I think he just has pretty good stuff. Which we've always known about him. We've always known the fastball is really good and he has some interesting secondaries that are a little shaky, but I think we've maybe seen those come around a little bit. Tommy Henry's just not striking anyone out, which is just concerning in the long run. I just don't know how we can continue that in the long time. term. And then Brandon fought, you know, was just so bad in those first two starts. If those hadn't happened, we probably wouldn't be talking about him being removed from the rotation, but I'm not sure he's quite done enough in these last couple to necessarily counteract that.

Cole Cunningham brings up a great point. I'd say Nelson gets moved down since Tori probably wants to keep a lefty in the rotation, but if not, then I'd be fine with moving. Yeah, that's fair. There's also the thing that Tommy Henry's the only lefty. I don't know if the debacks necessarily put that much stock into having one lefty in the rotation. I don't think it would make the decision based on that. If it's a push, you might end up going with the lefty just because, right? And I don't think that either of these guys wouldn't be great in the bullpen, considering how their performances have gone.

We kind of know these young guys have been able to give us a strong couple of innings before we see things start to fall apart for them. But again, Tommy Henry, Ryan Nelson, Dre Jamison, these are all guys that the Diamondbacks very much still want to be starting pitchers of the future for this team. So I think they're still very, very resistant to doing that with any of them. I think that's the reason why at the end of the day we saw Drake Jameson stay in Reno and not come back up to the bullpen.

We've seen them go with several other options of adding those guys to the bullpen versus going to Drey Jameson. And I'm a bit doubtful now that we'll see any of these three guys, even if they don't work out in the starting rotation in the pen. I still think, though, in my opinion, it's a good idea. I still think they're very good pitchers. I think this season is going in a direction for the Diamondbacks where things are starting to get very exciting for this team.

And I would like them to solidify their bullpen with a long relief guy that can go three innings and help them out on some of these shorter outings that we've seen even from Zach Gatlin, right? It's not like it's just Brandon fought Ryan Nelson and Tommy Henry that have needed to be bailed out early at times. We've seen it from all of their starting pitchers. So I just, I'd love to see that length in the bullpen.

The other thing that, I mean, Dre Jameson, right? He's in Reno, and he's pitching pretty well down there. His last start against Sacramento a few days back, six innings, five hits, two runs, no walks, seven strikeouts. That's pretty darn good stuff from Dre Jameson down in the PCL. Start before that six innings, two hits, one run, three walks, five strikeouts. The two before that weren't quite as good. But on the whole, it's a pretty decent body of work from him down in, down in AAA. and it's not just Zach Davies coming in and replacing one of these three guys.

It very well could be that whoever the other two left over are, if they continue to struggle, then Drake Jameson could very easily come up and plug one of those spots. So at the end of the day, I don't think any of these three guys necessarily have a very long leash right now, given the depth that the debacks have in the minors. Which doesn't probably help with their anxiety and everything that these young guys are going through. There's a lot of pressure on them. However, let's be honest. Like that's something that these guys need.

Like they kind of need that pressure at this point. We're getting to a point in their career where there is constantly competition for a starting rotation spot. And it hardly goes away unless you reach the levels of kind of what Zach Gallen is doing right now and what some other the other best pitchers in baseball are doing. But it's never guaranteed for you. And all of these guys are just learning that this is going to constantly be part of the process. And hopefully they can adapt. All right. Next question, Damon.

And what do we got? Jacob Giacoma asked, is there any concern for Loller's slash line is pretty bad so far this year? I would say, yeah. I mean, I have concern for Lawler. I know for a fact that we weren't like huge on his defense. But offensively, that was where he really provided a lot to this organization. And that's where the focus, I'm sure, was going to be on him for going forward. The defense can be fixed.

He can be taught things. He can get better at it. but the offense looked really good and it doesn't this year. So I don't know. I know he's gone through a lot of ups and downs this year. I know he's been injured a couple of times, but for the most part, I think it's, I think it is concerning. Yeah, it's a little concerning.

In May, Jordan Lawler is 5 for 51 at the plate. Yikes. Yikes. Yikes. He's hitting 098 in the month of May with a 217. with a 217 on base of 176 slugging percentage. The guy hasn't figured out AA yet. That's the reality.

I know he did get off to a pretty hot start. He had pretty good numbers there for the first few weeks of the season. But he struggled in AA last year, even though Jordan Lawler had a really good year overall last year. He made it all the way up to AA and he sort of hit a wall. And I don't think anyone was concerned about that at the time because he, I mean, he moved so many across so many levels in one season, just, making it to double a in the first place was an incredible accomplishment,

but he hasn't figured it out yet. And he was good in the fall league last year. I don't think the, I don't think the Arizona Fall League pitching was maybe quite what it is at times. It seemed like the level of competition as far as pitchers went in the AFL was maybe a little down from what we're normally seeing. We've alerted Brett Johnson to Lawler's numbers. And I'm worried.

I'm worried for Lawler now that. Brett Johnson knows this information. Yeah, it, it's, I'm not overly concerned at this point. I've actually heard pretty good reports about his defense. So, so that's, that's certainly a, yeah, that's certainly a positive. But the guy's 20 years old, you know, if, if he, if he doesn't make it up to the big leagues at the end of the year, like some of us suspected, that's okay, right? I mean, he would have been, he would have been getting to the big leagues even earlier

than Corbyn Carroll did, which was already really early. So there's no reason to rush him up. You want him to take his time. You want him to figure things out. But it just might not be quite as quick of a progression as we saw with Corby and Carol. And as people were hoping he would maybe do. Brett brings up Ryan Bliss. He says Ryan Bliss, though.

He's killing it. Ryan Bliss was the Diamondbacks minor league player of the month for the month of April, by the way. AA Amarillo. He hit 410 with a 1.050 OPS with eight doubles, two triples, two home runs. He's down to 378 now. Down to 378. It's awful. Awful.

But yeah, he's killing it. And I mean, that's the thing about it. There's a lot of names that a lot of people aren't familiar with in this organization that are really good players. Blaze Alexander is another name that comes to mind. The Diamondbacks have guys like Dominic Fletcher kind of in spades in their minor leagues. And a lot of those guys aren't getting an opportunity right now because the Diamondbacks don't need them yet at this point. The other Dominic, Dominic Canzon has also had a pretty good year down in Reno. I think he's major legrady.

It's just like you can't bring up another left-handed hitting outfielder right now. So he's going to have to wait. But I think you probably will see Dominic Canzone in the big leagues at some point this year. That's a great point. What else we got, Damon? Next question. It comes from William Laguna. And William asks, is this our starting pitching rotation going forward, rookies in between Kelly and Gallen?

Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think that. Well, not when Zach Davies comes back. Well, yeah, no, not when Zach Davies comes back. but I think I wouldn't be surprised if the rookies end up falling in between Gallin, Kelly, and Davies. If you're going to get actual length out of those guys to split it up where you see Brandon Fott remain where he's at and maybe put Nelson or Henry in that, what, fourth spot, I mean, it just makes sense as far as giving the Diamondback some sort of consistency, maybe so the bullpen a little bit of a break.

If those guys haven't been going more than five innings, it would make sense. Here's what I'll say. If the Diamondbacks are still in contention as of the trade deadline and the two rookies, whoever they are, who are in their rotation at that point, assuming it's still Gallen, Kelly, and Zach Davies, there would still be room for two rookies. If those guys are still kind of struggling as they are now, I feel fairly strongly that the Diamondbacks will go get a starting pitcher at the trade deadline,

or at least make an attempt to get a starting pitcher and kind of see where that takes them. You're answering other questions. Yeah, we're going to get more into this a little bit later. But yeah, if the Diamondbacks are in position to contend, you have to kind of think big picture here, right? Zach Gallen, we've only got two more years of this guy after this season. There's no reason for the Diamondbacks not to be pushing all of their chips in right now. I don't know if it would be like a frontline starter. In fact, I feel fairly strongly that it wouldn't be.

it would more be like another Zach Davies type, maybe a little bit of a higher level than that, just to add some stability. I could agree. You would want a guy who could viably start a game three of a playoff round, right? Right now, you feel pretty good about Zach Gallen going in a game one, Merrill Kelly in a game two.

After that, the debacks would sort of be doing a bullpen game or something. I don't know if any of their current starters, you'd really feel comfortable in that spot. So adding some depth to the rotation, could be something they look to do with the trade deadline if they're still in the mix. So I'd be pretty surprised if the debacks, you know, if it was just kind of these same guys that we have right now the entire season. Will it be Corbin Burns?

Will we get Corby Burns from the Milwaukee Bears? It will be, yes, I can report right now that the Diamondbacks. That's all I want. That's all I want. I just want Corbyn Birds. Corbyn Burns has had kind of a weird year. He like wasn't striking out guys really in the season, but I mean, he's still Corbyn Burns. He's mad.

He's still mad. He plays for the Milwaukee Brewers. Brewers who are in first place in the NL Central. I don't think the brewers are going to trade Corbyn Burns, but we'll get more into that later. What about Hermann Marquez from the Rockies? Is that more of a reasonable? Hermann Marquez is injured.

Hermann Marquez just had Tommy John surgery. Oh, okay, okay. I forgot about that. Yeah, you don't trade for Hermann Marquez. That's a bad idea. What else we got, David? Carlos Santana, Dread 324 on Twitter asked with the questions surrounding the bottom of the rotation.

Do you think the debacks make a trade first starter. There it is. There's a question. We just got ahead of it. And yes, who do they target? I think we just answered that question. But I, regardless of the direction they go, I think pitching is going to be their focus, whether it's relief pitching, whether it's starting pitching, no matter what I feel like. They don't really need it. Like, if you were to get a position player for this team, what position would you even be looking for? Third base. I guess, yeah. I mean, Rojas and Longoria haven't been great, but like Rojas is still kind of part of your long-term playing.

And Emmanuel Rivera has been hitting very well. Manuel Rivera has been hitting well. Yeah, I just, I don't know if I really see it for a position player. I mean, maybe, maybe you find another bench piece or something. But yeah, I think it's all going to be pitching for them at the trade deadline. The bullpen for sure, pretty much no question there. If they're in the mix at the trade deadline, they're going to try to improve this bullpen. And getting a starter, like I said earlier, makes a lot of sense.

sense right now. Welcome back, Calvin. Calvin says I haven't followed the debacks for some time, but tuned in this year. Don't know all the players, but their record signals some hope. It absolutely signals some hope. And join us. Come on, come on down. We'll teach you all the nicknames that we've made up, all the things we scream at the top of our lungs when the diamondbacks are down or up. Connor Mormon says, you're saying the Zach Gowan clones won't be ready for the playoffs. The Zat Gowlin clones still can't count to three. It's really weird. There's definitely some issues in the programming that's going on with the clones, but hopefully we can get them online before the playoffs. Do the White Sox have any pictures that maybe we could grab?

Oh, yeah. No, that's definitely a great point. Yeah, let's, is a name that Gialito. What's somewhat intrigues me. They are very far out of the race at this point. So far. Scott Barlow from the Royals. They did get a sweep though, which the Diamondbacks can't do.

Sorry. Yeah, like Lucas Gialito is a good pitcher. He is a 3.62 ERA this year, 112. whipped 12 walks compared to 60 strikeouts and 59 and two-thirds innings, he would be a big acquisition. If I'm not, I need to check real quick. If I'm not mistaken, though, I think Lucas G. Alito is a free agent at the end of the season.

Correct, which would make him a trade candidate, I'm sure. Which would definitely make him. Seems more likely he'd debaak if he's a free agent. Oh, yeah, for a rental. But that's the thing is, is then what do the Diamondbacks give up? How much do they give up? And, of course, I think I'm once ahead of another Mailback Monday question we may have. I feel like the devax would rather get a pitcher who has like at least a year and a half of control so that you're not just making a move for 20 because you're going to have to give up something.

That's going to be so hard, right? That's going to be very hard to get a guy that has a year and a half of control. It is. Yeah. But yeah, I don't know. Like, would you, would you give up real prospect capital just to go for it in 2023? And I don't know if you feel strong. Cogs wants to trade the greatest Italian baseball player to ever live for Shohei Otani.

I don't know if the debacks would never do that. I don't think the deba. That's a crazy trait for the debacks. You get out of here. All you guys wanted is to trade for Otani. What else we got there, Damon? Last question for this segment comes from Jacob. So many Jacobs in this segment.

I feel like we should get Fajun here. He says, why do you disagree with me on the bourbon thing? Walker, Walker, Walker, Walker, Walker, Walker is way better. Look, I don't disagree with you on that. Our Walker song, which goes, Walker, Walker, Walker, single, double, triple Walker. He hits Dinger's Christian Walker. having a day at Chasefield, he smashes balls.

See, Walk, that's how the song goes. And yes, you're right, that is better than the bourbon thing. But the reason why is because Christian Walker is a man of class and dignity. And he at times has been known to fill his entire locker with bourbons, not the liquid, like bottles of bourbon, not like fill his lock. That would be silly if he filled it with bourbon. But he does. He is a fan of bourbons and meats and cheeses.

And he's kind of just like this folk hero that we have going. on. I think someone asked, which isn't one of our mailbag Monday questions, but is CWalk, possibly an MVP candidate? No. Which is the answer is now. The answer is now. The answer is now. Christian Walker can be a fantastic player and not be an MVP candidate.

Like those two things can't exist in the same universe. But I don't even think he's the Diamondbacks MVP, if I'm being honest. When you look at some of the slash lines from the Diamondbacks players right now. Parolo Pardomo is the best player on this team. I mean, we knew that. We knew that. That's no surprise. at all. But I'm not even joking here when you take a look at some of the numbers from this team

because this team is raking right now. You have, let's see, Lordus Gouriel Jr. hitting 304. You have Emmanuel Rivera hitting 321. Dominic Fletcher, again, the greatest Italian baseball player to ever live, is hitting 343 with a 917 OPS. And Perdomo, once again, hitting 317 with a 940 OPS. I think runners in scoring position, he's hitting 9,000. I don't know how that's possible, but That's just what I've heard. So I don't know. Right now, no. The answer is no.

Christian Walker, not an MVP. And when it comes to me wanting us to get rid of the bourbon thing, that's not going anywhere either. Needs, cheeses, bourbons. That's what you need to send to them every time he eats home run. Speaking of meats and cheeses at least, you guys should check out our friends at Mountain Mikes, by the way. They have some wonderful locations in Mesa Chandler and Tucson, which you can go check them out. They have a gigantic 20-inch pepperoni pizza that is actually the only pizza known to have defeated me and eating it alone by myself.

But they have a lunch buffet that's absolutely incredible. And of course, we got to thank them for the food they send over because they're always keeping us well fed here at PHNX. But you can head over to Mountain Mikespisa.com or to their locations in Mesa, Chandler, or Tucson

to place your next order. Remember, new Diehard members get that $50 voucher upon signing up, which, come on, pretty much pays for the entire membership right there. So get yourself over to Mountainmikespisa.com and get yourself a diehards membership while you're at it. Before we go on to more mailbag Monday questions, we've got to give a shout

to more furniture. More is the place for you to furnish your home, no matter what you need. The weird part about furniture is sometimes you just don't think of going to a furniture store to purchase something. Like I was there and they had standing, you know, the desks that go from sitting to standing. That's so, that's incredible. Everybody should have those. They should be in all of our offices. They should be in all of our houses. Everybody needs to stand sometimes. It's pretty great to stand at a desk and work. I got to admit, it's something that looked like, you know,

crazy person behavior until I did it. And then I was like, you know what? Yeah. This is kind of amazing. So I was converted not that long ago. To a standing desk person? Yeah. Well, I wouldn't quite go.

Both. Hybrid. Yeah. Like open to the possibility. Before I would not have, I would have thought that was utterly ridiculous. Why on earth would you intentionally stand for like hours upon hours? Because you couldn't have a Chase lounge lined up right next. Right. Of course that doesn't make any sense to Jesse.

If I can't, if I don't have a chase lounge, then I'll just stand because it's not worth, you know, sitting on whatever bum office chair you're going to have around. Jesse lays out while he writes. It's very, it's very weird, but that's why he needs so many chase stuff. Yeah, that's actually like sort of true. I definitely am like lounging around on the couch or something when I'm writing most of the time. It makes sense. But you can say big on the best furniture. Valley when you head to more furniture.com. And don't forget to check out their white glove delivery service, which will not only bring your stuff to your house, but they'll put it wherever you want it. So shout out to more furniture.

And now we got more mailbag Monday questions. What else we got there, Damon? Next question comes again from William Laguna. He says Carson Kelly is on 60 day IL now. What does that mean for our catchers moving forward? I got to say, once again, there's no quantifiable evidence to say at this point that the Diamondbacks won. the trade with giving up

Dalton Varsho, who was one of the best players on this team last season. But considering the injury to Carson Kelly, that this trade was the best thing the Diamondbacks could have done because Gabriel Moreno has been such an addition to this team. I mean,

you would have literally had Jose Herrera splitting time with Dalton Barshot who couldn't be at his best. They wouldn't have made the trade in the outfield behind the plate because they simply would have needed him at that. Forget the impact that Lord has had, and this hair, this hair, this hair is still here, this purple hair situation. Loring too many hats, Derek. People forget that you have purple hair.

I know, my mom, I had to hide it from my mom today. I didn't want to, you know, I didn't want to answer too many questions about why I'm pretty little air. Definitely, Lourdes and his purple hair. That's a whole other thing. Like the production from both of these guys is incredible. But as far as Catcher goes, we do know Carson Kelly is due to come back. He's not going to miss the entire season. He's a few weeks, I think, away. How long would you estimated this point until we see. Yeah, I talked to Carson about a week ago now, and he was cleared to swing. And I think we talked about this on the show the other day.

He was throwing out to like 120 feet. Don't have any updates since then. So let's just say he's two months out, because that's probably a safe estimate now. So I know it's been less than that. Yeah, he's definitely not two months out. Right, right. He's probably a few weeks out would be my, would be my guess. And as far as like the roster move of putting him on the 60 day, that's sort of just semantics.

It helps clear a 40-man roster spot for the debacks. It does mean... It's retroactive back to when he did it. It's retroactive back to the injury, which happened before the season started. So those 60 days are going to be up in probably about a week. So, yeah, him being placed on the 60 day doesn't change anything. The debacks honestly could have done that from the very beginning. Maybe they just didn't because they suspected maybe it's possible he's back sooner than 60 days.

But yeah, them doing it now. It doesn't really make a difference. he could still come back in about a week and be eligible to come off of that list. But yes, getting the trade has been very significant. If the Diamondbacks did not have Gabby Moreno, their catching situation would be very different this season. It's just crazy what it would be. Like it really is because, I mean, again, we now are to the point where we're kind of,

you know, again, frustrated with the fact that Moreno isn't getting more time, right? And honestly, he's playing a lot. Like, he's playing. way more than he would have had Carson Kelly never been injured. But, I mean, again, this is going to be probably a split time situation with Carson Kelly once Carson Kelly gets back. If not, Carson might even end up getting more playing time than Gabriel Moreno, which was essentially the plan in the beginning. I just think Moreno has done enough to prove what an asset he is to this team. He's done a great job behind the plate, which that seemed to be more of the question about him rather than his offense.

His offense has been great. But behind the plate, we've seen him do some. some pretty impressive things. Yeah, he, yeah, Gabby Moreno is, I mean, you're, you're just kind of starting to see it come together. And I still think he's very much in the early stages of his development as an offensive player. You're seeing him, as we've talked about recently, like he hits over 300 and yet he's not that much of a net positive offensively because he's not really drawing walks and he's not really, he's not really showcasing much power at this point. It's pretty much all singles. But he's still 23 years old, right?

I mean, it's really insane for Gabby Moreno to be this quality of player not only at the dish, but also behind the dish. I mean, he is an incredible defensive catcher. So imagining the Diamondbacks without both Lordus Gariel and Gabby Moreno is it's hard to envision them being where they are without those two guys. Shout out to the back-it-up binge podcast. They said just came across your show. Great jobs. Thank you. Welcome to the party, pal.

Cog says, how much control do we have left on Carson? and could he be a deadline piece? Potentially, I mean, he does have one year of arbitration control left, and then after that he's an unrestricted free agent in 2025. I mean, I don't know what the plan is, but for all intents and purposes, Gabriel Moreno seems like the catcher of the future for this team as far as who they're going to focus on and things like that. Carson Kelly could be expendable potentially.

I will say that's one thing that sucks about missing time. When you miss time and the team and the game didn't really. miss you. Like there wasn't this big like with Gabriel Moreno and Jose Herrera there wasn't this big loss behind the plate without Carson Kelly there. Right. And then that just kind of makes the team kind of factor in how much, how easy it is to potentially replace you and not bringing back. So who knows what the future holds for Carson with this team. But yeah, I do think that Gabriel Moreno is the is the catcher of the future. Yeah, he's definitely the catcher of the future. I would think if the diamondbacks were to trade Carson,

which is something we suspected that they might do right when they made the Gabby Marrador trade. Yeah, we thought that was an option. In our emergency pod, we were like, all right, Carson Kelly's out. There's no question. And then Mike Hazen, 24 hours later was like, yeah, no, we're not trading Carson Kelly. But with the time left on his contract, it makes sense, considering you want Gabby to get some time. You want him to behind a veteran guy. You want him to learn from somebody else.

Carson's a great dude. So, like, there is very little doubt in my mind that Carson Kelly would be the kind of guy that would share everything he knows about catching with someone like Gabriel Moreno, even if internally he knew that he was kind of training his replacement in a way, right? Yeah. Yeah. I think if the diamondbacks were to make a move there, they would probably wait until the off season. I know there are some concerns with Gabby Moreno's workload. He did not catch more than, I believe, 70 games in a season in the minor. So he is tracking well north of that. So I think the debacks very much will value Carson Kelly down the stretch and getting Gabby Marino off his feet, even though he's the catcher of the future.

It'll be interesting to see how they approach things over the off season. You know, Connor's making a good point that you still are losing something with Carson Kelly out because Jose Herrera spent decent offensively. He's held his own more than he did. More than he did. Yeah, he's been extraordinary. He absolutely replaced Carson out of the bullpen. That's for sure.

Carson ain't getting back on the mound. But yeah, the debacks definitely have a lot. something there. Carson has been a little hit or miss offensively the last few years, but he's a step above Jose Herrera. Jose generally well regarded defensively, but we have seen some mistakes that for now and then that Carson maybe doesn't make. So there is still a drop-off there. It's just a way, way smaller drop-off than there would have been if Gabby Moreno wasn't here. Carson Kelly to the Cardinals for Jordan Montgomery confirmed. That's what I'm seeing in the chat. All right. Yes. What else we got?

Sean McNally asked if the trade deadline was this week, what is your realistic outgoing package for a trade? We got a lot of questions about who they would trade for, but the outgoing package I thought was interesting about this. Like who do the Diamondbacks package and trade? The problem there is I feel like a lot of situations would involve giving up too much. And especially in a trade package,

I would say would probably involve minor league players. The Diamondbacks at this point, Mike Hazen at this point, have been very clear that for the, at least for the short term, for the next like maybe two seasons, they're not in the market to add more prospects to their minor league system. They are in the market to make the major league club better. And I think that any outgoing package most likely is going to involve some of their very, very good prospects. And I think that we talked about Dominic Canzone earlier. I think with all the left hitting outfielders that this team has and how ready he is to contribute at a major league level,

I think Dominic Canzon would be a big part of that package. Man, Ivan Melendez has an 8, 83 OPS. Yeah, he does. I'm getting sidetracked. Jesse's, you can't do that. Don't start looking at the middle of the show. You don't think the diamond backs are going to trade Ivan Melendez. No, he's the Hispanic Titanic.

It's the greatest weirdest nickname ever. Yeah, so what I suspect is that the diamond backs, in addition to having so many left-handed hitting outfielders, there's definitely room for them to make a move there. They also have a lot of these young pitchers who are right on the edge. Tommy Henry, Ryan Nelson, Brandon Fott, Slade Cicconi, Blake Walston, Bryce Jarvis. It's a lot of guys. It's almost too many to actually give them all a fair shot, right?

So I could see the debacks kind of narrowing in on the guys that they believe in the most. Or even maybe they have to part with one of the ones that they like the most in order to bring in some value. you at the trade deadline. Again, it's still really early to be having these conversations. I mean, the trade deadline is more than two months away. There is more baseball to be played between now and the trade deadline than what we've played up to this point. I want to emphasize that we are less than halfway to that point in the season. Cogs is drunk. Cogs, you're underage. You should not be drinking this at this time in the afternoon. Canzone, Carson, Kelly, Nick Ahmed, Ryan Bliss for Corbyn Burns. Yeah, there's no. There's no way. There's no way the brewers with it. The problem is

that Carson Kelly and Nick Ahmed have minimal. Carson Kelly probably has some trade value. Nick Ahmed, maybe even negative trade value at this point. And I'm fairly certain Corbin Burns is a free agent after this year. He might have some time left on his contract. I felt like he was, I feel like

he was relatively close to being a free agent. Yeah, I think he's close, but I don't think it's this year. He is a free agent after next year. So you'd get, I mean, there's a year and a half guy. Go get Corbyn Burns. But again, the brewers are in the race. The brewers are not trading Corbyn Burns unless they fall out of things.

Let's hope they do then, Jesse. But yeah, I think it's left-handed hitting out fielders, and it is potentially one of those young starting pitchers. And maybe some lower-level guys on top of that. That's kind of what I think they have to win. Unfortunately, I don't think Tommy Henry was ever really rated high enough as a prospect for him to be involved in the deal. So it would most likely have to be like a Ryan Nelson.

then that's uh or or or you know maybe one of those guys that are still in minor leagues that we haven't seen yet but yeah that's scary the idea of losing a prospect we haven't even seen at a major league level frightens me because that's that's when that's when we stop talking we never stopped talking about a trade like that the brewers did trade josh hater that's true the brewers have done some odd things but yeah i don't i don't know if i mean corbett like they had so many weapons in the bullpen that as strange as it sounds, they could sort of do without Josh Hater, even though I don't think that was a smart trade for them. They cannot do without Corbyn Burns.

Brandon Woodruff is hurt right now. Corbin Burns is a very, very big part of that baseball team right now. So I don't see it. Charles Woodall Pike says, we already made one super terrible trade with Milwaukee in my lifetime. I don't need another one. You are absolutely right. Let's move on. What else we got there, Damon?

Next question comes from Michael Rokickey and Michael asked if Alec Thomas is in Reno, how can he be the young PHNX king? I feel like the throne needs to be passed. He also asks is Philip Evans the new Stone Garrett. Ooh, well, Philip Evans is tearing shit up right now in Reno, that's for sure. But, Alec, I don't know. I don't know.

You're the mayor of nicknames. I know, this is a tough one. I mean, we have a lot of kings, right? We have our speed king. We have a risk king. We have our young king. Alec Thomas, I don't know. When Alec Thomas grows of a certain age, do I need to take the young king moniker away from him?

I don't know how, like, I mean, he's not at that point yet, right? Yeah. Still 23 years old. I mean, and there's a lot of rappers that are over 30 that still use young in front of there. Young MC is not fucking young anymore, but he still goes by young MC, right? So, I mean, maybe that's something that sticks around. Honestly, I miss Alec Thomas.

And I hope to see him back here soon. I think that Alec Thomas's defense is still something that we don't really. Like, he was so good. He's like what we've said about Christian Walker at first base, right? He's so good that you just get used to him being there. And then when you see somebody else play first base, you're like, what the hell? Stretch out for it, man, get the ball. How did you miss that?

It's because Christian Walker makes everything look easy over there. And I think that Alec Thomas does the same in center field. So hopefully in Reno, you can get his swing back together and figure out what's going on with his mechanics, especially that leg kick. And, you know, come back up to the majors and contribute to this team winning. Yeah, Alec Thomas, for those looking for an. update as far as his progress in Reno. He's played five games now. He's sitting 333. Not much power, though. He's slugging 381 has a 348 on base percentage. So not great numbers, honestly, overall. Maybe steps, though, right? At least his average is up, which his average was terrible below 200 at times on the major league roster.

We saw him bring back the light kick against lefties. We'll kind of continue to monitor what adjustments he's making down there. But from strictly a number standpoint, it's not quite what you're looking for at this point. like me with cursing. You just, you can't stop me from cursing. You can't stop Alex Thomas from leg kicking. You just need to figure out how to manage it the best you can. What else we got there, Damon? This is where we get into the good questions. Gabriel asks, which chain has the best appetizer sampler? He gives us Buffalo Wild Wings, Applebee's and Chili's. It's all you, Derek. This is all you. Are you not an appetizer fan, Jesse? I've been to all three

of these places, but I don't know if I've ever had an appetizer at any of them. Are you a fan of the appetizer sampler platter? Right? This is in a bowl. Look at me in the eyes. Let's talk. Let's talk. Let's talk business.

Yeah. Like, we know our standard appetizer platter, right? It's usually potato skins, loaded potato skins, mozzarella sticks. Some nachos, maybe. Some nachos, maybe some wings, right? Yeah. Sliders. There, by, see, you're starting to get into the realm of describing the exact one I'm

talking. about. And there is no doubt in my mind that I know the exact best appetizer sampler platter that there is. And it comes from chilis. And it's called the triple dipper appetizer plate. It comes with whatever you fucking want. So first of all, chilies is just the place, man. First of all, it comes with whatever you want. I love chilies growing up. I was out. I love their, they had like this little kids pizza that I was obsessed with when I was like nine years old. Yeah. But yeah, that's all I got on chilies. Was it a cheese pizza? Was it a plain cheese pizza or Did it have pepperoni on it?

I think the pepperoni was a little too adventurous for me, so I'm pretty sure it was just the cheese. I knew it was plain. He also had spaghetti, I'm guessing with butter sauce on it. I'm guessing was one of his favorites. No, I loved spaghetti. Oh, okay. Full on. Full on.

Oh, that's true. I've seen him eat like week old spaghetti, unapologetically. And he's encouraged me to do the same. He tried to drag me down with him. But the triple dipper combo at Chili's featuring sliders, boneless wings, I'm saying it, boneless wings, and Southwest Egg Rolls. There you go. That is by far the best appetizer sampler platter you can get anywhere.

Did you just say something positive about boneless chicken wings? I'm sorry, Jesse. I like, look, I'm going to say like... You are a man of culture. I am a man of culture. And nine times out of ten, if you were giving me the choice, I am going to go with a bone and wing. However, when we are talking about the triple dipper appetizer from Chili's, Jesse,

you got to go boneless. They're just going to give you more. It's a fact that they're going to give you more. I'm with Derek here. I think that I'm always a bone-in guy, but if you get an appetizer platter, I mean, sometimes they throw the boneless in. It's like, yeah, I'll eat a few bones. Sure.

Nuggets covered in hot sauce? What's not to like about that? I think it's like somewhat shameful to just straight up order boneless wings. But when it comes on a platter, it's like, oh, well, I didn't explicitly order this, but I'll eat it because it's here, right? Totally. It's different. play dumb and then you can just enjoy the fact that boneless wings technically come with more meat

and are easier to eat. I'm saying they are substantially easier to eat. That's honestly why I don't like boneless bone and wings are definitely better, but they're so frustrating to eat and I hate just being like feeling like I'm all messy when I'm eating that I don't honestly like ever eat bone in wings because of that. I'm a huge fan of bar appetizers. I will go to a bar and instead of getting food, I will just get appetizers. That's me.

That's something I do. This is the best combo. Not to mention the fact that you can dip everything on this plate in ranch. Like, come on. How often is that the case? Can you say there was an egg roll in there? Southwest Egg roll. Are you dipping an egg roll in ranch?

Fuck, yes, you are. A Southwest Aadryl you are. What is a South West Agerl? You have obviously never had a Southwest Ago. I have not. Southwest Abrel is like, it's like chicken and like, but almost more ingredients that you would find in like, let's say a chicken burrito or like something like Mexican food. But it's wrapped in the same kind of pastry as look at this beautifulness with the corn and the stuff I got the picture up right there

That's a South West A-Role right there. We're going is that what we're doing after the beat back We are going to share a play of Southwest A-Royles after this show tonight I want to give it Honorable mention to Outback as well because I feel like Outback has some pretty good advertisers Yes, absolutely I also have friends who have made it a yearly tradition where they go to Outback Steakhouse on New Year's Eve for some reason I can't explain it but it's what they do and I appreciate it even though I'm not part of it. What else we got? We got one more related question.

And Jesse, Don's bread, comes out of the back of Gabriel's question. And Mark asked, if someone asks you if you want to share appetizers or desserts, which one are you sharing? You already confess to not being an appetizer man. Is that the case? Or are you picking appetizers over desserts? Less so, I don't know. I'm just a very financially conscious person. So I'm sort of like, I'm sort of like, well, my meal is going to fill.

me up, why am I going to spend extra money on an appetizer? But if I'm like, if I'm being forced to choose between one or the other, even though I normally probably wouldn't get either, I would definitely rather share appetizers with with people and share desserts. Because dessert's like this awkward thing where, you know, you have them bring out like 12 spoons. Entirely too personal. And it's completely unsanitary. Am I on a date?

Yeah. Am I at a date? That's an important question. If I am with, if I'm with Jesse, I am not fucking sharing a dessert. We're not sitting across from each other with a Pizuki in between us fucking digging into the ice cream and the cookie. It's not going to happen. You're not the friend I thought you were going. I'm sorry, Jesse.

We are not going, fucking nose to nose in a milk shape. All right? We're not sharing an apple pie. It's not happening. I'm sorry. But it does make sense because nobody wants a whole dessert. When you go to those places, nobody wants that whole gigantic piece of lava cake that they bring out. You instantly regret ordering it.

The lava cake, the lava cake is delicious. That's at Chili's, right? Yeah, there's a lava cake. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've worked at a lot of those places. I've had to make a lot of those desserts, so none of them really appeal to me very much anymore. But I will say that one of my greatest memories in life

was coming back from a Ring of Honor show in Florida, in the back of a car on an hour-long drive, and I got myself a piece of to-go dessert from Waffle House. It was the best fucking idea I've ever made. It's number one as far as ideas I've had in my life. lifetime. But we thank you guys, of course, so much for the questions. We love you and appreciate you for joining us here for Mailback Monday. We got a game tonight, right? They're playing the Phillies. It doesn't, it starts pretty soon. It's not even really tonight. It's in like an hour to half.

3.40 p.m. I love these East Coast start times. Can't get enough of them. But I'll tell you, in the meantime, we're very excited to partner with Circle K. Check out your local Circle K for the best coffee, beer, and snack selection. Go get yourself stocked up for the game. Stop by on your way home. Get some gas, see a little Derek giving you the idea to go get a polar pop in the video and enjoy yourself. Have a great time. You got ice coffee for $1.89 way cheaper than you can get ice coffee anywhere else. And of course, we got 12 packs of certain kinds of beer for just $999, but you can also get our friends at Four Peaks there. Sometimes it's on an incredible deal. So make sure to check out Four Peaks at Circle K. Also, their energy drinks that they have, three for $8 for Red Bulls,

three for $6 for Monster. I never give you the price of the thing by itself because I don't buy that. If I'm going in to get a monster, I'm getting three of them and I'm ready for the next day and a half at least, solid. God, I drink too much. I drink too much caffeine. Anyway, make sure you're not missing out on all this great stuff. Right now, you can text PHNX to 31310 to join their SMS subscriber club and get yourself a buy one, get one free. Offer on 32 ounce polar pops. Head to circlek.com slash door dash locator to find CircleKs near you.

And again, grab yourself some Four Peaks beer. You can grab it at CircleK, but you can also grab it anywhere you get your beers. at. You can get your favorite beer. Kilt Lifter, of course. I got this wonderful Homebird bound from John Holmberg, friends over at 98, KUPD. So they have all sorts of wonderful beers. You can get special edition beers like this one out at their 8th Street pub, and you can try all of their beers out at the 8th Street pub. So that's a great place. You've never tried Four Peaks beer to start off. They're also giving you four peaks, four seats for an Arizona Diamondbacks game. One lucky winner will get four seats to an

upcoming Diamondbacks game. Tickets do come with D-Bucks. So you can grab some food, ice cold while wheat or hop knot, and have yourself a day of watching baseball. You can enter by going to their Instagram at Four Peaks Brew, and the link for that is in the bio. Check out at Four Peaks Brew or at Four Peaks Pub on Instagram to keep up with the latest Arizona's hometown brewery. Must be 21 or older to drink Four Peaks, and please drink responsibly. Oh, the Diamondback start that series that we're talking about with the Phillies here. Again, seven games over 500. I don't know if we expected them to be at this point at this time of the season, but this is very exciting.

Phillies, meanwhile, are going in the other direction. And as we have said in the past, as Jesse kind of laid out before the season goes, or season started in order for the Diamondbacks to make the playoffs with those near 50% playoff chances that they have, they need some of these other teams to kind of fall out. And the Phillies definitely would be one of those teams we would like to see kind of fall out. So the Diamondbacks, it's an important series for the Diamondbacks. don't see the Phillies a lot this year, so it's a chance to further their lead as far as that goes and further their chances at making the playoffs. You can follow us on Twitter. We'll be giving

you updates on tonight's game, as we always do. A lot of capital is. Phillies are 13 and 8 at home. They've been very good at home. They are only 9 and 16 on the road, but they are 13 and 8 at home. I believe the debacks have lost 10 of their games on the road and 10 of their games at home. So they are... Yeah, the debacks pretty even 14 and 10 at home, 13 and 10 away. So So anyway, you can follow us on Twitter. I'm at Kap underscore Caveman with a K. Jesse is at Jesse N. Friedman. Damon is a Damon dog with a DAWG and a little bark at the end, which you have to do in order to follow him on Twitter.

Our show is at PHNX underscore D-Backs, but of course all roads lead to at PHNX underscore Sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. We appreciate your time. We thank you guys so much for stopping by. Go snakes. And remember kids, baseball is fun. But it is so much more fun when you take the time to beat bad teams. at the month of May.