PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - The Arizona Diamondbacks’ young prospects are the envy of the league

Episode Date: February 23, 2023

Our friend Patrick Lyons from DNVR Rockies joins the show to discuss life as roommates at Salt River Fields, the future of both the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Colorado Rockies, and why pro wrestling and baseball are more similar than you may think.BUY D-BACKS TICKETS HERE: https://gametime.hnyj8s.net/c/3442941/1410622/10874 SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports PHNX: Make sure to get your hands on our new “Slim Valley Reaper” t-shirt! Go to https://phnxlocker.com/products/slim-valley-reaper now!DraftKings: Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app now (https://bit.ly/3Jl1dMX), use promo code PHNX and make your first deposit of FIVE DOLLARS and get TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS in BONUS BETS INSTANTLY! Gambling Problem? Call 877-8-HOPENY/text HOPENY (467369) (NY), If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, crisis counseling and referral services can be accessed by calling 1-800-GAMBLER (1-800-426-2537) (CO/IL/IN/LA/MD/MI/NJ/OH/PA/TN/WV/WY), 1-800-NEXT STEP (AZ), 1-800-522-4700 (KS/NH), 888-789-7777/visit ccpg.org (CT), 1-800-BETS OFF (IA), visit OPGR.org (OR), or 1-888-532-3500 (VA).21+ (18+ NH/WY). Physically present in AZ/CO/CT/IL/IN/IA/KS/LA(select parishes)/MD/MI /NJ/ NY/OH/PA/TN/VA/WV/WY only. VOID IN ONT. Eligibility restrictions apply. BONUS bets: Valid 1 per new customer. Min. $5 deposit. Min $5 bet. $200 issued as bonus bets that expire 7 days (168 hours) after being awarded.  See terms at sportsbook.draftkings.com/basketballlterms.OGeez!: Learn more about OGeez! at https://ogeezbrands.com//. Must be 21 years or older to purchase.Underdog Fantasy: Sign up for Underdog Fantasy today! Go to the link https://play.underdogfantasy.com/p-phnx and use promo code “PHNX” to receive a deposit match up to $100Four Peaks: Drink, eat, find, and experience Four Peaks at https://www.fourpeaks.com/.  Must be 21 or older. Enjoy responsibly. Bad Birdie: Use code “PHNXBB15” for 15% off your next order https://glnk.io/7qnq/phnx-sportsMor Furniture: Save up to 50% all through the holidays! Check out https://morfurniture.comRoman: 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 to another edition of the PHNX DBAX podcast right here, housing on PHNX. My name is Derek Montia. Of course, I am your mayor of PHNX, and this is not Jesse Friedman next to me. As you can see, we've upgraded the coolness around here. I am proud to be joined by our friend from the DNVR Rockies podcast, the one and only Patrick Lyons. Patrick, thank you for class in this to join up with some wrestling knowledge, which we will get to later. at least one, the most important wrestling knowledge to have. I appreciate you having me, Derek.

Thank you. Yeah, yeah. You know, we, look, we deal with a lot of the same frustrations, which we'll get to. But I definitely have some questions about your feelings on this Arizona Diamondbacks team. This show is brought to you by the fine folks at the Drafking Sportsbook app, America's top-rated sportsbook app. Jesse abandoned us for the rest of the week, which he is known to do. So, of course, I had to call in some reinforcements. But I know you have been out at, we're really.

roommates out at Salt River Fields essentially we share the same field so first what are your thoughts on this terrible weather that we've been experiencing while you've been here oh my god not 50s yeah this is atrocious yeah it's the worst isn't it well right now back in colorado they're getting like a snowstorm i heard Tuesday was things are roads are closed down yeah wednesday uh snow so i think there was like a 60 degree shift in temperature so it's so yeah i'm i'm fine with this i'm sure you are i'm sure you're i'm not complaining like jacob de grom and the rangers i will complain. I complain all I want is what happens around here. But of course

first, have you had any updates for me and out at the Rockies camp? Have you seen anything on your guys' side that has been interesting? Any big stories or anything developing? You clearly don't follow the Colorado Rockies if you're asking me that question. No, they, no. Nothing? Nothing. There's never anything

either way, other than when the owner speaks is where it's always interesting. Yeah. No, a couple of little injuries here and there. Nothing major. Thankfully, Herman Marquez was the big hamstring strain he'll probably be ready by opening day so so two guys have injuries that have pulled them out of the world baseball classic but other than that things are okay chris bryant is fine he's healthy maybe he'll be the aircraft carrier the

rockies think they that he can be and if you know all goes well and everyone has a career year they're 500 oh wow that's that's the world i'm in wow well we were talking about if the diamondbacks were waving the white flag yesterday due to the fact that on their schedule during the postseason the very first like week of October they have like guns and roses scheduled at Chase Field and pink and it's like is what I mean I guess you could schedule around it maybe

MLB did give them some dates that were going to be kind of free regardless of what how the postseason structured but I don't like it I don't like that one they're going to get a first round by yeah yeah there you go I like it I like you're thinking that's the that's almost the narrative of major league

where oh they don't think we can make the season we are going to rally around that And ruin the party for the G and our fans. They're going to have a cardboard cut out of Axel Rose that they'll remove one piece of small clothing off of every single win until they get to, what, 90 wins? Does I think that's what it's going to take? It might be. Yeah. There's actually a story, W.E hasn't had any pay-per-views in Denver in a while.

I don't know if they've had too many shows in Denver for a while. And that was because the Nuggets had a playoff game and just kicked them out of what was Pepsi Arena. Yeah, yeah. So Denver, WWE, boom. All because of the postseason. Is that the first time in this show's history that somebody has brought up WWE before me? I think so.

I think so. That was a first. That's awesome. I did it, guys. All right. So I guess I want to know how jealous you are of the Arizona Diamondbacks as our NL West rival looking over and seeing how many of the top prospects they had kind of ranked in the top, not just in the top 100, but how many of them primarily were focused in like the top 30 on a lot of lists.

The Diamondbacks right now are very much a darling. for all around MLB. I haven't seen too many projections yet, or rather predictions of, you know, people picking them in the postseason, but there will be folks that will predict in the make the postseason. And if they're wrong,

they're going to be right next year. So they were a year early. They're still going to feel really good about that. As far as the prospects go, I mean, it's all legitimate. Like, it's these guys that are coming up have done it. And they've done it at a higher level,

at AA and AAA and AAA. Whereas the Rockies, they're maybe a year or two behind. It might be more like two rather than a year because other guys are in low A or high A. And so Diamondbacks are ahead of the trend on that way. I think that's what surprised me was to see some of the guys that were at like even for, you know, Drew Jones, who I don't think had played as played a single game of professional baseball yet, you know, being ranked so high and such.

I mean, it's great, but it's still a prospect ranking, right? So at the end of the day, it's still not that it still hasn't translated over to the major league level. However, seeing, you know, Corbyn Carroll out there at Salt River Fields kind of doing some of the stuff that he's been doing. Like, it gets, it gets you excited as a Diamondbacks fan. It gets you excited to see these guys this close and also to kind of have like not just one prospect that you can be excited about. But like, you know you're going to see Corbyn Carroll kind of shine at a major league level this year. And then you can look forward to Jordan Lawler, Drew Jones. I mean, there's a succession of guys that are still on their way.

So that makes a lot of fun. what is the rocky's path to to success the diamondbacks owner ken kendrick talked the other day about that they have to do it this way like basically they don't have the revenue to compete with teams like the podres and the dodgers right now when it comes to their spending and everything they're doing so yeah do you do the rockies have that kind of money and that revenue considering how full that ballpark is on the nightly basis they do have a lot more revenue than the diamondbacks um that's for sure You know, they, the owner spends money. The owner is not cheap.

You know, they're usually in the mid-teens, maybe high teens in a down year. So they do spend money. It's spending it wisely. How you spend it, right? Which is the biggest issue. They've yet to really figure out how free agency works entirely to their, you know, to their credit or rather to, you know, the disadvantage that they're dealing with. Free agents don't want to come here.

So already right there, the cream of the crop is not going to want to play in Colorado. Pitchers will just never want to come here that have any. value and if you're a hitter now you got to possibly overcome if you're really looking at your legacy and you're really looking at maybe becoming a hall of fame type player now course field is going to be held against you as it's been for larry walker and we've even still seen now in this most recent hall of fame cycle with todd helton so like an asterac almost next to your name because you played at course field that's kind of absurd but i get also where that comes from like that's yeah that's a rough uh that's that's that's a lot to think about when determining where you

want to play baseball for sure yeah even if you got park adjust statistics that say, okay, let's forget about the fact that, you know, maybe Coors Field is a little bit homer prone in the early 2000s, like 90s. Let's forget about all the, you know, base hits that get dunked in to increase your batting average. You factor all those out and you say, okay, here's how good this player was on an even basis. And it's, it still doesn't matter to some people. So they've got their biases. So the Rockies are kind of doing it similar to the Diamondbacks with homegrown guys. They've got to develop. They've got to, they've got to make more trades. That's another big element to it, too. Last week on the DMV

Rocky's podcast. We were talking a little bit about the fact, you know, the Padres, they had all these great prospects and where are they helping out the team? They're helping the team out in the form of Joe Musgrove. They're helping the team out in the form of U. Darvish, Blake Snell, guys that big leaguers that were traded for. So as deep as the Diamondback system is, if they don't come to fruition, if the Diamondbacks think, you know what, we don't want to invest in these guys,

trade them and then get what you do need. There's a lot of value in that. And the Diamondbacks, I think, do a much better job. of, you know, evaluating their players and their prospects to improve the big league products than the Rockies do. That's a major issue for the Rockies right now. Jesse is lurking in the comments, apparently. He said, upgraded the coolness.

I'm deeply offended. I'm not taking it back. I reviews to take it back. Chris, yes, Jesse is a lurker. And Michael says, was there for workouts today. Gabby Moreno has a heck of an arm. He absolutely does. And he's got a pretty damn good bat, too.

So it's going to be interesting with the Diamondbacks having so much. young talent how it factors in to some of their seasoned veteran guys playing time right i mean you know we have carson kelly who has split time at catcher he's had some injury problems and such but uh the diamond back seem very firm that he is going to be their starting catcher and uh they seem very very firm more firm that madison bumgartner is going to stick in the rotation um and it just seems like it's blocking some of the more talented young players. I think that's the mindset here. Really what it comes down to for you,

I mean, obviously I know what the answer most likely is going to be, but, you know, like our team's making the right decision, even when they have made an investment in someone like Chris Bryant or like a Madison Bumgarden, right, to play them if they're, if they have better talent on their roster, that plays that same position. In the Rockies case, no, that doesn't make sense, because you don't know what you have.

some of these minor league guys or even just the younger players that sniffed the major leagues last year. They deserve an opportunity, see what you get. I mean, there's a reason why they're not top prospects, right? You know, you're a prospect until you're a suspect. So a lot of prospects are suspects. So, you know, you might want to give them that playing time.

You understand it. But I think for the Diamondbacks, you know, the Rockies dealt with this a little bit in 2018. They'd made it postseason in 2017. They did make it in 2018. There was a conversation about, hey, let's see, Riemel-Toppa. see David Dahl every single day, maybe not cargo so much, maybe not Hararopara,

but the thing about is, if you get rid of the veteran guys, where is your depth come from now? Now it's coming from double A. Whereas if you keep some of those veteran guys around, even if, you know, that's blocking temporarily, that's okay when those veteran guys fail, then the young guys can come up or they can supplement or just kind of, you know, drip feed a little bit and slowly work their way into it rather than heaping all of that pressure on them to perform right away. So it is a little bit frustrating. Yeah. But it's a system that, you know, if you do the opposite, there's no, there's no going back to

it. You're just kind of stuck with it. Yeah. So you put a lot of pressure on the young guy. You've kind of pissed off the older guy, the veteran that feels like he deserves that time. I just, we talked about this before, but I hate incumpancy. I hate the idea of anybody unless you are an all star, unless you're a gold glove, you know, outfielder. I don't like the idea of competition, not being there for everybody equally. I know what Madison Bumgarner has done in his past. I know what some of these guys have done, right?

They're legends in baseball to a degree, but I don't feel like that's still the best reason to not have an open competition and have your best guys involved in the game. Like you said, though, that could be what the Diamondback see as the season goes on because I don't think it's a guarantee, you know, obviously if he doesn't perform well, when you have guys like Dre Jameson, Ryan Nelson, waiting in the wings. Brandon fought that probably still won't be part of the main.

major league roster when the season starts just right there it's hard to deny how you have this young talent knocking on the door and a very talented team it feels like to be kind of potentially drug down by by you know not having the greatest starting pitching right um but i will say this i feel like the realignment uh and the new schedule the possible realignment will say but the new schedule specifically benefits both of our teams and uh not only that but it gets a chance to see some of these guys that we haven't had a chance to see in our ballparks, right? Yeah, it's exciting. Yeah. Basically, you know, if you want to go on a road trip and see your team play in another market, you know you're going to be able to do it every two years.

Yeah, that's really neat that kind of balance. I know for like the Rockies, you know, and you guys have talked about a little bit, the attendance, right? Like just people come out and droves and. Yeah, we're so jealous of that. Like, we really are because, but I get it. It's, you know, we, again, earlier this week, we were talking with Derek Hall and we had information about the Diamondbacks wanting to either upgrade Chase Field or move to a new home. And it's hard to deny, at least in my opinion, when you're like watching body language and excitement in the voice, how the voice goes up and down, the enthusiasm level, you couldn't deny that they, that Derek Hall sounded a bit more excited about building a new stadium rather than

trying to fix Chase Field. However, Chase Field is just, it's literally in the heart of Phoenix. It couldn't be more in the heart of downtown Phoenix and the heart of the city. It just, you know, it's because of the convention center and other things, other limitations, it's never going to really have a chance to grow into any kind of entertainment district like what you guys have, you know, around course field. Yeah, a lot of fans. I don't know what it's like at Chase Field, but when the Dodgers and Giants are playing the Rockies in Denver, really great attendance because those fans travel really well. Absolutely.

You know, they were the big teams, you know, just before 93 when the Rockies even came about. Right. And so in a way, you know, for the Diamondbacks, that's one less Dodger series that those Dodger fans are going to be coming in. It's good if you're a season ticket holder. It's a good point. That's going to now dip attendance. Yeah. Now you might have the Yankees coming out, which the Rockies do.

Right. The Angels are playing, which the Rockies have that as well. So, you know, I think there's checks and bounces. I think it'll come out in the wash in general as far as, you know, what attendance might look But it's the same thing, you know, one less series against the Dodgers and Padres now in the NOS for both of our clubs. But now again, you are playing some of the best teams over in the American League. I'm going to give you, you might know about this from last season, but I'm going to give you a concept and I'm going to see what your thoughts are as far as being a fan of a team. Okay.

A versus hot dog that you can buy for every series that features toppings in, in a, in a, honor of the opposing team. Do you think that that's a bad idea or like as far as catering too much to opposing fans or do you like that idea? I like that idea because I also don't know that it is catering to other fans.

It's a concept. It really is. I mean anybody could eat a hot dog, right? Yeah. It's like I just makes it fun. If you're a season ticket holder, yeah. You know that when you go other than when you're playing an NOS team. There's always going to be at least one new thing. Right. Exactly. That's actually what a season ticket holder told.

me and I was like that's such a positive attitude and way to think about it right instead of kind of having that you know commitment to your team so strong that you don't even want to see a hot dog at a concession stand that is in honor of the opposing team until the diamondbacks by a billboard in times square advertising to yankees and metz fans to come to Phoenix to get the new york style hot dog it's for the season ticket holders not for the opposing fans we're we're talking about in the chat top of not being on the Rockies anymore. As a DeBacks fan, most DeBacks fans are pretty happy that that is

no longer something. Yeah, he's in a minor league deal with their Red Sox now. What is happening with that kind of stuff? Like, especially did you see, there was quite a few free agents that didn't get signed by teams that ended up signing minor league deals. Jose Iglesias isn't even with anyone right now, but for a guy like him, we were talking about this over at Rocky's camp.

Had a really solid year last year as a short stop. Because there are no places left to go, Elvis Andrews was probably the last guy, right? He's going to play second base for the White Sox after his deal a couple of days ago. That was kind of the last spot. Now, if you're Jose Iglesias or his agent, sit back. Just wait.

Somebody gets hurt. Now you get that big league deal, whereas if it's a minor league deal. Makes it that much harder to get your path to the majors with that organization, particularly. Yeah, I could see that. At least with the injury kind of situation, you'll know you'll get that playing time. And at least have a chance to prove yourself because that's big. The Diamondbacks made some trades last year. They had some guys step up.

And I mean, there was a lack of consistency, but man, there was this thing. The one consistent thing about the guys that showed up on this team was that they'd be on fire when they first got here. Whether it was a minor leaguer, whether it was like a trade when we got Emmanuel Rivera, there was just this thing where guys would perform well when they got here. And I don't know. I feel like a little bit of that is the coaching staff getting them fired up and pumped up and ready. but definitely with the minor leaguers, it felt like, you know, whatever, whatever, you know, information, whatever, you know, knowledge they passed on to them

seem to make them kind of calmly be able to make that transition nicely to a major league level. Yeah, that's a huge piece is developing at the big league level. It doesn't happen that often. It's very difficult to do. But there are some coaches that, you know, kind of have that ability. Brent Strom is one of those kind of guys. and you got all these young pitchers coming, you know,

you're right there for him to work with. So that's a perfect match made in heaven. So, yeah, the Diamondbacks in Diamondbacks fans, man, you guys should be really excited because there's big things happening and they're going to be challenged in the NL West. And this is a good way to really kind of test your medal and see what you've got and start building those storylines because the windows pretty much opening this year, I think,

in a real major way. You know, going back to what you were saying about Madison Bumgard, one of the positives about potentially keeping him in a rotation is you keep him out there to possibly shop him and say, well, you know what? We're maybe a couple games over 500 at the All-Star break or at the trade deadline. But ultimately, we'd love to get this contract off our hands. Now you can go and trade him and then further improve the future of the club. So yeah, Bumgarner, being in the rotation now, you know, seems like it may or may not help you right now.

But I think keeping him in the rotation now in a lot of ways helps you. for the future so that you can trade a guy away and so that you can protect some of these young guys so that if they are left up in the big leagues and they've got a 5, 5.5 ERA, whatever it may be, you might have to send them back down to AAA and that's going to hurt their confidence. So I think it protects them, sets them up for success a little bit more.

Maybe one of them goes into the bullpen as like a long reliever potentially. Sure. And so it's frustrating. But, you know. It's a good problem to have in a way. I mean, I know, I know, like again, I know Maddum Gardner, you know, obviously makes a considerable amount

of money more than everybody else on the team and things like that. But, you know, the one thing that Mike Hazen seems so positive about when it came to him was that, that, you know, what he's done in his career is not something that you can easily bring to a team. And Matt Bum, I mean, I don't know personally how he is with the guys, you know, behind the scenes, right? like a lot of guys were much different

Zach Granky was much different when we weren't there than when we were right so it's like he's different I hadn't heard that he's an odd cat this is why I follow you on Twitter you know he's a little weird but yeah I mean sometimes these guys are just incredibly different behind the scenes

so you never know how much you know of a mentor they're actually being just because at times they don't seem to be to fit that you know fit that mold right and MadBum definitely is in that portion of his career where, you know, hopefully he is sharing his knowledge with guys more because there's a, there's a lot of value in that, even if it doesn't, you know, uh, is it, isn't value on the field. You know what I mean?

But yeah, anyway. And I think that that's a super important point. Bumgarner is not that old. Um, yeah. He's really not. He's way older than he actually is. That's true. Um, and you don't want to know how dusty Saunders, uh, your acts.

But that's besides the point. Um, you know, he's, he's, he's like a coach out there on the field. Like you said, imparting that wisdom on guys. And dude's got two World Series rings. Yeah. Like, that's something that if you are getting late into the season, those young guys, even if Bumgarner has a, you know, five ERA and there's somebody chomping out his heels and you go, this guy should be in the rotation instead of Bumgarner. Bumgarner's got that knowledge. Hey, you know what? In 2014, you know, this was going on. Here's what happened in the World Series against the

Royals. Oh, yeah, those dominant performances. That guy can tell these stories that the other players can benefit from again not just in 2023 but going forward so it's that like chemistry it's the it's the intangibles that you go is this guy is 20 plus million dollars you know worth the intangibles no probably not but you get no intangibles when you're just picking some guy up from yeah triple a to phil scott necessary very true very true and this team is so young that that is one thing that they absolutely need is that experience that they can be shared that can be shared with them so well if you guys are here right now in the phoenix sports youtube channel make sure to subscribe thank you Thank you so much for being here and happy Wednesday.

I have AEW right after this and, you know, I'm very excited to go watch some wrestling, got the Dan Housen shirt on. I know he is way more excited than Jesse would be, but. Very excited, very evil. Yeah, very excited, very evil. If you want to, make sure to sign up for a diehard's membership. Of course, you can get Jesse's wonderful newsletter. That's not going anywhere, even though he's not here.

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Yeah, even if you're, even if you're playing it, it just gets to a point where you're like, I don't care anymore. And I can tell the person that I'm playing doesn't care anymore. We both have like three guys that aren't even playing tonight in our lineup. You know, it is what it is. But this makes it easier. So go to Underdog Fantasy. It's easy to get started. Go to Underdog Fantasy.com or download the app.

Sign up with promo code PHNX and Underdog will match your first deposit up to $100. We had a little bit of a rule. change discussion. I wanted to go over with you. But before that, we have a little bit of breaking news because as you guys are talking about right now in the chat, the Arizona Diamondbacks announced their lineup for uniforms this season. And let's take a look at these bad boys. Looks like our little tidbit of information was right. The only white jersey is the one with teal this year. The white and sand jersey has gone away. But there is your lineup, including the Serpentis jersey, where I believe they're going, didn't they have the white pants,

I think last year, if I'm not mistaken. Last year they had the yellow pants, but the first year they had the white pants. They had the white pants. They did bring the yellow pants last year. Also the altered Fnet logo on the sleeves. Oh, is that right? Wow.

Wow. We did it, you guys. We bullied them into getting rid of that big patch. I still see it on the, on the spring training jerseys. It was interesting because today I noticed kind of being close up to the guys that the patch was made of a different material. Like it's kind of a weird, you know, I'm sure they were trying to make it lightweight and not like as big as normal patch but yeah it looks like the new patch still has the black background but it just it outlines

just the advent logo without being a big square but there it is you guys the 2023 uniform lineup what are your thoughts uh as an outsider on the debacks jersey choices here well i'm excited about this performance patch uh that you're talking oh yes oh yeah performance material is it water wicking perhaps it might be water wicking it looked like it was water wicking i don't know Wow, with new water wicking pass. It's fantastic. It's some space age material, let me tell you. There are going to be,

be upset by this because you guys get five jerseys. Rockies are limited to four for some reason. Do you guys have the, do you guys still have the license plate city connect? We've got the license plates. Okay. Yes, which are great. They are great. They're widely regarded as one of the best.

I love them, actually. It's really good. They looked good when you first see them, and then they look good on the field. No, the black vest is just RIP. So Rockies have. I've just, what is with the vest. Like the vest, I love the vests. I love vest jerseys.

Did you know that in the early 2000s? They had a white pinstripe vest. Oh. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I remember that. Yes, I remember that. I remember that.

I remember that. That was a good one. Yeah, absolutely. All right. Are you a purist when it comes to baseball? Are you, what are your feelings on these rules changes? I'm old school, but I understand you've got to, you've got to adapt. Yeah.

You've got to change the game. What's made the game take so long? Why over the last 40 years? You got clip, clip, clip, clip. Clip, snap, snap, clip, grab it. It's all fucking batting gloves. Batting gloves. What the hell?

What are you doing out there? You're protecting our hands? No, no, no. No, man. But for real, it does feel like it feels like they have in fact, like somehow, I mean, I don't know. The other day I was saying, like, we didn't have analytics. Like, now there's so much information that's trying to be passed along during the course of the game in real time. That's coming down from analysts to coaches to players, right?

So it's like they try to do everything they can do. extend it out and get as much time so that they could pass that information along to each other. But man, it's kind of really what's kind of it's, it's been the focus of these rules. It feels like aside from the bases being bigger, you know, even even the shift kind of feels like it's something that they're trying to do to speed the game up. I know that's to right. I know that's for offense and such and, you know, but I feel like even that is to try to keep them from constantly moving guys around, which then takes takes even more time. Yeah, no, I'm, I'm in favor of all the rules.

Honestly, they, I think they're all great. I think there's a perfect counterbalance in a lot of ways where, well, if you did this, then they get an advantage, but you actually can't do that. Like, so you got a pitch clock. And so you only have so many seconds to throw a pitch. But what if you keep stepping off? You can't because that's some disengagement. It would be considered a balk.

And so then the guy moves up a base. All these different things. There's so many wonderful. Or like the batter having to be in the box by eight seconds and be ready for the pitch, right? And like that there's all of this, like, it feels like there's always going to be advantages for somebody, but then, like you said, it does counterbalance. The most telling thing that I saw was when they pulled the numbers from AAA, and we talked about this before, but how close everything really was, right?

We're talking about shaving 25 minutes off of it, average game time, while at the same time not impacting the game in any way, shape, or form pretty much. Like, ERA was slightly different. The batting averages were slightly different, a little bit more walks, a little bit more stolen bases, but literally point percentage, you know, 0.1 percentage higher than what it was without these rules. Sure. Yeah, it's balance. And for anyone, and I haven't heard too many people like making this argument of like, oh, well, it's going to ruin certain statistics or whatever. That's happened over time. You know, MLB allowed, you know, the PED era. Oh, that skewed things. Yeah, that was a shame. That was a bummer.

And we'll be allowed that to go down. And we've had different eras, 1968, the year of the pitcher. And then they decided to lower the mound for 1969. There's an expansion in which you say, oh, now the talent pools has been diluted. And so now it's going to be a little bit easier against some of these pitchers, you know? So there's going to be a balance. There are so many interesting.

One of the things that I sort of thought about yesterday, Daniel Bard basically pulled me aside to have a conversation with me for about 30 minutes, former D-BACs coach. And possible current closer for Team USA in the World Baseball Classic. Let's go. Let's go.

But we were going back and forth. What about this? And what if you did this? player fouled a ball off his shin, just a light graze, and then got back in the box a little bit slowly, but he was right at the eighth second mark. Okay, whatever. Got back in and he go,

oh, he probably would have taken longer normally, right? Yeah. But he got back in. The next batter goes and fouled one off really hard to his knee and he went down with the trainer. So I said, well, wait a minute. What if they kind of reacted differently? What if you slightly graze a ball off the top of your foot

or even if it just hits the dirt in front of you, is the umpire going to know that you got hit in the foot or not well regardless you can possibly implement a soccer style flopping oh no you go down on the ground no phaerick no call the trainer over you're doing them this fucking idea oh my god i hate this so much oh you're right if the trainer has to come out i mean pitchers have you know they've they've said by and closed doors some pictures like well yeah but just if you call the trainer over yeah i don't know i feel something in my hands just to catch your breath there's run on second base you're We got to sort things out.

There's going to be certain workarounds. Now, MLB has been clear like, hey, look, these rules are in place for a reason. Yes. And if you start abusing things, we're going to tweak it. Right, absolutely. They're allowed, the left fielder is allowed to come in behind second base. That's because there's still two infielders on both sides of second base. They're still on the dirt.

Are you bringing up the man in motion rule that they brought up? Because this was hilarious to me. It's hilarious to me that baseball teams were like, they were like, here's these rules. What do you guys think? And they were like, what if we do this? Exactly. And they were like, well, don't do that. Like, but like that was hilarious to me.

The thought of trying to get an advantage from setting your shortstop essentially as like a man in motion like in football where he still has two feet in the dirt on the side of second base. But by the time that pitch is is hit, he's essentially already positioned on the other side of the bag. I think you can review that defensively. Right. And then that's going to take more time too. said no like if they do that the umpire will basically like you know give them a warning and if they continue to do it then they'll assess them a penalty but a penalty is still just a ball right so it's like if you do that and try to get slick with it and they catch you you're you're just going to get a

ball the i think that's the part of the rules like aside from the bach when it comes to the disengagement and throwing over to first base only a maximum of three times and if you don't get them the third time they they all move forward like everything else seems reasonable but the the for me that's i think thing. And I guess I was going to ask you, do you think that there will be any tweaks to these rules as, you know, considering right now, we just, we've just opened Pandora's box as far as fucking with baseball, right? So it's like at this point, do you just continue to tweak the rules if certain things are a sore point this whole season with, you know, almost every club? I think so. I mean, you hadn't thought about until the second. There's a chance that they might

even relax some of the rules because it's just too much, right? there's so much happening at once. It's like parenting a precocious child. Like you know, no matter what, they're going to try to find some way to break the rules on you or just, you know, be adventurous enough to go around whatever you set up. Or what if they don't get it? You know, you're, if you've ever been a teacher and you're asking a student to do something, and you're like, are you playing dumb or do you not actually get it?

Do you really not understand this? We need to tweak the rule. We need to change those rules. At the end of last season, when all this was announced, I asked some of the most veteran players in the Rockies Clubhouse, and they were like, why are they doing all of this at once? Yeah. Like, dude over two years maybe? It seems like a lot. Yeah. It seems like a lot. Yeah. It seems like a lot for like especially

pictures to think about. Honestly, it even when they were talking about the umpires wearing the buzzer device so that that way they could focus on the strike zone and not have to look at the clock. Like I was like, oh my God, the umpires are going to have so much going on in their head now too. They have to watch this batter. They have to watch the pitcher. They have to watch the pitch clock. They still have to be, you know, they have to look at stuff on the field to make sure nobody's violating any of the shift rules or trying to send a man in motion. And then they also still have to call balls and strikes at the end of the day, which they shouldn't.

It should be a goddamn robot. We all know that. That's why 10 umpires retired at the end of last season. That's right. But that's again also good for the game because you got these younger umpires that have better eyes. I got a wrinkle for you. How about this one? Again, talking with Bard.

You throw over, trade Turner's on first base, right? He's a burner. You got to keep him from getting second base. It's late in the game. You throw over twice. You don't get them. Yeah.

You step off the third time. You throw over to first base, Trey Turner is stone. He's a stone. He's dead to rights. First baseman tries to tag him. He runs to second base. Naturally, hey, pickle, we got him.

You throw to second base. He cuts back, gets back to first base safely. Guess what? He gets second base. Yeah. Because that was your third disengagement. You didn't get him out. Oh, yeah, you're absolutely right.

He was little pickle by the spirit. But no. So whether he gets to first or he gets to second, he gets second base. Well, and that's the thing is people, I've heard that brought up a lot, where they're going to get this gigantic lead. I'm like,

he can still throw over there. Back pick. Well, it's going to be the back pick. I think he's going to be the thing. You're probably not going to throw over. A couple guys have already said, I'm like never going to throw over. So we're just going to have a generation of John Lester's.

They're never going to throw over, which is fine. But then, because now you already got a first good lead, you know, first lead, then a better secondary lead. You've got to be cautious because now

the catcher is going to throw out on the first base. So that's something that we're going to see. If you have a catcher that's able to do that really well, you could have a nice little advantage. Well, and it just goes to show how important catchers are going to be when it comes to some of this stuff because they, I don't know, but I mean like especially when it comes to the pickoff throws and such to getting keeping guys, it's going to, I feel like it's going to come down to the catcher being able to still do it how they used to versus like the pitcher is just going to have that, you know, that idea in their head that they don't want to, you know, create that box situation and get close. I don't know, though. The one constant that we were told in that meeting the other day was that shit didn't really change. Like people still threw over. The game's still rolled on as much as you think that it's like, wow, you're really limiting them to three max. It's like, yeah, but believe it or not, that's kind of on average, how many the most is that they throw over, you know, at times.

You're going to have your exceptions to the rule. And yeah, there's going to be a couple of pitchers just like the fact that you now have to set your feet and come to a complete stop before you can actually deliver the pitch. But, you know, I don't know, man. I'm, I still can't wait to see how it plays out. And at the end of the day, when it comes to the Diamondbacks, having a fast young. team, especially also young pitchers coming up in the system also that kind of have already

experienced this. Like, we talked to Dre Jameson, and he's already been doing a lot of these rules. And even though a lot of guys aren't big fans of them, they understand that it's just going to be something they have to accept. And they had younger bodies, you know, cardio game, you got to hope he's going to be good.

I don't know if this is true. Tell me, in Arizona, do they play up the altitude here? It's you know, a thousand feet above sea levels. a lot more so than sea level. It's never talked about. But it's not really anything, right? It was talked about.

It's not, it's a non-factor, right? It felt like it was talked about a lot more before they had the humidor because they were one of the first teams of the humidor. And then, like one of my favorite conversations, one time was hearing Mike Hazen on the field on a phone call, say, well,

the opposing teams don't seem to have a problem hitting it out of here. I don't know who he was talking to, but I think I know what it was about. I think it was about the damn humidor kind of being like the scapegoat for the Diamondbacks lack of offense that particular season when, you know, It was the same ball. The opposing team was had no problem

hitting out of here. But I don't know. I think that for the most part, this has been viewed as if you were talking about like, you know, where the dial falls probably more of a hitter friendly ballpark than pitcher friendly for sure. But still nothing like what you guys deal with in Colorado for sure.

Well, as Bud Black about that today. And he said, yeah, and I could see it kind of going the opposite way because playing at altitude, you go, well, there's also disadvantage because you play at altitude. Right. You're used to it, but also that there's a lot of wear and tear.

But there could be an advantage for the Rockies because pitchers, again, if you see them throw 15 pitches, you know when they threw the pitch if you're looking at their heart rate. If you have a heart rate monitor, you see it peak. Yeah. Now, because you got to throw those pitches with nobody on base at the 15 second mark, that valley, because you're not able to rest as much, isn't going to go as low for you to catch your breath. So it's going to be almost a cardio workout. And doing it at 5,2, 280 feet in Colorado. Like that's a true. be a potential advantage for the rocks.

Yeah, that's a true home field advantage, right? Potentially. Honestly, like, there's, you know, with pro wrestlers, there's been pro wrestlers that have had health issues due to going to Colorado and wrestling there, right? So it's just, it's fascinating to me how that, that really could play into this situation. I think, I think the Rockies need to hire Bobby Lashley as a strength

and gym coach. We solved that. We solved that. We solved that. Well, if you guys haven't noticed, I've been drinking wonderful Four Peaks beer. and you can too. There's all sorts of wonderful events,

including pro wrestling tonight, but all sorts of stuff here in the month of February. So make sure to grab yourself a Four Peaks beer. And of course, check out their calendar for all of their events. I've talked about it so much, but I can't wait to build the official PHNX beer can derby car.

It's going to be electric, and we are going to cheat to win because if you ain't cheating, you ain't trying. But if speed and adrenaline is your, well, speed, the beer can derby is on February 20, 5th at 4Peaks 8th Street Pub and Tempea.

Kit pickups are open now. So if you want to show, you got the fastest beer can in the valley. Sign up through 4Peaks.com backslash events. You can face off against us and lose. Must be 21 years or older to lose and must lose responsibly and enjoy responsibly. Also, Jesse isn't here, so I can't razz him about his stupid furniture in his house. But again, since he's not here, make sure to message him and give him all of your ideas for how he can actually make his cool Scottsdale condo even better. I'm fearful of how he's going to furnish that place.

I really am. I don't think he's getting enough advice from the friends at more furniture.com for sure. He's just has, I'm sure, white walls. He's got a poster of Scarface up. Like, it's just very bachelor pad.

Bachelor, oh, man. I would, I would lose my shit and just got a scarface poster. It's just, we get it. Yeah, we get it.

You guys are, you guys are studs. And a ninja air friar on the counter. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh,

Oh, you guys are cooks too. We get it. Okay. But again, message Jesse. Let him know what furniture he should buy for more furniture.com. Buy him some furniture if you're rich and otherwise save big on the best furniture in the valley yourself when you head to more furniture. com. Last night, speaking of giving people things, Patrick gave me the greatest gift that he's ever given me that anybody quite possibly has ever given me.

And as you know, Jesse, our friend, our correspondent, are dedicated baseball. ball writer. He hasn't experienced a lot of things in life. I will say, though, that this man proceeded to Razmi quite a bit about professional wrestling, about being professional wrestling fan. You guys know he rolls his eyes when I bring up professional wrestling. That's why Patrick here. So we could talk wrestling on a night where wrestling was in town.

But last night, while out to dinner with our very own Jesse Friedman, Patrick sent me, not sent me nothing. He called me through FaceTime because he wanted to see and record my reaction. to finding out the information that Jesse Friedman didn't know that professional wrestling was scripted. Now, Pete, say it again for the folks out there, please. Professional wrestling, for those of you that also may not know like Jesse, is scripted. It's a predetermined feat of athleticism, if you will.

I'm not going to call it anything else because I'm going to go hang out with these guys tonight. And if they see this, they're going to fucking kick my ass. But what I will say is it's very, it's very athletic. there's a lot they could get hurt they could kill themselves on any night don't get me wrong there's nothing to take away from pro wrestling what these guys do it's absurd how much they literally put their own physical well-being on the line every single night for our mere entertainment uh and for guys to go on the twitter and comment about how much the match deserve two stars instead of five or whatever stuntmen on a nightly basis on a nicely basis that also have to be actors right they also have to cut

promos some of them have to do their own makeup uh there's a lot going on when it comes to pro wrestling but last night and Kyle Danan said it best. Wrestling is modern day theater. Thank you, Kyle. A man a class and style and dignity himself. But last night, Patrick recorded my reaction. And we have the video of my reaction. This is me and my dark house.

There you see. Basically what I'm saying is, what do you mean, Jesse? What do you mean, Jesse? What do you mean you didn't know pro wrestling? I think that's, I was just screaming it over and over again. I couldn't believe that Jesse, Jesse was mortified and he knew it was going to be because he knew that I was going to lose my shit when I found out that he didn't know it was scripted. But like my biggest thing is how do you not know it's scripted when when you're mocking it?

Right. Like if you're mocking it, I feel like that goes hand in hand with you knowing that this is a predetermined sport. I've thought about this all night. I didn't didn't sleep at all. Hence the bags under my eyes. I even talk with Jesse about it afterwards. We had a post-game conversation. A heart to heart, yeah.

And it's like Santa Claus. That's the thing everyone assumes everyone knows because you learn about it. So no one talks about it. Sure. At some point, you're not like actively trying to be that ass that like reveals it to people that may not know. But those people that you think of that may not know usually are under the age of 12. And that applies for both situations. If you or I are on each other's podcast in December and I go, hey, what do you got on your Christmas list?

The other person I'm going to go, hey, Derek, you know Santa's fake, right? Yeah. Why would I say that? Yeah. We know. Yeah. You're just being an asshole. At a certain point, and maybe the cutoff is like 20 years old. Yeah.

You stop, you know, you stop saying when somebody mentions pro wrestling, hey, you know it's fake because everyone knows. Everybody knows. You turn 20. It's redundant. Yeah. And you're like a year until I can drink alcohol and I know wrestling is predetermined. Yeah. Right, correct.

On your 20th birthday, that's just a natural thing that happens. Right. And I don't know what happened to Jesse where no one ever pulled them aside and say, just the old trope of it's fake. Like, okay, fine. You figure out what that is. But we were talking about it because Vinnie Duber of CHGO White Sox, we were talking about Ryan Herrera.

He knows a lot. He covers the Cubs. And he was doing a whole thing. Like Montreal Screwjob. I'm like, whoa, you know your stuff. He's like, what do you mean? He's like, all right, well, it was a whole thing. and, you know, Brett Hart didn't want to turn over the bell to Sean Michaels, you know, but it was predetermined.

He was supposed to do that. And we had said it a couple times, and Vinny got it. He understood what you were talking about. And Jesse looks at me, goes, well, what do you mean it's predetermined? And I go, oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God, Jesse. This is not real.

And I'm like, what do I do? And I save it for tomorrow. No, I got to film this somehow on FaceTime. I've never done that before. I will learn. Yeah. You didn't get this out, but you did pretty good. You did pretty good.

I'm okay with it. It's stunning. He did not know. And that makes all of the crap he's giving you less sense. Yeah. It makes less sense because if he's under the impression. That's exactly it. That's exactly it.

Like if he was under the impression that these guys are really breathing fire and there's clowns that can kick people's asses. 720 splash on the top rope. Right. Right. Like why hasn't he ever seen that in a UFC fucking match? Why hasn't anybody ever come off the top rope with a fucking rope? with a fucking elbow in a UFC match.

They talk about how great of a fighter John Jones is. He's never given a poison rana to anyone. I hate this. To the Santa Claus comparison, imagine thinking that there is a magic man who delivers gifts every once a year, slides down chimneys, flies all over the world, and thinking that that actually happens

would be like, nah, that's stupid as shit. But you're getting fun of people. Santa is lame as hell. He does have non-magic reindeer, but he's lame. He's fucking, oh, the reindeer, what, where reindeer cool, I mean, of all the vehicles that he could drive, he chose reindeer?

Like, whatever. He gives gifts to people he doesn't even know and just totally loads up their tree. And then doesn't stick around to wait for their reaction or to get a hug or nothing, you know, I mean? Like, I hear some milk and here's some cookies to make you more lactose intolerant and morbidly obese. I just don't understand how if you thought that wrestling was was completely real, not scripted at all, how you could think it's lame.

Like it is, it is everything about that. It doesn't go together. It doesn't go together. So somewhere there's, Dana White and Vince McMahon are like, we need more crossovers. We need more Brock Lesnar types. When is Connor McGregor going to throw his hat in the WW?

That's why Dana White slapped his wife. It was a slap fight thing. You know what I mean? It was good cross-promotion, you know. Could have been. I thank you for being here. Maybe come back while you're here in Phoenix. I want you to stick around.

I think I might do that. You know, I can talk plenty of Diamondbacks too. I know you can. I know you can. We can also talk Rockies. It's fine. We could also talk how much we hate the Dodgers.

We can have a jar in like any time, any time, next time I'm on. Maybe soon. If I mention Rockies, I throw it down. For the big end of year pizza party, I'm sure. For sure. I'm a hundred percent about the 2004 world series.

Or not the 2004, 2007, excuse me. Yes. I don't think they want to talk about that. No. I'll talk about it. Absolutely not.

I grew up a red Sox fan. Not on this fucking show. I'll be damned. I'll be damned. Eric Burns sliding. You know, you know how you're saying, Bull, how fast he is. And he slides across the finish line head first,

like Eric Burns. Oh. Just saying. I hate you. Just saying. Maybe you're not coming back. I don't know, but we should go. Hold on, do you guys have a 25th anniversary logo?

We do. Oh, there is one? We do. I've seen it. I don't know if they've officially released it yet, but. You've seen? I've seen it. They do.

Yeah, they do. It's that time. It's that time. Rockies did. There's in-house. It looks nice. It's fine, but it's just kind of. When you look at their giveaway items, there's a lot of teal.

There's a lot of teal and all the giveaway items. There's a lot of teal at the team shop. Speaking of the team shop, they also have the Team USA merch in-house. And if you go to the Chase Field for the WBC games, They are actually, I know this because of my contact at the team job, they're like removing all of the Diamondback stuff and putting like all of the teams like merch in there. So there's going to be lots of WBC merch to be purchased at Chase Field. So make sure to show up for that. And also I might take this guy with me this weekend, but show up to Octane Raceway and Mavericks.

It's the best place to race go carts. Of course, it's the best place to have fun. Today is winning Wednesday, half price arcade games all day long. There's daily specials every day at Octane Raceway and Mavericks. Plus, it's the best place to be, I guess, a kid as an adult. Not only do they have the racing, but they have all sorts of option bowling, arcade, all sorts of fun events. We were out there. I beat Jesse in bowling regardless of, he tries to act like because we weren't in the same lane.

I didn't beat him, but I beat everybody. It wasn't predetermined. It wasn't predetermined, right? We did not talk about it ahead of time. But you can book some fun this spring at Octane Raceway and Mavericks, cart racing, virtual reality, laser tag. Axe throwing. He refuses to throw. Max is with me, and I don't know why. I don't see why. Bowling, arcade, great food and drinks.

They've got it all over at Mavericks, and of course, lots of space for you guys to go out there and enjoy. Check out Octane Raceway.com and Mavericks.com to learn more and to book a group of that. Also, for events like Tonight's Pro Wrestling, if you're looking for last minute tickets, hop on game time. Use our link. You can save up to 60% on tickets when you buy tickets last minute. The best way to support us by buying your tickets through the link in the description. I might get Patrick to buy a ticket real fast. So, he can come with us. But they're there, it's the, of course,

procrastinators unite. It's an aesthetically pleasing app as well, right? Like it's very beautiful. It's almost like a dating service where you're linking to people up. We were saying, Hey, I have a ticket I can't use. Yeah.

Hey, I have a ticket that I want. Right. Boom. Boom. It's a match made in heaven. It's love. Yeah.

It's game time tickets. I got seats at a red rock show for 15 bucks. Holy cow. The iconic red rocks. That's amazing. That's amazing. That was like a decade ago. Don't tell my wife that because she'll be sad.

She loves the red rocks and wants. wants me to take her to a concert there. So we need to figure that out. And when I do, I'm going to use GameTime to get those tickets. Check out GameTime at GameTime.com. If you're looking them up online or grab that app, as Jesse would say, it's a beautiful app. app. It's aesthetically pleasing. Patrick, thank you for joining me, my man.

I appreciate your time. Always a pleasure. Oh, yeah. I'm going to head over there for you guys checking out pro wrestling. I hope to see you guys there for all the rest of you. You can follow us on Twitter. I'm at Cap. Cap underscore Caveman with a K.

Patrick has at Patrick D-Lines. Jesse he's still around he's a Jesse and Friedman but our show is at PHNX underscore D-Backs and all roads lead to at pHNX underscore sports on Twitter Instagram and Facebook we thank you guys so much for being here and love you as always on behalf of

this guy Sean and myself we appreciate your time and remember kids baseball is fun but it's more fun housing when I curse you