PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - The Arizona Diamondbacks make difficult decisions to send down Drey Jameson and Jake McCarthy

Episode Date: April 26, 2023

After making one of the most difficult roster decisions of the season, the Arizona Diamondbacks continue to make moves in an effort to keep this team competitive. We are discussing the D-backs sending down both Drey Jameson and Jake McCarthy and what this move means for the organization.WATCH YOUR FAVORITE TEAMS HERE: www.fubotv.com/phnxSUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports Keepin It 100 Golf Tournament: REGISTER HEREGametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase.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!Plus join us at the BetMGM Sportsbook at State Farm Stadium for all Suns’ away playoff games. Our PHNX Suns watch parties, presented by NUTRL, will feature food and drink specials, PHNX giveaways, and BetMGM deposit matches. Join us by grabbing your free ticket: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/616706063437Also, join our Knockout Nights cornhole league during the 1st Friday night of every month. They’re free to enter and will include food and beverage specials, giveaways, and BetMGM prizes: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/622016186157Gambling 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.Knockout Nights: Join our cornhole league during the 1st Friday night of every month! They’re free to enter and will include food and beverage specials, giveaways, and BetMGM prizes: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/622016186157Pins & Aces: Check out pinsandaces.com and use code PHNX to receive 15% off your first order and get free shipping.PHNX: Join our PHNX D-backs crew for their first Takeover at Chase Field on April 25th, 6:40 first pitch. Join us at Cold Beers & Cheeseburgers for pregame festivities and then watch the squad take on the Royals. Grab your ticket: https://t.co/1BceoLueSQ Circle K: Make sure you’re not missing out on all this great stuff, and be stocked all March Madness long! 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.Rotowire: Get your free trial and unlock all the best fantasy sports news and analysis at https://rotowire.com/phnxFour Peaks: Enjoy a refreshing Four Peaks’ Red Bird Lager during the NFL Draft on April 27th. Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. Roman: Go to https://ro.co/PHNX today to get 20% off your entire first order. 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 sad edition of the P. The Backs Vbacks podcast, and it's not just because the Diamondbacks lost to the Royals tonight. Of course, I'm your mayor of PHNX and occasionally your mayor of Chase Field. I'm occasionally known as Derek Montia. This guy, my vice mayor slash deputy mayor, wears a lot of hats. He's also your thunderstick. It's Jesse Friedman. I actually very rarely wear hats.

He never wears hats, actually. Of the two of us, I don't wear hats very often at all. It's a metaphorical thing, but yeah, I get it. You know, it's, oh, right. Yeah, but I get it. Welcome in. It was so great to see so many of you tonight at Chase Field. Shout out to Cogs.

Shout out to everybody else that was there tonight. I can't believe you made it home already in order to watch this game. I have a feeling you might have. I believe Coggs is driving home. Oh, is that what's happening? All right. I'm good with that. Somebody's here already to troll us about the Dodgers.

having a better record than the D-BACS, duly noted. Welcome it. And deserve, too, because you were getting pummeled by the pirates and you guys came back. So a good win for the Dodgers, as much as it pains me to say that. It was a bad loss for the Arizona Diamondbacks. And I say that because this was a very winnable game. And, man, were there a lot of mistakes made? Maybe it was just because we were sitting much closer to the action than we normally do with our friends from the PHNXDBAC's family at our first takeover here tonight, which was, like I said, an absolute blast.

But yeah, right away, Lourdes-Guriel's defense, not very good. Cattell Marte, not very good. Just a lot of sloppy play there defensively in the outfield or on the field. If we'd been in the press box, then it would have looked great. But, you know, because we were down in the stands, it's like, oh, wow, this does not. No, it was a bad game for the debacks defensively. Probably their worst of the season. I know it.

They didn't make it a single air, which just goes to show how useless that. That's that really is. Yeah, they should have made errors. There were errors that made. Lordus Guriel's defense was questionable at best in left field. Yeah. He missed some plays that not only, I mean, it didn't even look like he needed to make a spectacular play. It looked like he just really misjudged the ball and the distance and how his trajectory to get to it.

I would like to really see some of those replayed on TV a bit that we were, because we were very close to Lourdes making those bad defensive plays in left field. And it was just surprising. I mean, we know that he's not the best defensive outfielder, but on a day when Jake McCarthy got sent down to AAA Arena, which we will talk about, wasn't great to see so many gaffes there in the outfield. It was bad. I mean, all three outfielder, honestly, had bad moments in this game.

Yeah, Corby and Carroll did too. Yeah, Corbyn Carroll late in the eighth inning, a very costly mistake. It just took a little bit too long to get to a ball in the corner. That run killed me more than anything, right? Because the Diamondbacks end up losing by one, and that was the decider that that, That crappy run.

I hated that so much. A ball that Corby and Carol, like you said, didn't get to really timely. Didn't get it in. Triple ensued because of it. And honestly, the Diamondbacks just made lots of defense bears. It's not the team that we're used to seeing so far this season defensively. We were just clambering about their defense yesterday, I believe. Yeah, I mean, they still, like coming into this game,

they probably have been the best defensive team in baseball today. What is interesting is that almost all of their defensive value has come from their catcher, one Gabby Moreno, who teams still attempts to seal bases against him. We're not totally sure why. Don't do that. Don't want to Gabby. And then from their infielders, the debacks infielers have all contributed quite a bit defensively this season. Christian Walker is obviously great. Josh Ross has looked great at third base. The middle infielers have been pretty good, although Kattel had a bit of a stinker in this game. He really did. On both sides of the ball, I could tell it was not good. But yeah, the infield in general for this team this season has been good. The outfield, at least according to the numbers, actually hasn't contributed much. The D-BACs outfield, if you look at the stats, have basically been league average. The only reason that they rank where they do in some of these defensive metrics is because of the infield.

And you saw the outfielders have a pretty rough go of it in this one. Ryan Nelson, also not very good tonight. Five innings pitch. up 11 hits, four runs, four earned, zero walks, three strikeouts. They were hitting them really hard. It felt like at one point, it felt like everybody on the Royals was getting hits off of them. And I mean, looking at his season numbers and the trajectory right now of this team, the decisions being made, we can't help but wonder if Nelson might be the next candidate to be sent down. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I would think they're not there yet because they can't

keep sending, I mean, eventually they're just going to run out of guys if they keep sending pictures down. But yeah, I mean, you could do without Mad Bum in the rotation, obviously, and you can do without Dre Jameson in the rotation as well. We'll get to some options that they have for filling Dre Jameson's spot. I don't think they have the manpower to fill Ryan Nelson's spot at this point. But given the nature of how the debacks have operated in the last week and all the moves that they've made, you do feel like nobody's job is secure. And with how Tommy has. Henry pitched yesterday. That wasn't a great outing with how Ryan Nelson has pitched his last few times out.

His ERA is up over five. Opposing teams have about an 800 OPS against him. 1.37 whip, 5.33 ERA for Ryan Nelson. I'm sorry. Yeah, none of those numbers are good. And coming into the season, one of the big X factors was what are you getting from your young pitchers, right? And at this point, Jay Jameson is in Reno. Ryan Nelson has an ERA for five, and Tommy Henry's made one start, and it was bad against a not

very good Kansas City offense, right? So a lot of things in that sense are not going right for the debacks. A lot of other things have gone right, which is why we're still talking about an above 500 baseball team. But on the whole, on the pitching side, there are some concerns. This team had a depth chart of like 10 starting pitchers when the season started. amazing how quickly a list of nine guys can be like, all right, well, these three have been no good at all and this guy's hurt and Mad Bum is now, you know, been DFA'd. Like, you can burn through that list pretty quickly and we have definitely seen that. And Benjamin Hunley is very right about both of his comments. He said, Ketel watches two guys walk in front of him and then strikes out swinging

at three pitch out of the zone against Clark. And the pop up, the pop up with a runner at third one out. He saw the first pitch. He pops it up. That was over. five with three strikeouts. This was one of the worst games I've ever seen from Guchel Marte. And not only that, but from a few guys on this team, I felt like this was one of the worst overall performances. And if we want to look at the silver lining of it, they still only lost by one run. They still almost came back.

I also played the Kansas City Royals. I know. I wasn't going to unnecessarily get back to that. Sorry, you tried to give a silver lining. I tried it and you just blew it away. No, but my point. being is that the team continues to try to find a way to win. When this game was 4 to 1, it really looked like it was like a 10 to 1 game.

It just felt like the Diamondbacks were being overmatched tonight, that they weren't playing well enough to even make a comeback. And the answer back's answered back. So they still made it a fun game to watch. And this team continues to find ways to hang around, even when they're playing absolutely terrible. But tonight they were one for 12 with runners in scoring position. and things don't look great.

Like Cog says we need Davies back fast. I feel like that's actually very true. We do need Zach Davies back fast. There's just a lot of volatility right now with the rookies in the lineup, Jamison being sent down. We still don't know when Brandon fought could debut, but we're going to talk about that.

We're going to talk about that. But we do want to talk about, again, is it okay? Can I talk about positives? Or do you not want me to do no positives tonight? I'm just trying. We can allow that. Ryan says let's get the series win tomorrow.

I like that attitude. That's the right attitude. But Corbyn Carroll remains incredible. Even if he did make that one defensive mistake there on a very costly, what ended up being a very costly hit, he still is the most incredibly fast human being that I've ever seen in my life. We thought we were going to see an in the park home run tonight. We really did from Corby and Carroll.

And we thought we were going to be down in the stands where we could like jump up and down and scream about it. because that kind of activity is not allowed in the press box. It's actually quite frowned upon. But Corby and Carroll posted the fastest home to third time of the season in the majors, 10.97 seconds. That's pretty fast. I can't do a lot of things in 10.97 seconds. You can get to first base in 10.9 seconds?

Probably not, but I don't know. I mean, I'd like to give myself more credit than that. It just depends on how I get how I get off. the box, but the D-backs have now posted the top three home to third times this season. Corbyn Carroll, followed by Jake McCarthy and Alec Thomas, all under 11.5 seconds. Jake's was 11.18 second on April 6th, Alec Thomas, 11.22 seconds on April 8th. It's almost a crime to talk about, like, how good Corbyn Carroll will be as a player and, like, how good he could be in the 2023 season,

based on the numbers we have so far. I mean, it's, it's been, you know, 20-something games. We're still so early in the season. But Corbyn Carroll is sitting 303, 354, 551, which is insane. I mean, that's like, that is. We were like, we'll take 260, I think, before the season, 275. We were like, that would be incredible. Projection systems were high on Corbyn Carroll coming.

into the season very high. They projected Corbyn Carroll to be the best player on the Diamondbacks. They also projected him to hit like 250 with like a 770 OPS and that was seen as being really good, right? Yeah. Corbin Carroll right now and it's such a small sample size, so I don't want to get too carried away with it. But the player you're seeing right now is a player who would get like MVP votes, right?

Like I just want to make it clear like if he keeps this up, which it's a lot to ask and it's still so early. but the level that he is playing at right now is off the charts. He stole his 10th base in this game. He's on pace to steal over 60 bases. This is just an insane level of performance from Corbyn Carroll. So if you're looking for a silver lining in this game, I mean, he reached in all four of his final plate appearances.

He was really, really incredible. There's some James Outman talk in our comments, which I won't acknowledge at all. But you're probably right. That guy's been very good. It has been incredible. His strikeout rate is also quite high. Yeah.

There are, I do see some statistical flaws there, but also, you know, Will Corby and Carol have a 1000 OPS the whole year? I mean, that is not a, you maybe,

maybe. It's too early to really be talking about these things. But what we've seen from Corbyn is really incredible. Yes, that's true. But we're not going to lump him in with this category, but I will say that tonight's performance against the Royals, much like Thunderbolt 47 said,

where he said, bottom line, they lost to the Royals at home, which is true, and you can't, you can't deny that. Tonight's performance gets our OG's performance to forget. Just the whole thing? No certain player, no, okay. Lordus Gouriel's defense gets the OG's performance to forget. Does that better? I wanted to pinpoint it down and blame one person.

I might also be lashing out because my hair is still most likely going to look like his by the end of the month. And not look like his. He has much nicer hair than mine. It's much wilder. We're not going to look the same. I just want to get that point across. We're still not sure your hair is going to make it through the bleaching process.

I'm 100% not sure about that. This might just be a Derek loses his hair thing, which is also fine for most of you, I'm sure. I'm sure people would enjoy. I'm sure you guys will enjoy that. We'll just have to color in your bald head with like a purple sharpie. A purple marker, whatever. Something else people enjoy is our friends from OG's brands and their wonderful edible. So make sure that if you need to forget a performance or if you want to,

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So you can find them at your local dispensary at OGsbrands.com. Must be 21 or over to enjoy and enjoy responsibly. Also, check out our friends from Four Peaks when you want to enjoy a game a bit more or you want to kind of get past one of these kind of losses. Be sure to follow them at Four Peaks Brew to get all the latest on Arizona's Premier Craft Brewery and join us for the NFL draft on April 27th at Four Peaks 8th Street Pub. The best place to take in the draft is with us, your favorite degenerates at the 8th Street Pub. register for free in the link in our show notes

to take advantage of beer specials must be 21 years or older to enjoy and enjoy responsibly. Those beer specials include $3 redbird logger pints, $5 redbird logger pitchers, and our usual pH and X specials of $3 kilt lifters and wow pints.

I will be there drinking the wow pints for sure. Today was a somber day a bit. I guess it goes along with the idea of what Jesse brought up earlier. The Diamondbacks have not hesitated to send guys down or designate them for assignment in the case that we saw with Madison and Bumgarner. Today, the Diamondbacks sent one of our favorite guys outfielder Jake McCarthy down to AAA Reno

and recalled third baseman Emmanuel Rivera. And again, it wasn't surprising. We weren't surprised. But the Diamondbacks really just have kind of changed, I think, their philosophy a bit on how quickly they're making these decisions. And a big part of it is kind of the sense of urgency about how good this team has been right now. Tori had some more info on what they were looking at from Jake to work on and kind of Jake's response to being sent down. You know, last year you looked me square in the eye and told me that I'm not the right guy to send down right now, but I'll go. This year was a little bit different version of that.

I think he felt like there was something that he needed to go down there and work on. I identified that. We've been working hard over the past couple days. There's a hitting session today that involved him. And so we're trying to help him go down. there and retrieve some of the swing mechanics that helped him be so successful last year. We need Jake McCarthy to get to where we're going. It was that two things that were really interesting there in what Tori Levello said was the

first part about Jake when he got sent down last year telling Tori Leval, looking him in the eye and telling him that he wasn't sending down the right guy, right? You could make a pretty good case that Jake was right in saying that. Yeah, and not only that, but Jake also did come back better than. ever after he did come back from being sent down, right? And I think that that's part of what they're looking for from this because Jake offers so much in every other way that, you know, again, hitting less than, you know, below league average is just not acceptable for this team right now with how successful they're

being. And, and I mean, honestly, there's other guys. Alec Thomas is not hitting very well himself either. There's other guys that are potentially in danger of this considering we've talked about this past off season and during spring training, but the Diamondbacks have too many young, talented players. And some of those guys aren't getting an opportunity because Alec Thomas's and Jake McCarthy's are here and they're playing well and the team likes them and they're kind of the future. But I mean, if these guys don't continue to play well, don't keep up that high level that

Tori Levalho is expecting of them, we could see other guys, other outfielders, the other players from the minor leagues that kind of have had a lot of hype around them that gets. their opportunity. We talked a lot about McCarthy over the off season and, you know, I dove into some of the numbers and how last year, the season that Jake McCarthy had, I mean, it was incredible. It was one of the best players in the National League in the second half. But when you look at the batted ball data, I just didn't really see much evidence that what he was doing was sustainable. Not that he couldn't be that player, but he was going to have to make some notable improvements in order to maintain what he was last year. That just hasn't happened. According to what Mike

like Hazen said earlier today, it sounds like this was a move. The Diamondbacks have been thinking about for a while. This is what Hazen had to say about the timing of this. He said, it's been a month. I felt like we had kept pushing this back. We kept saying, all right, let's keep working at it. The light is going to come on. We're going to get to this spot.

We just weren't getting there. We can't do this for the whole season. So you can see the debacks are, you know, they tried to give Jake some time. This is something that they've kind of had on their radar for a while. And as you said earlier, the timeline on some of these moves is accelerated. The debacks are a better team than they've been in the past. I think we can safely say that.

And they're in a position where given the depth they have in the minors and some of the players that they have down there ready to go performing well, the leash is shorter than it's been in the past. And if you come up and for a month, you hit a buck 50, this is just kind of what that leads to now. You're absolutely right. And one thing that Tori Lavallo brought up with Jake today was that they're not seeing him. I think he called it the A swing.

They're not seeing him be aggressive and go after pitches. They just see him being very defensive to go into that, just contact swing, just doing whatever he can to kind of foul balls off and such, instead of taking that approach where you see him comfortable, you see him be comfortable in the box, you see him attacking pitches instead of kind of just defending himself from those pitches coming in. Yeah. But what's interesting to me is that they recalled Emmanuel Rivera, another third baseman, when they already have two third basemen that have been working out relatively well for them up until this point, right? No, what this clearly means, Derek, is they're just going to have Rivera come up. He's going to about left-handed now, and now he's going to play right field.

So I don't know if you didn't get the memo, but there's actually a position change, and now he bats left-handed. I don't like that idea, Jesse. I don't like that one bit. But Mike Hazen did have comments about Emmanuel Rivera's usage, right? He said, we're about to rip into a decent amount of lefties and the alignment that we had at the beginning of the season with Kyle. This with Rivera kind of gets us back to that alignment, which allows us to use a right-handed hitter at DH versus lefties and things like that. Yeah, it does make sense. I did wonder if, you know, last night it was pretty obvious to DeBex for sending down Jake McCarthy. Tori kind of deflected a question about whether the debacks were going to make a roster move on the position player side.

So it was pretty clear what was happening last night. And yeah, I kind of suspected that, you know, the normal assumption is that they're going to bring up an outfielder who bats left-handed, right? A player who kind of fits the mold that McCarthy did. But not really all that surprised by this at all. The debacks, when Kyle Lewis went down, they did kind of have that missing right-handed bat. Obviously, they brought up Pavin Smith, who bats left-handed. So I think what this will do is it allow the debacks against a lefty to not play Josh Rojas, at least not play him all the time.

You could put Rivera in the field at third base where he's very, very good, and then you can have Evan Longoria, DH. So it basically just turns one of your lefties into a righty against a left-handed pitcher. And I think that makes a lot of sense. And people are saying in the comments, he also came through with a big hit today. Rivera was very good. And Nicholas in the comments said the vibes were immaculate tonight, despite the loss, had an excellent time at the takeover. Thank you so much for all of you guys that came out again.

Nicholas is Nicholas is great. He majored in math. I learned that. Oh, yeah. Of course, we had a fantastic connection. Oh, there was just so much. So many numbers being thrown around. It was great.

But no, it was really fun. I think, like, Jesse and I spent a little too much time in the press box at times. And I think that it's nice to get out and come hang out because tonight was refreshing. and also terrifying for us because we had all of this show preparation going on in her head and no computers and no internet to do it with where we were at. But that wasn't the only big news about the Diamondback sending players down. Of course, as you know, they sent Dre Jameson down to AAA Reno and recalled Tommy Henry. Tori Lavello had more information.

Jesse was there yesterday on that decision. It was something that we talked about last night. post game and the lack of fastball consistency his inability to command his secondary stuff we thought he was becoming one dimensional out over the plate

and we just need to get back into that that form that we had seen we saw last year we've seen its first this year and you know go prepare to get dominant again may I may I input my own

wild speculation here sure I don't like what they're doing with Drey Jameson. It puts fire in my goddamn blood. I don't like all of this switching around. I don't like that you're a fucking bullpen guy this day and you're a starter this guy. Now we're sending you down this guy because you had one bad start. I don't like it. I don't like

it. I don't like it. I don't think it's right. It wasn't just one bad start. No, it wasn't just one bad start, but you know what I'm saying. Like, I know, but still my point being is that Drey Jameson had a role that he found himself to be successful in. The Diamondbacks then needed him to return back to the starting rotation.

He did that. Of course, it's a lot right stretching them out getting them unstretched out not really unstretched out you don't unstretch a person you just stretch them but you get what i'm saying all the fucking stop and start and stop i hate it i hate it i don't like what they're doing to him and i don't like this i hope jameson does get right and reno i think he will because he's that kind of like absolute fierce competitor that if something like this is happening to him i imagine it's pissing him off and i imagine that he's going to throw the best baseball that he ever has the next time he's out but jameson just really struck me as being

a guy that had a lot of value to them in the bullpen and I'm much like a lot of you, I'm still a bit perplexed about the decision to send him down instead of moving him back to the pen. That's the way I see it. But yeah, I mean, the move definitely made me look silly because I think someone on

Mailbag Monday asks, you know, like what the future for Dr. Jamie Jameson is like and I was like bullpen, you know, I don't think they would send him down but surely like surely like I think what I said is there there would be a longer leash in the rotation, but even if they did get to a point where they wanted to remove him,

they would just put him back in the bullpen rather than send him down. So that, yeah, that proved to be extremely, extremely false. And I think a lot of people were surprised by this move. The leash genuinely was very short. It's not often that you see a pitcher with a 3.71 ERA,

you know, and a 2.1 record sent down, right? I mean, Drejameson is 5 and 1 with a 2.40 ERA and a 224 opponent batting average. average in his big league career and he was just sent down a triple a right admittedly that was a he had a very very bad outing the last time like one of the worst possible out the kind of outing that like wrecks your bullpen uh i mean debaks needed eight innings from their bullpen 40 43 pitch first inning i believe uh yeah and just and i mean even then it didn't get that out of control but it

was still a 43 pitch first inning that that didn't allow them to bring them back into the game and he had i mean four and like his last two starts so this is in st louis and then this last start against the Padres, he went four and two-thirds innings total. And granted, you know, he was limited from a pitch count perspective, but he still should have gone a lot longer than that. Four and two-thirds innings, six hits, five runs, seven walks, four strikeouts. It was really bad.

And I think what got to the debacks more than anything else and with both Mike Hazen and Tori Lavello said about this move is that Jay Jameson was a thrower on Sunday. He was not a pitcher. He was trying to get his fastball by guys. He did not have it. slider and it was a problem. He was throwing, as we talked about

on Monday, his velocity was up, he was trying to get his fastball by guys and it just doesn't work. And I think the debacks want to make sure he understands you got a good fastball, you got a good sinker, but like you can't just be, you know, throw it like even if you spot it up well,

it's not going to hold weight over a full start against big league hitters. That's just not how it works. I'm just making notes of all these people that shouldn't be at Diamondbacks games anymore. And it's no offense to you guys as fans, but there's a lot of people that are over, and maybe that, maybe you're the problem. Maybe it wasn't could tell tonight.

I don't know. But the debacks are not hesitating to make moves. We brought this up, but this is just mind-blowing to me, Jesse. Bum Gardner, Dre James and McCarthy, all gone in five days, within five days. It's, yeah. Like that, like six days ago, I would not imagine that this is the conversation we would be having now, right? Things have definitely changed for this team, but like you said earlier, they don't.

don't really have too many more pieces. We have a young Bryce Jarvis that was recently promoted from double A to AAA, and he made his start tonight. We have a little bit more information on that. But of course, the big name everybody's wondering about is Brandon Fott, Jesse. When are we going to see Brandon Fott? And is all of this lining up to essentially make room for Fott in the starting rotation? Well, this situation has been an utter mess.

And the reality is that none of us really know for sure what's going on, because the The backs have sent several conflicting messages at this point. So it's pretty complicated. But here's the short version. Let's start with what Tori said. Yeah. So Tori, he was the first person to speak on this. This was yesterday.

He said the Diamondbacks do not have interest in a four-man starting rotation. That is not something they're interested in. And I specifically asked yesterday, when Dre spot comes up next, do you, this means, right, that you would bring in a fifth starter externally, and he said, correct, he said yes. That now does not look to be the case because Mike Hazen, when he talked about this today, he said the Diamondbacks don't need a fifth starter for a while

and they have some time. So that makes it sound like the debacks are willing to go through a turn or two through the rotation with four guys and then address this fifth starter issue later on. even if the diamondbacks were to try to get Brandon Fought in into Jameson's next spot, it doesn't work. Brandon Fott is scheduled to start tomorrow. That's Wednesday.

The D-backs would need someone to fill Jameson spot on Saturday if they kept everyone in line. Unless you're sending Brandon Fott into the most hitter-friendly environment in baseball on three days rest. You're not starting him against the Colorado Rockies. No. We start our pitchers against the Padres. that that means pot can't come up until August. That's the way that this works.

It's the way it works for everybody. We're not changing the rules just for Brandon Fott. But Steve Berthewan reported on the broadcast, the Diamondbacks will go with that four-man rotation through May 7th. Yeah, which that was the final straw. It's like, all right, we know nothing. So, yeah, after Hazen said that, it was like, okay, this makes sense. Maybe Tori didn't literally mean that the debacks were going to replace Jameson right when

his next spot came through. Maybe they're going to do a turn or two or two with four guys, and then they're going to bring in Fought and try to line it up so it makes sense. And, you know, me and other reporters did a whole bunch of work mapping out how that would work. We came up with May 3rd. Yeah. May 3rd made sense. That would have come against the Texas Rangers or May 2nd. Either of those could have worked.

Or May 7th also lined up very nicely for the debacks and for Brandon Fought that would have had him making his debut against the Washington National. So with Bertine was saying that they'll go with a four-man rotation through May 7th, is it possible that he means that May 7th would be that the day it stops and that would be when Brandon Fawkes potential. Maybe it's like to May 7th, not through May 7th and that's actually their plan. But yeah, I mean, if that actually was literally true the way that it was said, then we don't know. What we do know is the debacks need a fifth starter on May 9th. Correct.

They will have to start a pitcher on show. short rest if they don't bring somebody else in by May 9th. So something has to happen by then. If you map it out, Fought doesn't line up all that great for May 9th. But if you kind of finagled some things between now and then, you could maybe make that work. And now they have the time to schedule it out and bring in the Aces on it and figure, map that out versus having it happen kind of in a surprise situation. We know none of these decisions are a surprise because Mike Hazen has said the Bumgarner decision, the everything, like all these decisions, they're, they're, they're, they're talking about for a while. You know what I mean? Like it just eventually comes to that head. But it's still in

talking about it still doesn't have them enact some sort of plan where they're going to get the AAA team involved and have them actually changing the dates when someone's going to start or whatever. Yeah. So that'll line up, right? So we still think Fott comes up soon and very soon. I still think he's the guy. Whenever the debacks do get this fifth starter. However it's going to happen, whenever it is, it's got to be by May 9th, right? That would be the sort of the deadline, I think Brandon Fott is your guy. I mean, maybe they throw Peter Solomon in a starter. Like, maybe it gets delayed a little bit past that. But I still feel like their solution at this fifth starter spot, it has to be Brandon Fott

in my mind. Does it end up with, obviously, you got Gowan, Merrill, Zach Davies. Let's just say, Zach Davies. Yeah, you also have Zach Davies coming around the corner. I don't think you'd be ready by May 9th. No, no. still think they'll need. But let's just say by June what the rotation could look like.

So you got those three at the top. And then Ryan Nelson and Brandon fought rounding things off at the back end. But you just feel like this situation is so fluid, man. Yeah. And Ryan Nelson is not pitching well enough for his name to continue to be rotating in the, you know, in the discussion. Yeah. I mean, like for all we know, Dre Jameson is back up here at that point, right? And Tommy Henry is the long reliever.

And Ryan Nelson's in AAA. Like there's so many different things that the debacks could do here that it's honestly It's pretty hard to predict the biggest key here is that the Major League ball club the Diamondbacks they are not they are not waiting around for for guys to get right They are not waiting around for guys to figure it out like yeah, this team is moving forward with or without you And if you can't help this team win then they will if they can do something to replace you temporary rarely, and then if you can't get right, they'll move on. I mean, we've all talked about them giving Madison Bumgarner entirely too many chances,

but we all know the reason for that, and it kind of made sense, and I think we were still fairly shocked that they made that move when they did. But Tori Lavello spoke about complacency sucking and how this team really doesn't have the time for that at this point. Do you feel like, does that say something about just kind of where you guys are at in the standings and kind of an added level of urgency or aid as it speak to the level of players you have available in the minor league?

How do you do about that? I think all the above. We got good players in our system and there are some replaceable parts. We have guys that are ready to go in AAA and they're doing their job and somebody here is not, we'll jump on that. So to me it means we're a good team that wants to be competitive

and expects to go out there and win every single night. We win the rest of our games, but tonight's game, we have a one. really good chance to win it. And we're paying attention to a lot of little things that are happening throughout this organization. And you know, you can see, whether they're on the roster or not, I've been around this group long enough. I know that when there's a need and you're doing well, they will call you up. So it gives a lot of hope to the players of player development and I think it keeps guys on their toes here. Complacency sucks. There's

no place for it on this team in this organization. I mean, that's kind of... Words to live by. I know. Yeah. Right? And I mean, that's kind of been a change in their philosophy because one of the things that if you wanted to criticize Tori for, there's a lot of things I'm sure people could come up with,

mostly changing lineups and never riding with the hot hand. But another thing was that he was very, very, very player friendly. And at times it was a bit, I mean, maybe two player friendly. Maybe he was too much of a player's manager. We saw him change over the past few years. We've seen him kind of take. more of you know that that proper approach as a manager has to do sometimes but I will definitely say that they are not holding back at this point there's difficult

discussions being had it feels like every day and I'm sure that there's even some more difficult ones that are you know being had with guys that are remaining on the roster I mean I'm sure there's some talks with Alec Thomas and things like that about and maybe a few others about getting you know getting right as well and if they don't see an improvement then we we might see more guys get called up. This is kind of the nature of this team is there there's a lot of guys who who could be great right like you came into this year, Alec Thomas, maybe this is the year he breaks out and you know he has a an 800 OPS and he's a gold glover in center field that was not a totally outrageous outcome. There's that and then there's also like yeah well

Alec Thomas could also be in Reno by May 1st right and and Jake McCarthy could be in Reno by April 25th which is which is what we've seen, right? There's just, they have a lot of players with a very high ceiling and a relatively high ceiling and a pretty low floor. Like, like there's a fine line between these guys being extraordinary, big parts of your team and being guys that you send down to the minors

after three weeks because they're the worst hitter or pitcher on your team, right? And we're seeing that. And a lot of the, a lot of the X factors that we kind of pegged going into this season, those guys haven't performed. The debacks have been able to stay afloat for other reasons, but Jake McCarthy, Alec Thomas, Tommy Henry, Ryan Nelson, right, Dre Jameson,

a lot rides on those guys. And in the early going, it is not been good. It has not. But the one thing is, the Diamondbacks still have found a way to win. They've still found a way somehow to be competitive in these games. Even today's game.

I hated today's game. so much it was such a sloppy game and you know we were still in here kind of huddled around jesse's phone and and uh you know they did they did make it very i mean i think for fans they did they made the loss more frustrating by you know the lead off double in the in the ninth inning and not only that but it was also the you know the way that run scored in the eighth like we talked about right but again again that was when with all their mistakes they made the biggest one really was that one that just put the game out of reach with that extra run in the eighth that they couldn't overcome.

I think... Alex Thomas did make a great play at the wall. I do want to acknowledge that. Yeah, that was a very nice play. Yeah. And honestly, like, there's... Going back to Jake McCarthy, Jake McCarthy was making outstanding plays. I don't think if Jake McCarthy was here today, the Diamondbacks lose this game.

I'm going to say that. I'm just going to say that because of the defense in the outfield. If Jake McCarthy was out there and you had an outfield... field of Corbyn Carroll, Jake McCarthy, and Alec Thomas, I don't feel like the Diamondbacks lose today's game. That's what I feel like. I don't know if Jake McCarthy would have played honestly. Yeah, that's true. I mean, you would have, because Pavin Smith was the H. The D-backs are definitely riding that hot hand right now. Right. And you weren't, I don't think you were going to bench Lordus Guriel in order to get Jake McCarthy in the lineup. So they've kind of been doing this for a

while where they just switched back and forth between Alec Thomas and Jake McCarthy. I mean, that's my point, though, is that I'm making is that Jake McCarthy really. Well, because they're both about hitting around the same, right? It feels like, I mean, I know that Alec Thomas is doing much better than Jake McCarthy, but not by a whole lot. I mean, he's hitting 180. It is true, as Kyle said in the comments, Alex's underlying peripherals are like his baseball Savant page does still have a red on it. They're incredible.

There's a lot of red on there. But we wanted to thank you guys once again. If you haven't had a chance to know about it, we have our D-BACs takeovers. We had our first one today. You can still get our takeover season pass. which will give you access to the remaining five games for this season, as well as our pregame meetup access, which will be, I think, most likely at a different location after today.

But we also have our PHNX. It's always sunny shirt as part of that season takeover pass as well. And you can get individual game tickets for those through the Event Bright link. You can also get yourself a diehard membership, which will get you a discount on those tickets or on that takeover season pass. Sign up for that over at go-PHNX.com. You'll get access to all of Jesse's writing and content. You also get a free piece of merchandise from the PHNX Locker.com,

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It's basically a bullpen start for the Kansas City Royals. No reason. Diamondback shouldn't be a little pissed off about tonight's loss and bring that with them to the ballpark tomorrow. Also, Zach Gallen, I don't know if you've heard, but he's been pretty damn outstanding, Jesse. Yeah, yeah, something about 21 and two-thirds innings of being pretty good, I guess. Squirrelis streaks and whatever, you know, he's good. Ryan Yarbrough, as you said, on the mound for the Royals, he has not made a start this season, although he has been sort of a long reliever type. So his last.

appearance came on the 21st. He threw four innings that day. So it's sort of a bullpen game of sorts for the Royals, although I think Yarbrough threw 52 pitches last time out so he can maybe get through four or five innings depending on how efficient he is. But yeah, the debacks are still in really good position to win this series, right? Zach Allen has been outstanding. Yarbrough on the season has an ERA of 7.62.

He has five strikeouts in 13 innings. The numbers for him are really not, really not all that great. So, yeah, the debacks are still in good position to win this series. And coming in, I mean, the Kansas City Royals were 5 and 17. No team is going to play that poorly for that long, except for maybe the Oakland A's. The jury's still out on what's in store for the Oakland A's. That is a bad, is a bad baseball team. They got a possum living in their radio booth.

Yes, and of course it's a bad team. Maybe the possum should start playing. They literally have a bad team. a possum that just lives in their radio booth that they just said, fuck it, we don't go in there anymore. That is wild. It's a possum. Jeff Bannister and I told me he would just go in there and grab it by its tail and pull it out. Send Banny in there.

That problem will be fixed in 10 fucking minutes. Let's go. I don't know what we're doing anymore. Did they actually never remove the possum? No, I guess it's like in the walls. So they have a hard time like, like they can remove ceiling panels and stuff to kind of get in there. But then once it gets into a certain point, they literally have to like start knocking fucking holes in the wall, I guess, to get it out. And if that's the case, let's

punch some goddamn holes in the wall and get that possum out of there. What are you doing, Oakland? They're clearly not worried about the maintenance about facility at this point. I do. I don't think they're too worried about possum poop in those walls, Jesse. Oh, it's filled with possum poop. Imagine me, the guy who took

A's 60 wins this year. I'm that guy. Was that you? I mean, they still could. He saw bitches be taking the Oakland A's to win 60 games. I'm bitches. I am bitches.

It still could happen, right? It's just so absurd. Like 60 wins and I was like, oh, come on. Like, that's one of the worst teams in baseball. That's the worst team in baseball. That's all I need. Nope, it's still not going to hit somehow. Crazy.

The possum needs to replace the elephant for their team mascot for now is really what it should. My only request is that the possum better make the trip to Vegas. They better not leave that possum behind. Right? No, we built a cage for the possum in the new stadium. Everybody can come by and pet it now and see it and shit. It's awesome. The possum is an essential part of Oakland A's baseball.

It has to be. So it better be an essential part of Vegas A's baseball. That's all I'm saying. Well, see, now we're laughing. We're having a good time. Let's talk about some good things, right? Gabby Moreno, I don't know if you've heard on this. Yo, Gabby, Gabby, do not throw on that or do not run on that man.

He will throw you out, period. He is tied for the most caught stealings so far in the majors. The Diamondbacks also coming into the night's game have 57% extra base. is taken, which is the highest in the majors. So basically they are turning singles into doubles, doubles into triples. And we saw that tonight with Corbyn Carroll almost turning what most people would probably, you know, run out as a double into nearly in the park home run. So it's not surprising. I think that I think that stat is also maybe even more so about like going from first to third.

Yes. Like on a single, that sort of thing. And D-VACs have been a very good team at that. They've been, I mean, and that's the thing is they're slugging percentage, even though they don't have a lot of home runs is very high because they're taking a lot of bases. Yeah. When you wonder what's coming next for the Arizona Diamondbacks, I mean, it's not out of the question that Bryce Jarvis might end up being a potential candidate for this team this season.

He was promoted to Reno and made his first start tonight for AAA Reno Aces and was quite good, actually. He was. Five innings, one hit, one run, no walks, three strikeouts. He threw five no-hit innings in his previous start for the Amarillo Sod Poodle. So Bryce Jarvis, first-drawn draft pick from just a few years ago, had a really good spring. Yeah, I was going to say it tracks based on what we saw here in spring training. Made some adjustments. He had some issues on the extension on his fastball.

It was just a very hitable pitch, even though the velocity was pretty decent. And he's always had a pretty solid mix of pitches. So, you know, now that that fastball is locked in a little bit better, it kind of unlocks the rest of his arsenal. and he was viewed as maybe the DeBack's best pitching prospect not that long ago. So sometimes, you know, you take a guy in the first round, the path to the majors is not linear. You don't just, you know, succeed at every level and then you find your way to the big league. Sometimes it looks like you're a lost prospect and then suddenly, you know, something clicks into gears and certainly appears that way for Bryce Jarvis. Brian asks, what's the schedule for the show?

I'm guessing for this week. We are going to have a post series show for you tomorrow. then we are going to have our normal Thursday 1 p.m. show. No show on Friday, but Jesse is going to be in Colorado covering the series with the Rockies. So we are going to have a special postgame show on Saturday night after that game, as well as our post-series show on Sunday. So lots of shows for you for the rest of this week, an extra show even. Yeah?

Just because of Jesse being in Colorado. I'm going to freeze there even more than I froze in. in LA and San Diego. You used to live in Seattle, and I want you to be better about this. I'm the one that can. I'm an island boy. I shouldn't be in the cold at all at any point. Yeah, but in Seattle, like I would go inside.

Like when it was cold, I would go inside. Press boxes don't work that way. They're just open air and you're just kind of there. So, you know. Jesse, you know what time it is now. And I know you're not looking forward to this at all, but I have to ask you, Do you need help with the extension on your fastball? I think the extension, I mean, I haven't thrown a baseball in a while,

but I think I'm all right, you know, I think I'm okay. Do you want to go harder into the left field gap than you ever have? You know, I'm more of an opposite field guy, and I'm right-handed. But, I mean, I guess that'd be all right. Are you finishing faster on the base path than Corbyn Carroll running to third? Oh, definitely not. No, okay. That's an easy one.

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That's the best part about the app. It's not like that Ticketmaster junk over there with all their fees and nonsense. So get the GameTime app today. We thank you guys again for being here. Big shout out to everybody for joining us, by the way, tonight. I can't stress enough how enjoyable it was and how great it is to watch baseball with all of you. You can follow us on Twitter. I'm at K-U-N-K-M-R-A-M-W-E-B-G.

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We know there's some other basketball thing happening or whatever. There was some other sporting event happening in Arizona tonight. I'm not sure what it was. Maybe they moved on and like you do you move on in playoffs? I don't know how playoffs work. We don't really cover the playoffs on this show. But yeah, something about some team going to Denver, which the debacks are also doing. Yeah.

So I mean, they're basically in the same boat as far as we're concerned. Until next time, we thank you guys. so much for being here. Remember, kids, baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun when you send everybody down to the minor leagues.