PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - The Arizona Diamondbacks extend manager Torey Lovullo on a one-year deal to 2024

Episode Date: June 5, 2023

“I want to stay here for the rest of my life. I love Arizona.” Those were the words of manager Torey Lovullo after signing a one-year contract extension with the Diamondbacks through 2024. We discuss his deal, the D-backs series with the Braves, your Mailbag Monday questions, 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 Go to omahasteaks.com and enter PHNXDbacks for $30 off! Minimum order may be required. See site for details.Go to https://saturdayneon.com and use code PHNX for 10% off your order today. Free shipping for orders over $200!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.

Welcome into the PHNX Teaback's podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Montia, formerly known as the mayor of PHNX. Mayor, no more. This guy next to me, but he's still very much in charge. He is father-overlord Jacob, aka Faj, aka Jacob Franklin. That's me. You replaced one tall white guy with another. Although I thought Jesse was going to be back today.

Yeah, I mean, Jesse. Jesse doesn't tell us a lot. He lives a very mysterious life that unless he is covering baseball, he is an enigma otherwise. So I have no idea where Jesse is by. Does he just like, like he goes to the ballpark

and then he just kind of fades into it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He just sinks back into the shadows. Yeah, yeah. But he's so long that one of his limbs is still hanging out. There's still kind of see where he's out. There's still that black and yellow Nike

just sticking out of the shadows reminding you that he's always there, always watching, always keeping track. Jesse was trying to convince me that he wasn't tall the other day. He was like I'm like six foot I'm like no you're not No he's definitely like 6 to 6 that's what I'm saying He's definitely a lot closer to 6 too

I'm tall and I can I I know tall like yeah like I can tell when I stand next to someone like like Like you're almost six foot or you're six foot me yeah are you yeah are you Yeah, let's just say yeah let's go with that yeah you're six foot I'm gonna give it to you Yeah I know tall It's the best day of my life right now let's fucking go Six foot club Eric excited I'm excited to be tall but more excited that Tori Lavalo is sticking around is the manager for the Arizona Diamondbacks. I think we're both fairly excited about that. It's hard not to root for Tori. It's hard not to like Tori when you've met him and know him in real life. And even

just as a fan, if you've never met him, if you listen to his press conferences, if you've listened to the sincerity in his voice, it's hard not to be a fan of this guy and want him to maintain to stay as manager of the team. A great leader of men. A great leader of men. That's a great point. He signs a one-year contract extension, keeping a manager of the debacks until 2024. I think one of Tori Lavolo's finest qualities, obviously, is what he's been able to do with the young guys coming up, right? The minor leaguers, their adjustment to the major leagues has been overall consistent enough that I feel like it goes beyond those guys being ready. I feel like it has to do with LaVolo and his coaching staff, helping them adapt very quickly to the major leagues and sticking around. that doesn't happen for everybody.

And it's actually usually more common that they do go back down to the miners and kind of have those options utilized and up and down. But, you know, right now what we're seeing is more guys staying up, more guys maintaining time at a major league level. It doesn't look like Corbyn Carroll

is going anywhere anytime soon. So I feel like not. I hope that. So I feel like that's a big part of what Tori Lavallo brings to this. I know a lot of people question in his manager. I know that.

And I get that. So Tori Lavello has critics. Absolutely. Right? As does every manager in major league baseball. However, I feel like from my standpoint, I have been one of the biggest Tori Lavello supporters since he started his time in Arizona.

It started off very hot. It started off extremely hot. So he obviously, Hazen and Tori are kind of a package deal. Right. I think you don't get one without the other unless it were to turn south here and go south for the next two years, right? because he obviously just got extended. I don't see that happening.

I mean, this organization is a position where I think that you're looking at a three to four year window where they're going to be extremely competitive. Sure. Year in and year out, obviously situations change. Yeah.

No guarantees, but it feels like they're very much in a good position. What I don't understand is the people who sit at home on their couch and feel like they can make better decisions than Tori does, right? And at times, we all question something that Tori has done. Sure. Tori either sometimes has too much faith in his guys, which that's a more rare instance for him.

I feel like sometimes he errs on the side of having too much caution. We saw that with the Zach Gallen, for instance, in this weekend's game with the Braves. He let Zach Gallen go to 110 pitches on the pitch count, which is a season high. And, you know, he probably reluctantly wanted to do that, but he did it because Gallen was so close to getting out of that inning that he wanted him to be able to finish. Right. Right. And he already had said he regretted pulling Zach Gallen in the sixth inning in the previous start, letting the bullpen go out there and kind of blow it.

Now, like, I take some serious issue with people that go on Twitter and say that he is inept as a manager because he is not. Sure. He actually pulls the right strings a lot. Like, he has impacted this season in a way that can only be described as positive. Yeah. Right? Like, coming into the season, most national outlets, Let's put this team under 75 wins.

Jake from John Boy. We're looking at you. Yeah. And we will call you out on it when you're in studio. We don't forget. We don't forget here. But like, you know what I mean? Like, Tori.

Yes, has he made some calls? Which, by the way, I don't feel like was fair. Because I was talking about it with Damon earlier. I was talking about it with a couple of other people. I've had that question come up. Like, did you really deep down inside think that this team could be this good this year? And the answer kind of is yes. And the reason why is because last year,

the bullpen lost 40 games, right? And had they lost 30 games, it still would have been at the back end of one of the worst bullpens in baseball, but those 10 games would have made the difference for them to be, to what, readiate wins, right? So there is something to be said about how close this team was last year, even though it didn't appear that they were very close, right? Oftentimes managers take a lot of the blame for stuff that's not on them. Right.

Sure. Like they trust the bullpen arms. to go out there and get the job done. When this team lost 110 games, everybody wants to put that on the manager. Of course. But look at the roster that he was given. And the manager, in this case, being Tori Lovolo, takes that upon himself.

He did. And he did. He owned up to it. Right. Well, and we had his press conference this weekend. And one thing that Lovallo said was that he has been through some dark times with Arizona. He's also been through some great times. Well, and that's why he appreciates them sticking with him so much.

In fact, he said, Tori Lavello said this weekend that he, wants to stay in Arizona forever. And in fact, here's a clip of Tori Lobello's press conference and him talking about how much he appreciates getting this one-year contract extension. I want to stay here for the rest of my life. I love Arizona. My family, my wife, we love Arizona. And I want to be here for every day of the rest of my career and honor whatever contract is thrown at me. It would be great to get a lifetime contract. That just doesn't happen in sports. I have, for whatever reason, we've been able to work through some very tough times here, and I'm more grateful for that

than I am any new contract that I'm getting. They stuck with me, and I owe this organization my absolute best effort. So when they offer me something, of course I want as long-term deal as possible, but I'm grateful for this extension. You can't. You can't. How can you not love that guy? I'd run through a wall for that, ma'am. It's like, it's like, uh, Eduardo Escobar said, I would die for Tori and I would die for Tori. Like, Tori is that kind of guy. If Eduardo Escobar talks about you like that, Eduardo Escobar is some of the best, like, good person, right?

Like, Eduardo Escobar is quite possibly one of the best people in Major League Baseball. And if you have a guy like that talk about your character in that regard, I don't know how you can find somebody else that's, that impacts people on a deep level like that. You've got to be very objective here when it comes to this team, the talent. basically what Tori was provided in order for him to win. And I think the front office is very realistic about that, right? I think the front office very much knows that like 2021 doesn't fall on Tori's shoulders.

No, the roster is bad. However, you're still the manager. Sure. You're still, you still feel responsible for that. Like, Tori is one of those people that, I mean, he even said, he was like, he goes, I'd love to be a lifetime contract, right? Those don't happen in sports. But he really does want to stay here. And I have a problem when it comes to the question, if you don't want Tori here,

who would you rather have in his place, right? Who is going to be more successful? And I don't know the answer to that. I mean, Gilbert obviously said Bob Melvin. We love Bob Melvin here. We love Bob Melvin. Honestly, yeah, I would definitely bring him back if he was available. Sure.

But I think Tori's in a spot right now where I just trust, I mean, I trust Tori. Like it's interesting because Bob Melvin is in the exact opposite. position that Tori LaValle is in. Bob Melvin was given everything. Everything. All of the assets, right? But still, even in that case, when you look at that Padre's team and where they're really failing at, they really focused entirely on, you know, position players and not so much on the pitching, which is really what wins ball games, right?

So even in that case, I don't know if Bob Melvin is completely at fault for that team's shortcomings for now, but I wouldn't be surprised to see them turn it back on, you know? You know, I would not be surprised if next year, after next season. right after the 2024 season so i'm speaking hypothetically now a year and a half from now probably right to see him get that long-term extension yeah a lot of people are like well why like why are we just extending him year after year after year after year it's well this organization knew that walterre was going to take the onus of the bad years the 2020 2021 2021 2020 seasons right he was going to take that upon himself sure and as as the failure that you know he put forth or whatever

that's his fault. That they still trusted him when their plan came to fruition, right? Their minor league system that they've been drafting and developing for the last six years. They knew when that crop of kids came through, there's your litmus test. Yeah, yeah. Right? When we've got Corbyn Carroll coming up to the big leagues, when we've got Gallen pitching on all so. Merrill Kelly all of a sudden, like, we just surrounded you with one of the best staffs in baseball, right?

Like Bannister's great. Yeah, their coaching staff is incredible. Like it's an all-star line. Right. It's like Brett Strom is highly regarded as one of the best pitching coaches in baseball. We're deep at manager. Right. So we could lose two managers.

We still have a third manager. Exactly. So here's your litmus test. Sure. But we're not going to give you a full extension until we see what you do past. I mean, we're at what the 57, 58 game mark in the season? Yeah, we're one third of the way through the season. Correct.

So we're not going to give you a full extension for five or six. six years, right? We're only going to extend you through next year. Yeah. We know that there's potential to be good this year. If you make the playoffs and you honestly, everybody kind of put them around a contender for a third wild card spot. If you contend for, if you contend for division, I don't know if they did that. I don't know if anybody put them in contention. Maybe it was just me. Maybe it was just us over here. But like, but yeah, you're right. But if you, A, contend for just a wild card spot, but B, right now they're contending for the division spot. Like for the division winner spot.

So this is a, okay, we trust you through next year, right? You make the playoffs this year. You then go and contend for another division winning season next year. The bag's yours. Maybe. And that's the case. Now, Mike Hazen did make comments as to why now was the right time to sign Lovolo to an extension.

And we actually have that from the press conference the other day. Here's what Hayeson had to say about why signing Lovallo now, especially while the team was doing well was kind of a priority. I've been talking to Derek and Ken about it. And, you know, getting to the end of this homestand, getting into the month of June, third of the way through the season, the way the team has been playing, and the team's been playing this way the entire time, I mean, from spring training on, I think the degree of preparation that we see that goes in with Tori and with his coaching staff is something that we think is an asset of ours.

the way the team plays for him. That's been fairly consistent, even in the seasons where it hasn't gone extremely well from a win-loss standpoint. And it's something we're looking to, culturally looking to continue to make sure is here every day for us. The investments that he has made into our players,

I want to make sure that those investments can be made back. I think that's an important piece of the young club that we have and where we're looking to get to. I think he's an extremely, he's a very, very good game manager. He does a great job with our bullpen, those types of decisions,

but I think what he does outside of that is even more impressive and more important for us. And I think he's responsible for a lot of the growth of some of our younger players and the coaching staff that is also responsible for the growth of our players. I think this group has done an incredible job. and, you know, we have a long way to go.

We're only a third of the way through the season, so it doesn't matter. But to this point, we've played good hard baseball for a solid two months. Now, another really interesting thing about Mike Hazen's comments was he was asked a couple of times, why just the one-year deal or variations of that question. And Hazen made interesting comments about the one-year deal lining up with everyone else. That's kind of what he said, the group or everyone else. and he was meaning himself and he was meaning some of the coaches.

Yeah. So it feels very much like they're in this together. They are and I'm not saying it's like a must win now. Right. Say it. Go fage. Go fos. But like it's not a,

it's not really a must win now, but we've talked about that window being open with Zach Gowan only being here for two more seasons. We've talked about how it opens sooner than they thought. Yeah. Right. And we thought it was going to be contingent on the Dodgers and when the Dodgers would be kind of,

I'm not going to say not good, but the Dodgers would be weak, and that's what's happening right now. Big part of the reason why the Dodgers are not much better than they are. Will Smith, I'm looking at you. It's injuries. I'm not going to sugarcoat this. The Dodgers are wrecked right now by injuries,

but that happens in baseball. It happens to good teams all the time. It's why the Dodgers still remain good is because of how deep they are, But the Diamondbacks definitely can, I guess, smell some blood in the water here. You know what I mean? It's a good time for them. Good baseball teams do that. So, like, one thing about this Debex team, right?

Like, we knew they had talent. But you piece it all together and you start winning baseball games and the average age of your team is like 25 years old. Yeah. They're going to get into it. Yeah. Winning is contagious, especially with a young locker room, right? Like, they get some confidence going.

And it just so happened that that first month of the season, while the record might not have been perfect, right? They were like, what, 20, like, they were two games above 500 after the really tough stretch at the beginning of the season. But that was just enough, just enough of a taste for those kids that it was like, wait, we can actually compete with some of these teams. I hate to say this, but like, blood in the water. The kids are, are, they just, they don't know any better, right?

Like, I'm not going to say they're dumb enough to believe that they can be good. But, like, that mental aspect of baseball creeps, in. Creeps in when you're at the plate. Creeps in sometimes when there's a fly ball getting lost in the sun, creeps into your mind at all sorts of different times. Sometimes that's why guys going to slump. But I talked to Lavolo about this and I asked him about like,

do you feel like you've changed the mindset? Because in 2021, he very specifically addressed how good teams come into the locker room knowing they are going to win every day. Whether they do or not, that doesn't matter. It's the mindset, right? The mindset is you come into the locker room and you, You know your team is going to win that day. You know you're good enough.

You know your teammates are good enough to beat the opposition. You don't come into the clubhouse hoping you don't lose, right? And he said, it's confidence, right? It's confidence. And he said, like, that's where their mindset was at in 2021. They came into the clubhouse hoping they weren't going to lose, right? And, like, that's such a different mindset between championship teams and teams that lose. And this is what's great about Reno right now, right?

For those of you who don't pay attention to the minor league system, the Reno Aces have been one of the best teams in minor league baseball over the last two or three years, right? Sure. Winning breeds winning. And a lot of these kids got a taste of what it was like to win important baseball games down in AAA, as important as you want to say they are. Obviously, it's very important to the organization that their minor league teams are successful. But we as major league baseball fans don't think that that's very important, right?

Oh, that's cute. You want your little triple, your PCL champion trip or whatever. For this team now. It really. Because it's like, I know Alec Thomas hasn't had the greatest, you know, year of his life this year, obviously starting up in the big league club and now being down in Reno. But last year, he struggled toward the end of the year. What they do? They sent him down to Reno and he hit like 3.50 until the end of that season.

Same thing with James McCarthy. I understood what it was like to hit in high leverage situations. Right. Right. Yeah. It's so important to this organization that those teams are good. And that's why there are a couple of things that I think fans kind of. don't really understand at times, and that's one of them, right? Like, it's not really a demotion to be set down to AAA.

What it means is we don't want you riding the pine up here at major league level and not getting at bats. We want you to stay active. We want you getting better. But we also don't want to cost our major league team potential wins with having you in the lineup if you are not effective, if you are not able to hit the ball right now. And honestly, the Diamondbacks in this series that they played this weekend against the Atlanta Braves, they struggle at times. It's not like they didn't have a, you know, it's not like they didn't have their offense rolling,

but they definitely struggled at times in certain aspects of the game, and we can take a look at the numbers here. Public service announcement, the Atlanta Braves are a very good baseball team. I'm going to go out on a limb and say the debacks dropped two out of three to Eddie Rosario. The Braves were also there, but Eddie Rosario and Spencer Shreter, who of course is incredible. But let's take a look at the numbers from this series. Things are much closer there, but that relief pitching ERA for the Braves is not a fucking massage. That is really, really real. In three games, the Diamondbacks were not able to produce one earned fucking run against the Atlanta Braves bullpen,

including, including, including, Jacob, guys that pitched their first Major League baseball game. Like, are you shitting me? Or at least their second Major League baseball game. But my God, the impact the Braves Bullpen had here was enormous. The Diamondbacks did not lose this series by very much. They lost two out of three. They were very competitive. They were very competitive.

And they honestly should have won two out of three. Much had the game three in the bag. The relief pitching really is the big difference here. The Diamondbacks relief pitch, their ability to not hit against the Braves relief pitching and do have the Braves be able to do what they did. Or again, Eddie Rosario do what he did against the Diamondbacks in their bullpen was the difference maker in this one. I feel it really exposed the weaknesses. of the Diamondbacks that we've been seeing as of late.

Those two big weaknesses, in my opinion, is the Diamondbacks ability to create runs late in games. Jesse and I have talked about this. This is kind of plagued them as of late, and that's a big factor as to why you see that relief pitching, ERA is 0.00, right? But I will also say this. They don't have someone that can shut down a game.

They do not have that closer. I know that they don't want to go to a closer, I know that he wants to kind of do a closer by committee situation. But the fact is that even with how good Miguel Castro has been in the past, Miguel Castro absolutely blew that game. He was very ineffective. Not only could he not get, you know, not only could he not pitch in the strike zone, but then when he did, he threw meatballs right down the middle of the plate.

So what's interesting, though, is much like Tori Lavello immediately having people come for his job when he makes a mistake or the team loses a game, especially like game three, the bullpen deserves to be or deserves to be defended a little bit because coming into this game, the Diamondbacks bullpen actually has been quite good. And I know we don't want to admit that because of this, but that's what happens with bullpens.

You tend to focus on the games they blew and then you don't think about them when they're doing their job otherwise. The previous eight games coming into yesterday's loss on Sunday, the DeBacks bullpen had a 1.67 ERA with an opponent batting average of 235. So is that good, Derek? It's hashtag good, Jacob.

It's hashtag good. But here's the other problem with that. The Diamondbacks bullpen. The Diamondbacks are the only team in Major League Baseball with four relievers with over 26 outings. And that includes Miguel Castro, Andrew Chafin, Scott McGuff, and Kyle Nelson. So these guys have been good, but they've also been overutilized when you compare them to the rest of the relievers in baseball. I mean, those four guys each have 26. plus outings apiece.

That's insane. And I mean, honestly, that's not sustainable for the bullpen because those are arguably the four best arms. Maybe if you want to throw Dre Jameson into that mix now that he's back. But I mean, these guys cannot last 1006. Because obviously I'm going to need to more. They're going to. That's the fact.

Because obviously, since they've called him up, they've only used him twice. Right. Which is a problem. Well, and I mean, again, you're not going to use him a lot because, again, You want to use him in long relief situation, so you're almost going to use him like you would a starting pitcher. But I very much expect to see Drey Jamison in tomorrow's game against the Washington Nationals. In a year where, and I could be wrong on this, I think I'm pretty sure I found the statistic like a month ago or so, in a year where across the league, bullpen ERAs have gone up. Yeah.

The Diamondbacks bullpen has managed now, albeit last year's bullpen was about a. bigger of a dumpster fire as you could possibly have had. The Diamondbacks have managed to lower their bullpen ERA by 0.3.4 points, which is extremely impressive when a majority of the league's bullpens have raised their ERA by half a point to a point. But the Diamondbacks kind of had nowhere to go but up when it came to the last season, right? It's true. It's true. When it came to the bullpen.

And honestly, when you look at these pieces, there are, Kyle Nelson is pretty much the only name there that is a remnant of last year's bullpen. Miguel Castro, Andrew Chafin, Scott McGuff, all new names. All guys of Diamondbacks are relying heavily on this season. And I'm going to do it. I said it on Twitter yesterday. We all owe Scott McGuff an apology because Scott McGuff is our king of snake. I said it on Twitter like two weeks ago, Derek.

That's fine. Steal my tweets, buddy. That's fine. I'm going to steal it from you. But Scott McGuff, one earned run in. last 15.1 innings pitched. Fantastic. He's been fantastic.

There were a lot of people that said this about McGuff, but obviously it took a while for him to get acclimated, and it's going to continue to take him. You know, he's still probably not 100% acclimated, but it felt like we were blaming, like, the difference in the size of the ball and a lot of stuff. His split finger is disgusting. It's nasty.

It's straight up nasty. It should be illegal, but I'm glad it's not. But Scott McGuff, hats off to you because we've said, a lot of bad things. And again, just like Miguel Castro kind of getting blamed for yesterday's loss, it's not to say he's not at fault for it, but Miguel Castro, much like Scott McGuff has actually been

better than he has been bad. You know what I mean? Like he's been good more than he's been bad. Unfortunately, like Scott McGuff and two of those losses, I believe, that are charged to McGuff, he just came in and completely blew a lead with outlooking effective at all against the opposition.

You know what they say about early season predictions or early season, reactions don't make them. Oh, that's all I do. All I do is overreact. I mean, we all do it. My entire job is to over-rass. We all do it, but there were

people calling for Scott McGuff's head after his first. So he resembled Mark Melanson too much, and I just don't mean in performance. I mean, he actually looks like Mark Malanson. We're all trying to find the guy who did this. We're all trying to find the guy who did this. The ninth inning

has obviously been an issue for this team. Correct. But it's an issue for a lot of teams. And nobody hasn't fucking cinched up. There's probably like five closers in this game. And McGuff's tenure as an Arizona Diamondback obviously got off to an extremely horrid start when he gave up the back-to-back jacks.

I still think about that. To lose the game to the Padres. That's possibly one of the low lights of this season so far. And I think people were like, oh my God, oh my God. Scott McGuff sucks. Scott McGuff sucks. But do you remember Merrill Kelly when he first came over from the KB.

Yes, yes I do Was not good There was a reason why he had a plus four ERA, right? And what he did He would go one start And he'd go six innings And give up one run and strikeout

Like four guys, he wasn't a strikeout pitcher Remember when he first came over But he could give you a decent outing And then the next outing He'd go like five innings and give up six runs He would always give you length So everybody's like okay Like he's kind of bad at times

But also kind of good I think that's the same thing that happened With Scott McGuff right He came over And he, like, early on was really bad. And then he was kind of good. And then he got bad again. He was kind of good.

And now we're seeing, I think, Scott McGuff not worrying about what a fan base thinks about him. Sure. And just going out there and trusting his stuff. I wonder how much Merrill has helped him to. You know what I mean? It's an interesting adjustment. Yeah, it is. And I imagine that Merrill would be a great source for you to go to and to get kind of, I don't know.

I mean, I'm not exactly expecting him to, like, give him life. Changing career changing advice, but Merrill doesn't seem like the type of guy that's going to like talk to you a whole bunch. I don't know about that. I mean, because Merrill, like, I still remember the first time Jesse. You could be like the wisdom guy.

I could see him being that. The first time I watched Jesse interview Merrill, Merrill had the body language of somebody that, you know, like all of us. We don't want to, like, someone comes up to you. They want to interview you're kind of like, oh, great, whatever. And I saw Merrill get so into this discussion with Jesse. Like, it was wild because I,

I wasn't close enough to hear what they were saying, but I was watching it. And, you know, at one point I look over and Merrill's like showing Jesse like how he grips the ball and shit. Like it was funny because like I think Merrill Kelly, just like a lot of these guys, like Corbyn Carroll and they are really, really into baseball. And I think if I'm being honest, sometimes when they talk to people, like people aren't really on their level of discussing baseball. There's a bunch of baseball nerds in this organization. Yes. Zach Galen being like very, very much at the top of the list. But like, have I ever told you my tinfoil hat theory on what this organization, like, does with its prospects?

No, let's hear. So what are the odds? Hurt's them on purpose? Wouldn't they have to sit with scouts? What are the odds that Corby Carroll, Jordan Lawler, Andrew Jones seemed to have the same shoulder injury when they get drafted? Don't do this on this show. Don't do this year. What are the odds?

Save it for ESPO's tinfoil hat thing. I don't know. Just put it on the tinfoil hat. What are the odds that you want them to go sit with your skin? in the big leagues for what would amount to not enough of a minor league season for them to get comfortable. Let's just take our best prospects and make them sit with our highest level scouts and watch really high level baseball and just talk about it. I don't want to call you a monster, but I feel like I should label you as a monster. I should put a warning like Twitter does.

I don't think they hurt them. I don't think they heard them. I mean, this is no way shape or form does my opinion reflect on Derek or Jesse or anybody else. Please allow them back to the ballpark This is just my opinion on Something that I think this organization does So just to take this a step further Are they hurting them on purpose?

No, no, no no Or are these fabricated injuries? I don't think that they hurt them at all I think that they're just not hurt The fix is in the fix is in Because what's so like this deep What's stopping them from just like saying Hey you're not going to go to like low level baseball

Right you're just going to come up here and talk baseball with us for three months. I mean, I would rather do that. Because, because, well, so I don't know if they, for me, I think it's less about, like, I think it's what it would look like to the fan base. If you were like, we're not going to care about our player going and getting reps, we're going to bring them up to the big leagues, right? I think you almost have to fabricate the story so that your fan base doesn't, tinfoil hat.

Look at this. Michael wants to send you back. What is this? How's this toxic? Yeah, talk. You've got to go back to ASU. What is this? I'm going to say this.

I think, if I'm being honest, that Corbyn Carol, like, unlocked the cheat code. But I also think... What's the cheat code, Derek? Up, up, down, down... Left right, left, right. ...A.B. Start select, yeah. No, but I think the thing for them is they think everybody can do that now, maybe.

And Jordan Lawler did. I don't know about Drew Jones as much. I haven't heard anything about True Jones. I do know for a fact, though. He's somewhere either. No, well, I mean, I mean, I know Jordan Lawler came and sat with scouts. He did, and so did Corby Carroll. Right.

But I'm saying, like, that might be something now because of the effectiveness with Corbyn Carol that they just suggest to everybody else that gets injured as a something. Because it's a better way to something to do with your time than playing out that'll be the show. I'm just saying it's not far-fetched. Because it's like, why don't you come sit with our best baseball minds in the organization instead, like you, but not everybody cares that much. You can work out at our camp and Scottsdale. Corbyn is a nerd. Corbyn cares so much about baseball and Fortnite. but mostly baseball, but Fortnite a little bit.

That's the only two things he cares about in the world. Family way off in the distance right now. It's Fortnite and it's baseball all the time. But anyway, I'm just saying. You don't have to agree with it. It's just a theory that I've put on. It's a crazy theory, but I appreciate it. And I don't subscribe to it.

But what I do subscribe to is those of you here telling Jacob in the chat that he's crazy. And I understand. I think he's crazy too. But I appreciate you guys sticking around being here on the PHANXport to YouTube channel. If you haven't subscribed already, do so now. Sign up for notifications. That way you don't miss when any of our shows go live. Leave us a thumbs up if you think his ideas are old water, I guess.

I don't know. Don't leave us a thumbs down, though, if you don't. Because then that kind of messes up the algorithm. I have a theory that that thumbs down is Mike Hazen because I've figured out his slam. Damn it, you did it again. I didn't think you could make it go further, but now you did it. But all right. We thank you guys, of course, for being here.

If you're listening on your favorite audio podcasting app, you might not really see the craziness in Jacob. of the eyes. So head over to the YouTube channel, see that. But subscribe

on your favorite audio podcasting app. Leave us a review. We always appreciate the feedback and please disregard anything

you heard on today's show. Now, if you aren't a diehard, you should go grab one of those memberships over at go phnx.com.

They practically pay it for themselves out of the gate. Not only do you get a free hat or shirt from the PHNX Locker. com and 20% off all future purchases.

You also get $50 gift certificate to Mountain Mike. So there you. Hashtag value. Hashtag value. hashtag value, but you also get access to our members-only Discord lounge. You get members-only merchandise offers.

You get members-only discounts with our partners, members-only discounts on events, members-only invites to events, and so much more. So subscribe today, sign up, become part of the P-H-NX family over at go-P-NX.com. Now, whether Jesse is here or not, whether it's like whether, whether, like, life is going on or not. Every Monday we do the same thing. Every week, of course, is Shark Week. every day, of course, on this show is Earth Day. But every Monday, we go to the mailbag.

MegaRand, let's go. Hi, mailbox. Always something interesting in my mailbox. I'm trying to get to everything in my mailbox. And then what's always always always... Hi, everybody. Let's go with our Mailbag Monday questions. Hey, man, what do we got in the mailbag today?

First question comes from Gabriel, and he asks, should I put 10 stacks on Lavallo being manager of the year? No long response on this for me, just yes. The answer is. is yes. Now, let's talk about this sincerely, right? The Diamondbacks really are right now, tie. Overachieving. Tide for first place in the National League West. They are also right now who's better than Victoria? That's my question, right? That's my question because the Atlanta Braves, you expect them to be here. Snickner's a great manager. Dave Roberts for the Dodgers. He's doing

the best he can with losing Dustin May and Urius and that team's still very good. And, And you look across baseball, and right now, there are maybe, you know, maybe you look at what the raise are doing. But that's an American League thing. If you're talking about National League manager of the year, I don't really have a better choice. Milwaukee, Craig? I don't know. But here's the thing about Milwaukee is Milwaukee is very close to not being in first place. It's true.

They've started losing baseball games. And they're also not in a very good division right now. Well, you could argue. No, it's story. It's more impressive. Is it not more impressive than the Diamondbacks are doing this specifically in a division that features, the Padres and the Dodgers. I would say it's Tori and not even particularly close.

And are we just biased? No. Is I mean, did we do we fit from a place of bias? Yes. True. Are we biased on this issue? No. He is the third sexiest manager in baseball.

And that gets in my vote right there. Yeah. He should be in the third is disrespectful. Sean and I were talking about this other day. He's Rob Thompson from the Philadelphia Phillies. Ridiculous. Blastomis. Ridgulous.

I agree with Buck Showwall. Yeah, I get it. He's a silver fox. But that man, where's the hell out of a jacket? Tori Lovolo, meanwhile, he's over here just being like a natural sexy. But, I mean, it's more about what he's done with the team that is sexiness. Let's not, do we have to... Gabe Capilar's obviously the most sexiest manager in baseball.

There's no question about that. AI, you got that one wrong. But Michael makes a good point. What? Pittsburgh. Now, I will say Pittsburgh was supposed to be worse than the devax this year. I would say. Absolutely.

But they are worse than the debats. I would say in terms of who's overachieving more, it's the debats. The pirates had a good April, but they did not have a good May. And now they're having an okay June, they have not lost. Well, yeah, but I mean, it's June 5th. They are first. They're tied for first in the bad NL Central. In the bad NL Central, yes.

But, I mean, the pirates definitely are. I'm just trying to play devil's advocate since you wanted to answer the question with more than one word. You're right. And I think the Diamondbacks very much are on a similar level as the pirates, right, where they have a bunch of young talent. They have a couple of key guys that they really have kind of become superstars for them. And I mean, they're both on a similar trajectory. But to make a long answer short, yes.

The answer is yes. Torvalu. You should put 10 stacks on. Maybe 20 stars. Although we condone gambling responsibly. Do we? If you have 10 stacks to gamble that you want to comfortably gamble. Yeah.

Yes. I mean, maybe you should do it on the bed. Now, if the 10 stacks are your rent money, then maybe not. Maybe not. Very good. Great job. But maybe you team up with bet MGM for those 10 stacks the same way we've teamed up with BETMGM, right?

Right? You know, get some lines out there. We're using BEDMGM lines. And of course, you should do that. If you're going to, I'm just saying if you're going to bet 10 stacks, use the Bette MGM app. And I mean, if you haven't signed up yet, you can use our bonus code of PHNX. There's a few different offers depending on where you live. But for our Arizona audience, you will get up to $100 in bonus bets on your first wager with

MGM. Again, make sure you use bonus code P-H-N-X. Shout out to everybody that came out to our cornhole league on Friday. You guys made me very much feel inadequate about my cornhole, my cornhole skills. But much like Jacob, I feel like I got better as the day went on. Would you agree with that? Did you feel like you got better? Did your skills be better?

The boards are so far away from each other, Jacob. They're so far away. Their regulation. I can either not get it to the board or I hit it too hard. It slides off the fucking egg. I talked about this on the Coyotes podcast because obviously Sean Dagon isn't here. Sean Dagon isn't here. And so I produced that show this morning and like the people that look up cornhole tournaments like just searching for people to come just dominate.

We have some really good cornhole people like showing up to these. I felt like I made friends with some of them. And they're like, hey, Billy like. These boards are slick. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. had their own monogrammed bags. They brought tape measures to make sure that the distance is were regulated. But like I just,

they have some bag. Custom bags they showed up with. And I was obviously shitty. We all were. But these guys with the custom bags are going to boards or we all are just like sinking and I'm going. And I'm going. Sinking it.

I'm not over this fucking comment. We all were. Damon, were you and I not on the same damn team? I thought we were Damon's dogs. We're not going to. I'm gonna give respect for this guy over here, sinking fucking bags and making differences in games.

I got better as the day went on. I demand respect. I told you. I also got better. He coached me. I was the only one with confidence. Damon believed. You were down and out and I said, Derek, we have this in our bag.

We lost zero to 11 to Lindsay. This is besides the point. Oh, do we get off the track? Anyway, this is all the fun you can have if you join us out at the bed MGM sports book out at State Farm Stadium for our knockout night's cornhole league. First Friday every month. We're doing shows there. We're yelling at each other.

about cornhole. Damon's dogs are out there. We're fucking performing. We're trying our best. We're all going to get smoked by the people who show up. That's, that's, essentially, that's the moral of the story. But check out the show notes for full details if you want to learn more about not only the knockout night cornhole leagues, but about MGM. And now listen to our friend Shane.

Talk about the disclaimer. Disclaimer, 21 plus to wager, visit betmGM.com for terms and conditions. US promotional offers not available in Washington, D.C., Mississippi, Nevada, New York, and Ontario. Gambling problem, call 1,800 gambler. Colorado, D.C., Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Wyoming. Call 8778-8-Hope-N-Y or text Hope N.Y. 467-369, New York. Call 1-800 Next Step, Arizona. 1-8100, 5224-0-4-0-0, Massachusetts. 1-800-Bets off Iowa. 1-800-2707-1-1-7 for confidential health, Michigan.

All right, Damon. Back to the mailbag. What else we got, my friend? Daniel asked the question that so many people have asked, why is Pavin Smith leading off? We probably got this question in what, Damon, 20 times? 20 times? 20, Pave and Smith related? Minimum of five. Minimum of five. I think we all know why I could tell big time Pavin Smith there

because I felt like we all felt that same way about Pave and Smith. I don't have an answer for you. I will say that the one thing that we've said about Pave and the organization loves him. The organization believes in him, even if we don't. And defensively in the outfield, we can, I feel very confident about saying Payman Smith is a liability in right field. We saw that in this game. We saw him take an absolutely terrible route to a ball in the game on Sunday.

And I mean, it ultimately is the kind of defense that can cost the Diamondbacks big in some of these close series and some of these close games. But to answer why he's leading off, I don't know. What do you have? I guess my best thing is Tori wants to play this lineups versus right-ease and lefties, and that's his guy. I don't think this decision is Tories. You know, interesting. I would argue that this is... Do you want to just keep your tinfoil hat on the whole show?

I think this is Mike Fitzgerald. Okay, fair enough. Fair enough. That's probably... Making line up decisions based off analytics because obviously we know this organization is extremely high on analytics and statistics. Sure.

And they make a lot of their decisions based off of that. Yeah. There's something they see in Paven that, well, we might not agree with it, they know there's something in Paven's ability to hit, to see pitches that gives you a professional at bat most times. While Paven might not be getting on base at the rate he was to start the year, while he might not be hitting for extra bases or hitting for power or defensively sound, they think, based off of something that they're seeing, that he will go up there

and give them a professional at bat at the top of the order every single time. Now, I would argue that this is one of the things that I disagree with this front office in their decision making is Pavin, I think, has almost ran his course here. I'm going to give you his numbers

for the different batting order positions and I think that's a bigger thing about why is he hitting leadoff. Now, mind you, he's had his most at bats at 6th, batting 6th in the lineup. But batting leadoff is his second most at bats. Batting lean off, he is hitting, slashing 147, 275, 353. Second, 250, 400, 250, 3rd, 316, 354-774.

Batting fifth in the lineup, 188, 350, 250, 250, batting sixth, which he's done the most. He's hitting 225, 345, 408. Now I know you can't really hang your hat on any of those numbers, especially the ones in the middle. Batting 30s only had five, or wait, no, excuse me, 20 plate appearances batting third, 20 plate appearances, batting fifth. So those aren't very much. But in the grand scheme of things, it very much feels like batting sixth in the lineup makes a lot of sense. I don't know what Tori is doing as far as his lineup construction is concerned, but I am with a lot of people. I don't think that that's really great for this team.

and when you look at some of the losses, when you look at some of the lack of run production, some of it falls on the way that they're splitting this lineup, you know, apart and the way that these guys aren't coming through, especially with runners in scoring position as we saw. Can I make a bold take? I love when you make a bold take, so please, go ahead. He should be hitting in dominant canzone spot in Reno.

Okay. Yeah. I mean, fair enough. We've seen Emmanuel Rivera play actually a pretty good first base. I think the Diamondbacks have their backup at first for Christian Walker, and I think it's Emmanuel Vera. I feel like that's a better option. And to be honest, I feel like I'm a better option in right field than Pavin Smith is.

I am not very best at all. I am not, but I'm just starting to feel that way, you know? Not at the point. I don't like making statements like that, but at some point, he's going to run his course, right? Like, you can't. This team has shown that this year they are going to make the moves. They don't want to make. It's not just like his physical, it's not just like his physical athletic.

He's hurting this team. It's like his judgment. And they talked about it on the broadcast. Like when he missed that fly ball on right field, they were talking about his path to the ball and how bad it was and how like kind of confused he was out there. Pavan has a great idea of what the strike zone is. But I don't know if he's very good at knowing the best routes and stuff to take as an outfielder.

And honestly, if you're just kind of mediocre at all of that stuff as a backup or whatever, you're not, I mean, you can't be relied on to start, like they started him in right field. Well, it also could be, God, I don't mean to be this, like, tinfoil hack guy the whole time. Oh, my God. I just, like, what if they're running him out there in hopes that he has good performances so that they can offload him at the deadline? Maybe, but I almost feel like maybe more part of it is that they do intend on sending him down.

So why not get as much use out of him now so that you can kind of give some guys some rest and try to have this lineup be as. you know, as 100% as possible. I don't know. We still have, we still have the question about where does Kyle Lewis play when he comes back and Kyle Lewis has been very good. Of what Dominic Kansas.

And a minor league. And that's the other thing. Dominic Fletcher is still down and we know how good Thomas? Alec Thomas? Anybody's? Yeah. So there's a lot of options. It's a good problem for the Diamondbacks to have.

But we really don't have an answer for you on Pavin Smith. Other than I don't believe they feel anybody else is ready right now to come up and do a better job than Pavin. But again, Cattell Marte very much made us all relate when it came to, you know, how we feel about Pavan. What else we got here, Damon? Michael asked Josh Rojas' baseball savant page is uglier than the child, love child of birth of Faye and Bastion Bougar. That is a fucking deep cut wrestling reference and I appreciate it, Michael. At what point did the Diamondbacks say maybe he needs to go to Reno?

And that's not the only one. Like Josh Rojas, there's been a lot of question about Josh Rojas's power, his baseball Savant Page, a lot of things. Rojas looked a little bit better in this series. But to be honest, when you do look at Josh Rojas' baseball savon page, it is very ugly. And I think one of the biggest things about what's struggling with Rojas is his launch angle and stuff is just terrible. There's a lot of things with his swing that I can't really, because I'm not a coach,

I can't really pinpoint. there's a lot of bad happening when it comes to Josh Rojas offensively at the dish. And they talked about him being a disruptor on the base path when he is in the game. And that's exactly what Josh Rojas is. Josh Rojas is absolutely a disruptor. And right now, the only thing that is in red on his baseball savant page is out above average as a defender. So he is doing a good job there defensively at third base, but everything else offensively, is really, really bad.

His max exit velocity is in the 20th percentile. Barrel percentage is in the 12th percentile. I mean, there's some other things here, like a strikeout walk and whiff rate are all average, but there is something not great right now about Josh Rojasin, especially the power behind the exit below on his balls are very, very low. He has a 6% hard hit rate.

If you want to talk about bad baseball savant numbers, let's just talk about Geraldo Prado. Oh, how dare you? The man walks a lot and he hardly ever strikes out. I agree. He hardly ever strikes out. He doesn't chase.

His average exit velocity is fourth percentile. His hard hit percentile is first. He's one percentile for hard hit rate. He's eighth percentile for barrel percentage. Man, but you know what? He's still our risk king. He got his runner in scoring position. RBI and this race, but I don't know.

I mean, I think Emmanuel Rivera has been very good, but Emmanuel Rivera isn't the kind of guy you really want playing. You need a long-term solution at third base. And honestly, I don't think it's in the organization right now. Really? Oh, I know how you've been itching. I'm team Emmanuel Rivera. You guys have been itching to DFA Longo.

I know that. No, no, no, no. I actually think Longo needs to play more. Oh, all right. He gives you a good veteran at bat. Okay. Every time. Okay.

Takes pitches, sees pitches well, while the results might not always be there, that you could always argue that that's a case of he doesn't get enough at bats. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Sometimes results are really hard if you're not getting consistent at bats. He rakes against lefties. He really does.

Like the man has a 216 batting average or somewhere around that, and his OPS is almost 800. Yeah. I mean, he could be, like, I think you need a long-term answer for third base because it's such important position to your organizational success, right? Good teams, how often do you find a good team that doesn't have a good third baseman? Offensively and defensively. Yeah. I don't know. At what point, though, I have to ask, especially with the inconsistency, what point do you start looking at Joe Mather, the hitting coach, is possibly being part of the reason? I mean, we've talked about how this team gets offense from everywhere at times. We've talked about how there's rarely a time where

it's one guy leading the way over the course of a week for the Diamondbacks. They had that six game winning streak, and during that, there was probably a different king snake, as we would call it around here, for every game, right? So it's like, I don't know if Joe Mather is doing a good job or a bad job at times, because I don't know if he's getting the most out of these guys, like we've said about Pardomo, right? Pardomo's kind of come on out of nowhere. He's our risk king. He's the guy that at times...

They're putting up runs. They're putting up run. the hitting can't blame the hit coach for that right but then when you look at certain parts of the of the offense or even at times where you look at the fact that the offense can kind of go flat as a whole not just this season the last season do you start looking at the coaching for that or is that more of you know players i don't know i don't know the answer to that but i think that josh rojas is still like josh rojas offers intangibles just like alec thomas and jake mccarthy do where when they are not hitting they're still just very valuable to this team defensively.

If they can get on base in any way, it feels like they're more valuable than certain other guys on the team. And it just feels like they're always trying to do something to, you know, get on base, make, you know, freaking get stolen bases, do whatever they can to get themselves

in the scoring position and get runs. But the Diamondbacks do need to work better on that manufacturing run aspect. What else we got, Damon? Tyler Hall asked, will the debacks get a closer or just another high leverage arm? and if they get a closer,

do you think it will be a closer role or will they still stick with a closer by committee approach? I don't know. I think Tori Lavallo is open to change. He's kind of one of those guys that has no problem admitting when he's made a mistake.

I think he's also said in the past that he kind of has a hard time not slipping back into that situation of having a closer, at least mentally, even if he doesn't have that person labeled as a job. He called Andrew Chaffin their closer and he even admitted that he kind of slipped up in saying that, but he'd still kind of meant it.

But yeah, I mean, I think if anything that was, if there was one thing that was exposed in this series against the Braves was how much the Diamondbacks might need an actual closer and can't really do this closer by committee thing. Yeah, I just don't think that they have a closer in the bullpen right now. Like, I don't. I don't see that guy. So do we go outside of the organization for that?

Is that the big trade that they try to make a move for by the trade? I mean, like you said earlier in the show, like how many options really are there at closer in baseball that are like that are that are that great? And are you going to get any of those? Are you going to get any? Is it going to be worth jeopardizing future prospects or wherever you're going to have to trade away in order to get an arm like that? Mark the shark. I like that. Might find his way back into this.

I don't hate that. Am I willing to give him a couple opportunities to look at it? Yeah, I'd say so. I mean, this is a team that had Dallas Kikell in their starting rotation last year. I'm just saying it's not the end of the world if you give the man another chance. All right. I don't hate that idea at all. Let's see what happens because he will be back and he should be back around what?

The All-Star break. So maybe the answer is in the organization. They still have our big fellow coming up. To the future, I actually think Landon Sims is the future Diamondbacks closer once he starts. Hot tip. Ramping back up. I actually think he has it in him. that man struck out a boatload of guys in college and was just an absolute beast.

Like he just like the tried and true like there's literally a video of him pitching the college world series where he like looks at the batter and he's like let's just get his fucking going. Like he's just like looking at his glove like cursing him out and it's like whoa like that's the intensity you need out of a closer. And I actually think Landon Sims is probably your future answer to if you have a closer in your system. I know a lot of people are probably going to say Justin Martinez. Landon Sims is still trying to work his way back from injury, so we don't know what you're going to get. But if he turns out, let me just do two seconds of searching

if you want to give the people some conversation. I like Dre potentially as a future closer, actually. He's got great mentality. Yeah. I just love his ability to affect the game for a longer period than just one. I do like Landon Sims a lot, though, but Dre is someone that I would look at potentially long term. Landon Sims when he was 20 in conference. College Baseball pitched exclusively out of the bullpen,

25 games, 56 innings, 100 strikeouts in 56 innings. I like that with a 1.44 ERA. 25 games. And a whip of 0.78 in probably one of the, and probably the best collegiate baseball. And college baseball is hitting too. Well, and he was a hitting league. He was one of the only college players.

If you want me to take this one step further, please do. The next year when he hurt his arm in 2022, He only pitched in three games, started them, started all three, pitched 15 and two-thirds innings, 1-1-5-ERA, struck out 27 guys in 15 and two-thirds in-thirds. My goodness.

I'm getting impatient. And I'm not getting impatient with you, but I'm getting patient because I want to eat spaghetti shack. So you should have... Quick reactions. To what? To what? To land...

To the rest of the... The mailbags. Just mail bags going through. No, I'm talking about spaghetti shack first because I want the chicken parm. That's like I can smell it. It's right across the hallway from me. Spaghetti Shack, of course, is our ASU alum owned and operated spaghetti factory, if you will. And they serve a menu starring spaghetti, meatballs, garlic bread, and a few other fan favorites,

including that parm that we're talking about. Their mission is, of course, to provide quality, affordable food as quickly as possible so that you can spend less time cooking and spend more time with your loved ones. Number one thing people around the office have said about the Spaghetti Shack spaghetti is that it is in fact, tastes like you made it at home, right? And so where else? It is homemade spaghetti. It is homemade spaghetti. And the Spaghetti Shack is a community focused to go pasta concept started right here in Tempe by five lifelong friends.

We are currently serving Tempe and Queen Creek and we hope to come to your area soon. So make sure to check out our friends at Spaghetti Shack. And thank you guys so much for the delicious food that I am going to destroy after we are out of here. But before we get on to more mailbag Monday questions, we do have to thank our friends at more furniture. Of course, Jesse, not here right now because he's working out some sort of weird deal right now with more furniture up for Chase's Lounge sponsorship.

I don't get it. It's the thing he's doing on his own. But they helped us furnish our studios and we can't thank them enough for giving me and Tootree a place to nap. Totry was all cuddled up on a couch over there with a blankie earlier. He was adorable.

But make sure if you need a couch or a wonderful recliner to watch sports in or anything for your home. You check out our friends at morefurniture.com. You can save big on the best furniture in the valley when you head to more furniture.com. Now, we got a few more mailbag Monday questions. What else we got, Damon Buckingham asked, what prospects do you think are on the table

for trades to obtain another starting pitcher and or closer? First, I'd like to say I do agree with that. I think that if the diamondbacks do pursue anybody in a trade, it needs to be a pitching arm. It's going to be a starting pitcher because your bullpen is going to be so much better. off for it. Because this bullpen has shown that they could be actually good. But they're just being over utilized. I think they're just being over to utilize. So, Landon in the chat, Shane Beaver. Shane Bieber, you are absolutely in Arizona.

Yeah, I would be 100% down for Shane Bieber. I would like doing C2 just to make our friends at the White Sox, the CHGO podcast said. Eduardo Rodriguez is such an interesting name for me because he doesn't, I mean, if you're considering your timeline when Zach Allen is still here, you have this year next year and the year after, right? You got three more years if you include this as a full year. Eduardo Rodriguez is really interesting in that regard because if you're willing to spend for an older,

I mean, he's not older, is like 30. But like... The audacity of you look at me as a 42-year-old man, say older at 30, but go ahead. I think he might be that guy. He could be. Because, A, like everybody's like, hey, let's just make the rotation gal

Allen Kelly, I mean, at the time it was fought, Davies, Jameson, where's your lefty? Yeah. Like, I understand if you just carry an extra lefty in the bullpen, which this team actually kind of could because of mantiply Nelson and Chaffan, you should carry three lefties. It kind of offsets that. But I, part of my old head in baseball, I'm not a full old head when it comes to like I'm all for advancement of the game. but I do think that there's something to be said

about making sure you have a lefty in your starting rotation. Yeah, no, I'm with you on that. Because you need to break up the visual element of what you're throwing out there every single day. It's the same reason why it's so valuable to have a... If you played a different team every single day, then maybe not. But you're playing guys or teams three days in a row minimum.

You very rarely play a two-game series. Gabriel Ferrer says, O'Tani, let's go. Or can we get all control? on a slight discount since he has a five ERA. It would be interesting because Alcantra was... Don't... Don't acknowledge him. He's drunk, obviously. Alcantra was actually who the Cardinals sent with Gallin to Miami.

We talk about this and this one's an episode because we have to make the Cardinals remember this and never forget it. Just like we never forget the Goldschmidt trade. What else we got there, Damon? Karen, Ground-O-Mama, she asked. Is Gallant too much on his head lately? The pressure of Salyung Canada to talk. He has struggled at the beginning of recent starts in the event. mentally settles in. I don't know really what's going on with him. I do know that a big part of

Zach Gallen talking about his bad outings has to do with his feel of pitches. And I feel like when Zach Gallen has a bad outing, it's because he's throwing nothing but the knuckle curve and the fastball, right? His change up is very good. I was going to say he's got other pitches, right? But he's just got stuff and he's got to trust it. He abandons them, it seems like when he doesn't have the feel for it. Yeah, it almost seems like early in games, like especially in this Braves start yesterday, it just felt like they knew what was coming in put-away situations, right? Like the one thing I knew about Zach Allen, because when he first got traded for, I actually worked in the organization.

And I was at every single home game because I worked in the production department for the Diamondbacks. The one thing I always knew is that Zach Allen's change-up was about as disgusting. Like his out pitch was his change up. Obviously that's shifted a little bit. His out pitch is definitely his curveball this year. Like that has been his out pitch. It absolutely has.

And at times I feel like I have not seen his change up as much as I would have liked to see it. Here's the thing, though. Zach Gowlin can go six innings, give up two earned runs against one of the best teams in all of baseball. And we still have to ask what is wrong with Zach Gowling. That's what I'm saying. Like, he's, he's good. He just, I think he's achieved a level of excellence where our expectations of time are too high. And this year, it feels like even though he went on that scoreless inning streak, we've heard out of his mouth say more often than not that he doesn't have a good feel for the pitches tonight or tonight he was off or whatever, right?

So it's like, Gowan, when he's at his best, is incredible, maybe even untouchable. But he's not at his best very often. And one thing that's been said about the best starting pitchers, best pitchers in baseball, is that when they can be effective at 80% is when they are very, very good, in fact. And I think that Zach Gallen is even effective at like 60%. That's a really interesting point because it just feels like even when he's off, he's still better than 90% of what you're getting to get in the league. Right.

Right. Like he might have had that start in Pittsburgh where he got sheled. But outside of that, his quote unquote bad starts have not really been. he got a quality start yesterday. I thought he was going to get tossed yesterday. I thought he was going to get tossed under two in. He went over and basically told the home plate umpire. Well,

those were some atrocious. They were, right? But the confidence to go over to a home plate umpire and save the words out of your mouth, I am going to throw it there all day long, almost like, you better call it a strike because when I fucking throw it here, it's a fucking strike.

And I'm going to throw it here all day long. So I just want you to know that's where I'm throwing it. And like it was just, he was much more like diplomatic than I wasn't at instance. The Gallantare is coming again. Yeah. Because it's at some point he will figure it out. Well,

and he's whatever's been going on. He's like this much off, right? Like when you're talking about the pictures yesterday. The Gallantare is coming. When he was getting the corner and then looking at the empire, I wanted to fight the umpire because he told he got the corner on that call. Should have been a strikeout. I think he still ends up getting the swinging strikeout.

But Zach Allen, He knows what he's doing out there And he knows when the strike zone isn't effective And that's one thing that I love about him But I think he's fine I think it's just again It's the more Zagallon gets seen The more footage is out there of him

The more information is out there on him And you can tell there was a game plan About jumping on him early That seemed to work out early in that series And that's probably spreading around baseball They're probably figuring it out What else we got Damon? We got any more Sun season Eric O'Keefe 42 says

who goes down once Carson comes back. Probably Jose Herrera. You're not carrying three catchers. Well, it's really, really difficult. I like Jose Herrera, but he doesn't give you a bat, and his defense has been really, really bad. Pitchers like Jose Herrera. They do.

And that's kind of a part of the game. He's a good game. He's a good framer. But less and less of them are actually calling the game anyway. Or more of the pitchers are taking the responsibility. Who are also like? Who? Carson Kelly.

Well, yeah. Yeah. And, I mean, we've heard Zach Allen say that Gabriel Moreno was in the fight with you and you know that this guy, few people love Gabby as much as the man sitting to my left. Yo Gabby Gabby. But I definitely understand because he's still a young guy.

He probably shouldn't be getting this much playing time. No, Carson's going to be really good for him. Yeah, just to have a break. But so nobody is going to like getting Carson back better than Zach Allen because those two are P's in a pop. Very true. Very true. I know Merrill Kelly very much likes Carson Kelly as well.

So it'll be interesting to see if our best pitchers can get even better once he returns to the lineup. Do we have anything else there, Damon? Mr. Burns, Mr. Burns, said, is Kattel a good teammate? Why do they never interview him? Him missing Pavin on the way to the dugout yesterday was pretty funny. It made me realize that they never really show him interacting with the guys or anything. Yes, to answer your question, Kattel is a great teammate. Driver, questionable.

in his Lamborghini rolling around downtown I'm not going to say he's a great driver he may have cut Jesse off once or twice but teammate great teammate could tell Marte to me is the kind of guy that just makes

baseball more fun he's just an infectiously joyous person when it comes to playing the game you're talking about a guy that for the last two or three years has been injured for a majority of the seasons right so like I feel like he's been

really painted in a bad way. Injured in a shitty way to. A couple years where it's like his hamstrings hurt. So it looks like he's dogging the first base. Right. That's all I was going to say. Yes. The kettle that we're getting this year is the kettle that loves baseball.

Have you ever had your hamstrings crap when running? Like my God, it's one of the worst feelings ever. He steals bases. He's exciting in the field, right? Like this could tell, the kettle that loves and he just like as to the question as to why they're not interviewing him, you can throw that out. Like, he's just not that guy. Like, he just doesn't.

I'm going to give you why. I'm going to give you why. Kattel straight up, he's lying about how well he could speak English. I'm just putting it out there. This guy fucking put the tinfoil out on. Ketel straight up is fluent in English. I'm going to say that. I don't know if he's interviewed.

He just doesn't want to be interviewed. So does he go through the interpreter, which then for an English broadcast makes it one more hurdle that you don't want to have to have to go through an interpreter and stuff? Like we've seen it with Lourdes, but Lourdes was red hot and he had the purple hair. and I have the purple hair, and it's hard to not talk to cool guys with purple hair. I get it. But Cattel, he's very much just not that guy. Like, he's flashy and other ways.

Him missing Pavin was not at all a thing. No, no. I think he turned around at the dugout. He was like, my bad. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think he really, I don't think it was a thing at all, but I think it was very funny. Catelle's a great teammate, so let's not push that storyline. Hold on.

Wait, hold on. You finish your story. Are we not all as fans going to react to Pavin the same one? Are you going up and high-five in favor? I'm just asking. I feel like you have to. Are you doing it? But Catelle, another thing that's funny about Cotel was, he said to me the other day in perfect English,

why did I dye my hair like gory? And he said it in such a way that made me angry at him because I've never heard Cotel speak to me in such absolute clear English in the entire time I've known him. However, Cotel also has introduced himself to me like 15 times. Like legitimate, much gusto Cotel Marte. So, I mean, maybe I'm a forgettable face. I'm fine with that. The purple hair is not forgetable, Derek.

No, the purple hair. Like, he seemed mad. He asked me why I didn't do my hair like his. And I don't know if you've seen his hair, but he has dreads now. You should do his hair like. You should do your hair like his. Can I pull that off? Yeah, if he goes on a tear, if he goes on a tear in the second half of the season.

I'm with it. So if this team, here we go. If this team wins the division, will you do your hair like a Tel Morte for the playoffs? Yeah, I'm done with it. Let's go. I just got to find somebody to do it. And again, much like dyeing my hair purple. I'm not sure if it will last the process, but I'm with it.

Let's do it. Did I just agree to that on the show? Now I have to do it. Yeah. Can we clip that, Damon? This is what happened last time with the purple hair. Do we got anything else, Damon? No, we're good.

All right. We thank you guys so much for your mailbag Monday questions. You guys are the best. We couldn't have mailbag Monday without you. And we've gone tremendously over on our time today. But that's fine. Sorry to ASU. Sorry to ASU.

Sorry to everybody else that we don't care about you. We're doing our thing here. But of course, make sure. stop by Circle K. Whether you're on time, whether you're late, whether you're ahead of the game, it doesn't matter. You can stop by Circle K. Check out your local Circle K for the best coffee, beer and snack selection, premium gas, and don't forget, gas station, gas pump entertainment. Stock up at Circle K, America's Thrift Stop. When I say Thirst Stop, make sure to get yourself iced coffee, Red Bull, Modster. They're all on sale over at Circle K. You can get them cheaper than

anywhere else. And of course, make sure you're not missing out on all this great. stuff right now, you can text 31310, text PHNX to 31310 to join their SMS subscriber club and get a buy one, get one free offer on a 32 ounce polar pop. Head to circlek.com slash store dash locator to find CircleKs near you. And when we talk about that beer selection, don't forget to pick up some Four Peaks while you're there at Circle K. You can get four peaks at Circle K or wherever you get your beers. And of course, Four Peaks is all about not only being the official craft beer of the Arizona

Diamondbacks, but. providing you with the delicious beer down at Chase Field. Hop on over to the Four Peaks draft room where we had our DBAX takeover. It was incredible. It was incredible. They put us out into the section down below where you can watch the game from. Then they came over and told us, you don't have to go to your seats. You can just stay here and watch the game.

We were like, do we have to buy anything more? They're like, nah, fam, we got you. You're here. And so this is a beautiful part about the Four Peaks draft room. Don't forget, if you have a ticket to the game, anybody can go there. Get yourself a table. Maybe you have like upper upper deck seats. Come on down to the draft room.

It's a beautiful view from out there. And of course, join us for our D-BACs takeover events as well. You can check out the events page in our show notes to find dates and tickets. Most importantly, follow Four Peaks Brew at or at Four Peaks brough. Go to 4Peaks.com slash events to stay up to date on everything, Four Peaks. And Four Peaks is all about being for teachers. So check out their promotion right now. They're Four Peaks for Teachers.

Every year, Four Peaks donate school supplies to teachers around the Valley. This year they are giving away $11, $1,000 cash grants and one lucky teacher will win a teacher's lounge provided by four peaks. Talked about this with Jesse. That teacher's lounge, that's key. We've got to have the space of your own. No kids are allowed in the renovated teachers lounge, by the way. You stay out. By the way, am I being mean with that? Keep the kids out. The kids don't get to go in there. They're for the teachers, all right? They need a place of their own, all right? By the way, Teachers Tuesdays are back at the 8th Street Pub. Every Tuesday through July, bring a valid teacher ID and receive $4.00 pints of

Kiltlifter, wow, hazy, or hot knot because you deserve it. Four Peaks for Teachers.org to nominate, donate, or reserve your kit. Check out at Four Peaks Brewer at Four Peaks Pub to keep up with the latest Arizona's hometown brewery. Must be 21 years or older to drink Four Peaks. Please drink responsibly. We thank you guys so much. I thank you guys so much. I think this guy for being weird. Thank you so much.

He's got so much to do. and he still takes time out to come do an hour long show. It's my daughter's first day at daycare. How are you feeling? Are you right? Yeah, she had a blowout. Yeah, so I feel bad. I feel bad for her teacher.

That's their problem and not our problem, right? I just totally, one day when she's like at her wedding, I'm going to play this video and I'm going to be like, by the way, I outed you on YouTube ones. Perfect. I have a photo of my daughter going to the bathroom with like cowboy boots on and holding her tablet. So that's definitely getting thrown up on the screen. at her wedding.

But that's what we do. We're dads. We've got to embarrass you at your wedding because we love you so, so much. But thank you guys, of course, for dropping by. Thank you to you for being here. You guys, for being me. For being you, for being a dad,

and for most importantly, thank you to Damon for sticking with us through this. Yeah. Onslaught of a show. Damon is the real MVP of today's show. Make sure to follow him on Twitter. At Damon Dog, that's DAWG. And you got to do a little whew at the end for our cornhole team.

I'm at K-M-K-man with a K. Jacob Franklin is at Jacob underscore Franklin for our show is at PHNX underscore DBAX but of course all roads lead to at PHNX underscore sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. We thank you guys so much for being here. You guys are the absolute best for sticking through with us. We appreciate your time so much and remember kids, baseball is fun, but it is so much more fun when you extend your manager to a new one-year deal.