PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - The Blame Game

Episode Date: January 27, 2022

On this episode, Jesse and Derek discuss the finger pointing going on between writers and Cooperstown over the Hall of Fame vote and between the MLBPA and MLB.com writers over the lockout. 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 D-Backs podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Montia, occasionally known as your mayor of PHNX, also at times known as the sick boy of PHNX right now. But I am at about 85%. I'm getting there by, I told Jesse by tomorrow I'm going to be at 105% by Friday, 145%. By this weekend, I will be running at a higher efficiency than I've ever ran in my entire life. So I'm looking forward to that. We thank you guys so much for tuning in. Obviously, I am here with my co-host, my vice mayor, the one and only, Thunderstick, Jesse Friedman.

Well, as long as it's 145% and not a 145 degree fever, you're allowed to go up in the percentage points, but not, yeah. Not that little Fahrenheit symbol. There's a good chance that I might have ran somewhere close to that on Saturday, but I don't know for sure. I almost died in Washington, D.C., Jesse, but I'm glad to be alive here with you. Obviously, we have a lot to still complain about with everything that happened with the Hall of Fame boat, but this show is brought to you by the fine folks

over at the Draft King Sportsbook app. Go download the Draft King Sportsbook app now. Use our code of PHNX and simply for betting any $5 amount on any team to win this weekend on NFL games. You will get 56 to one odds. You will get $280 in free bets. And you will get, you'll have yourself a good time.

So go over to the Draft King Sportsbook app. That is America's number one rated sportsbook app. By the way, don't forget to hit that like button, subscribe wherever you get your podcast. And please leave us a five-star review. Jesse, of course, is a five-star man.

And I've stressed this time and time again. He held it down for me while I was gone. And I appreciate it. He checked on me. He was texting me, making sure I was alive. And I appreciate that. That's where we go deeper than some of the other shows on PHNX, Jesse.

I know that I don't know if these other hosts are as deep in friendship as you and I are. But I appreciate it. When Chirsten was so sick, I think Johnny just completely ignored her. He was looking for a new co-host. I'm pretty sure. Yeah, yeah. He was trying to replace her. Yeah, absolutely.

Monsters, monsters. But it's obviously still the talk of the town. The MLB Hall of Fame vote, David Ortiz got his moment being elected as a first ballot. Hall of Famer again. This, I think the worst part about this whole thing is I am, I want to say just from the start, congratulations to David Ortiz, and I mean that 100%.

I think David Ortiz has been the exact kind of player that baseball needs. He's been an ambassador for the game. And he has been a joy to watch play. But I will say that all of the valid arguments that have been made about other players not making it in to the Hall of Fame, I feel like are very true. You know, I feel like they, we talked about it yesterday and all that, but the Barry Bond's discussion has gotten heated today. We've gotten some kind of finger pointing, it seems like, Jesse.

It seems like baseball writers who are ultimately responsible for being the ones to vote these players in are kind of blaming the Hall of Fame a little bit for their. their process and maybe their lack of, again, their lack of direction. The Hall of Fame has said, Josh Rowich, a friend of the program, has said that he absolutely advocates for all of the writers voting based on whatever criteria they feel that a player should be voted into the Hall of Fame. So who do you think is really, I guess, at fault if the two sides want to blame each other? that's hard to say uh i mean josh is is a great guy and great at what he does and he's certainly not

going to come out you know calling for the heads of all the voters and you know saying they did a horrible job um so yeah i mean this is a situation where i think there's been a little bit of gray area in terms of what exactly the writer should be taking into account right we had this conversation earlier should morality should cheating should these different different things be taken into account and to what degree, right? I think a big, a big issue a lot of people have with what has gone down the last couple days is that there's a long list, Derek, of players who did cheat in various ways, who are already in the Hall of Fame because we just had different standards at that point, right? And, and nowadays in baseball, I do think that if,

if, you know, if currently in baseball, if Cotel Marte take steroids, you know, this off season, and gets jacked and next year he comes out and hits 60 home runs. I don't know if people are going to take very well to that if he gets caught, right? Whereas a few years ago, maybe more than a few years ago, about a decade or two ago, that was just kind of the norm around the game. And even though people did get caught, there was still a culture around it where it was kind of the thing to do. We wouldn't say it was acceptable at the time, but in a sense, the culture just kind of said

that it was. And so, yeah, there's just this issue with the difference between baseball then and baseball now and the fact that the writers who are voting in this are thinking more with a modern mindset and they're not taking into account what the game was like at the time. You're absolutely right. I did find an interesting opinion, though, about this. And I think that there is something to be said about this. Barry Bloom from Sportico, he's a another friend of the show, Big, love, Blubberry, he's a great guy. He wrote a piece about his vote,

who he voted for, why he voted for them. And, you know, he voted for bonds. He voted for all the guys that he felt performance-wise deserved to be in the Hall of Fame. But he brought up how the baseball writers changed the number of years that these guys were on the ballot for. Up to 2014, they were on the ballot for 15 years. And in 2014, they actively,

the baseball writers actively had the number of years that they could be on the ballot changed from 15 to 10. And Jesse, I can't help but wonder if there was some spite behind that change. If the reason was because the MLB was being flooded in the late 90s with guys that had historic stats, right, with the very tip of the iceberg, obviously being. Barry Bonds and Barry is the guy that a lot of sports riders, I think, feel a bit, you know, I guess jaded by, right? Like so many of them covered his meteoric rise when he started going from a good baseball player to a great baseball player to a historic baseball player.

And there were a lot of allegations and there were a lot of things being thrown around at that time at the late 90s because of the cheating and because of the way that baseball didn't have the same rules that other sports did. Right. That's big. That's fact. Other sports at this point had fully implemented steroid testing and baseball actively chose to do it on a like, like a, you know, we believe you system. It was so ridiculous. And even at the time, looking back on it, it sounds ridiculous. But at the time it was ridiculous when, again, allegations of players or athletes across sports,

it didn't matter what sport it was, were being caught up in steroid or performance enhancing drug scandals. I mean, we talk about the tour to France. We talk about football. We talk about college sport. Like it was everywhere. Baseball at the time remained free from it simply because they didn't test their players for performance enhancing drugs.

You mean the honors? system does it's a good way to test for cheating. Yeah, when my COVID fog brain wouldn't let me think of words. Yes, that's exactly what it was. And, you know, again, eventually things changed and the certain players stayed in front of it. And, you know, everybody knows that there, there's no way at times players like Barry Bonds could have achieved the, the historic stats that he achieved. apparently without doing drugs and also the size of his enormous head, right?

But that's a whole other thing. There is the fact that there was just physical changes to bury bonds and everybody kind of joked about it and knew. And, you know, but there was honestly, like when we talk about guys in the Hall of Fame that were in fact tested or came up positive at one point, had some sort of scandal, had some sort of cheating in their career, it was confirmed. I almost feel like at times they knew they weren't going to be able to pin this on a lot of these guys. So that changed to the number of years on the ballot was implicit.

It was done to try their best to keep as many of these guys out of the Hall of Fame as possible because they're mad and they felt like they were cheaters. And they felt like they didn't belong. Right. And that's like that not only did they need to, you know, now, need to vote against them, but they also needed to kind of alter the process to try their best to make it so that they wouldn't get in. And Barry's piece on Sportico, he wrote about how at this point, Barry Bonds would probably get in with the amount of votes that he's getting now. He would get in if he had another five years on the ballot. He wouldn't need the Hall of Fame Committee. He would

have his day where writers would enough time would pass and opinions would change where people would see him for what he is, which is the greatest, one of the greatest, if not arguably, the greatest player to ever play the game and vote him in. It's that that really bothers people, though, Jesse. It's what I just said. It's the greatest player to ever play the game. I feel like with baseball's history, no one, one, wants that to be a model. player. You know, we want it to be Babe Ruth. We want it to be this, this Greek like God sitting on top of Athena, you know, far or on Mount Olympus, far away from us so that we can just bow down and worship him from afar instead of being an actual athlete that is in front of us right now playing in

the modern era. But I feel like the other part of that is nobody wants to ever admit that a cheater is the greatest player to ever play the game. You know, when you look at other sports, they don't have that same issue, right? You talk about the debate with basketball and who the greatest player to ever play basketball is. It might be that Michael Jordan was a gambler and just a psycho when it comes to mind games against you

and competitiveness, but the cheating for a lot of, you know, for like the top players in basketball isn't an issue. But when you talk about Barry Bonds, baseball does not want, I think, or at least a lot of people, they don't want baseball to be attached to the greatest player or the greatest player ever played the game to be that. Yeah. I mean, and to be honest, neither do I. I mean, I don't know if I would say that I'm on, I'm on the train of, you know, Barry Bonds is the best player to ever play.

I don't really think that's true. And I do think it's fair to give the fact that he cheated as a very valid reason for that, right? I don't think you have to think that Barry Bonds is the best player ever in order to put him in the Hall of Fame. I think there's, right, those things aren't mutually exclusive. You can have, you can both say that Barry Bonds did cheat. He might not be actually the best player ever. He might not be as good as his numbers indicate because of that. And he had also acknowledged that his greatness is still absolutely worthy of being in the Hall of Fame.

But it's interesting, Derek. You mentioned that story about what happened in 2015. 14 where the Hall of Fame reduced eligibility from 15 years to 10 years. I'm looking at an article from MLB.com announcing the change. And ironically, it's written by Barry Bloom, which I think is hilarious. It's really incredible. But yeah, I mean, it's kind of a press release type of piece. This isn't really Barry expressing his opinion as much as just giving the facts.

But there's a really interesting quote in here from the Hall of Fame president at the time. It was Jeff Idelson. he said the Hall of Fame is all about relevance. In a study of Hall of Fame voting over its history, it has become clearly evident in the last 30 years or so that after 10 years, the likelihood of election is incredibly minimal. The idea of making it more relevant was attractive to the board. We think it maintains the integrity of the process.

And for those that fall off the ballot after 10 years, it gets them to consideration by the era committees a little bit sooner. And it also points out in here, of the 115 players previously elected into the Hall of Fame by the Baseball Writers Association of America, 102 of them were voted in within the first 10 years. Only 13 were voted in those extra five years after that. So their argument at the time, I was curious about what the reason was at the time, because obviously they weren't just going to come out and say, we're doing this in order to keep Barry Bonds out of the Hall of Fame, right? They had to have some at least like

press proof kind of way of explaining their reasoning for it. and it does kind of make some sense, right? I mean, if guys aren't really being elected after those first 10 years anyway, then, you know, maybe we should just stop the process at that point. So I just think it's interesting what their reasoning was at the time. It did become a story when guys were on the ballot for a long time and didn't get in, you know? And so those last five years probably did drag for a lot of guys who were just waiting for the inevitable no rejection. Yeah.

It's true. It feels like it kind of drags out the process. Like, I think a decade is long enough to put people through being voted on every year. Am I going to make it? Am I not going to make it? Right. I mean, why 15? Why stop at 15? Why not 20 years? Why not 20? Whatever. Yeah. Like, you have to stop at some point. And 15 does feel a little bit long. But you're, I mean, the timing of this is interesting, though. I mean, this was 2014, you know, right as a lot of the guys from the steroid era were, we're, and, you're. entering the ballot. So the timing there is very curious. It's very suspicious, but again, it could line up for a number of other reasons. It just at times, baseball seems very angry at these guys, and rightfully so, but also it was baseball that did it, right? You have the ability to control your own game, and you had the ability, maybe not, though, maybe not. Maybe me saying that is an error, because I know with the way that baseball is structured and what we're going through with the lockout. It's so goddamn ridiculous all the time, right?

I'm sure there was a collective bargaining agreement in place that implicitly said that they could not test players for steroids until that collective bargaining agreement was over. They probably couldn't implement a testing process or whatever. You know, I don't remember the exact reasons for it, but I definitely know baseball was late to the testing game. And I don't feel like they should, you know, now be mad at the players who played by whatever rules were the rules at the time. You know, I get it, though.

Cheating is shitty. And even the Astros cheated within the confines of the rules to an extent, right? Like the baseball once again let cheating get out of control to a point where you have people questioning whether or not it's okay to have people coordinating with video operators and a guy banging a trash can to send signals into the. the game if that's okay because sign stealing and everything else has been a part of the game, right? So it's like baseball has these small like, oh, we'll let you cheat a little bit, but then there's nothing to stop that cheating from kind of spiraling out of control and getting to a point where to guys, you know, banging a goddamn trash game with a baseball bat, right? Like it's on off speed pitches or whatever. It's crazy. But what's not crazy is,

let me tell you, we have four teams left remaining in the NFL playoffs. folks. I think it is pretty crazy. I mean, $5 for how much do you get, Derek? It's pretty crazy. It is. You get, okay, so you get 56 to one odds on any team. You bet just $5 and you get $280 in free bets if your team wins. And I mean, again, four teams, the divisional round, nuts. I don't want to talk about it in front of Jesse. The rest of us, we can get on Twitter and we can joke and laugh and have a a time about how much fun we had, even though I was absolutely out of my mind in hysteria with illness, I still had a fantastic time watching the divisional round. And I know that coming up here this weekend, things are going to be even better because only those four teams remain.

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We'll see what happened. 21 and over only, Arizona only gambling problem. Dow 1-800 next step. New customers only eligibility restrictions apply. See draftkings.com slash sportsbook for details. And of course, Jesse, we have a little bit more. No, no news on the lockout front, but I did find something to be a little bit,

a little bit funny. Mark Fein-Sand, I think that's how you pronounce his name, from MLB.com has an article up right now discussing the significant process, progress made in the labor negotiations. And I did kind of find it, I don't know if I found it to be insincere or not, but, and I understand it's an MLB.com article. Yeah, I was going to say, who does it get for again? I understand it's an MLB.com article. But first, significant process made the CBA meeting. And then I really like the way that it's worded, right? I'm just going to read for you the first two paragraphs. Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association

met for a second straight day on Tuesday with the league making a significant move to create a path to a deal. One day after the MLBPA rejected the league's proposals that include significant increases in pay for players with two plus years of service time, a plan that includes the best players earning even more in bonuses based on performance. MLB returned with a proposal based on framework initially presented by MLBPA according to a source. Wow. Oh my, wow. You uncovered a gold mine, Derek.

This is wild. That's a pretty fun worded article. Is it not like, I'm not saying that there is possibly some like journalistic integrity issues here. But I'm going to say that there is definitely an adjustment. gender being pushed in the first two paragraphs of that article. Your thoughts. Wow, that is incredible.

Okay, so a few paragraphs down, this is subtle. But this is like the only thing that's mentioned about the MLBPA. It says the MLBPA dropped its demand for a change. I just love the use of the word demand there. It's completely outrageous, these fools. Wow, that, this is incredible. Yeah, no discredit to Mark because, I mean, I'm sure that he's being told exactly how to write this article. And it's really the only thing.

I mean, if you go to MLB.com, you don't find anything at all about the CBA negotiations other than this article and a video that I think kind of goes along with it. Sure. Yeah, right. This is kind of the one thing that they're saying. And of course, they're going to make it super one-sided. So that's hilarious. main page picture movies for the kid in us all from wish fulfillment fantasies to scrappy sandlot classics

which kid's centric baseball film is the best Jesse that's where they're at with the main page but off here to the side we see your little we see your little significant progress made CBA meeting oh my gosh that's incredible okay I guess my problem here is this is with anything right in modern day information

like is there ever a point to try to I mean, does this work? Is this a tactic that actually somehow to feel? I hope not. Like, what is the point of this? I mean, just write the piece, say the thing. But like you said, there is definitely selective words being used to make the MLBPA look bad here. And it just seems absurd.

It really does. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I would hope that people aren't this naive. But, I mean, it's hard to. I mean, MLB.com gets a lot of hits, I'm sure. So there's a lot of people who probably don't know a whole lot about the situation that are finding this article and are probably not really understanding the full scope of what's happening and that this is a very, very one-sided take on the picture.

So I can't say I'm surprised, but it is pretty amusing to see MLB actually come out and do this. Well, and I'll say that this is, at least this is MLB, but this is kind of like what we talked about a few weeks ago with, John Boy, kind of not really like being against the PA, but the way that he worded it, you know, it's easy for us to get in a position as fans and as people, especially that cover the game, of getting impatient and wanting these two sides to meet and make progress, right? I'm not, I'm not like cheering for one side or another. I'm obviously rooting for the players to get what they feel that they deserve.

And I feel like the way that contracts are structured for young baseball players is ridiculous. So I think the request that the MLBPA has made aren't demands and I don't think they're all so, you know, far out there, right? But the minute you start saying certain things like that basically sound like you're saying shut up and play, it sounds like you are essentially making it out that the athletes are the ones that are holding this deal back, you know, like the players are the ones that are keeping this from progressing. And, you know, I get it. I get why people would have that opinion,

but I also get why, you know, baseball, people that are diehard baseball fans and people that kind of know the situation well are kind of jumping all over when, you know, you kind of use this kind of verbiage, right? Because it's easy to fall in line with saying stuff that like MLB puts out in an article and then repeating it and making it sound,

like that's the actual situation because that's what they want. They want it to sound like it's all on the MLBPA and that MLB is doing everything that they can to get this expedited and done as quickly as possible. I know we think of the whole lockout situation as just kind of a dispute between two sides that are angry at each other. But from a legal standpoint, I mean, what happened is the owners locked out the players, right? So if the website that is essentially representing the owners comes out and publishes an article that makes the players that they've locked out sound reasonable, that would be a little bit off brand for an organization that just locked them out.

So I do understand in some ways this is kind of how it has to be as ridiculous as it is. I guess the takeaway here is probably don't go to MLB.com for your lockout news. you should probably go to that's why we're here Derek that's what we're here for Jeff Passon is here right that's what other journalists are for we're we're not going to lie we're not getting you the Jeff Passon information yet yet yeah yeah give us give us give us six months okay but in the meantime we'll we'll aggregate the correct information for you here and present it uh well and we'll present both sides we'll present all sides we'll we're presenting mark side um Mark side is his own words and that's what happened with this article and that's what

happens with our articles, right? I'm sure that there's somebody out there that completely agrees with me that the Diamondbacks 2021 season is all David Peralta and Eduardo Escobar's fault for what they did to Baxter. That's what some people believe. Other people might think I'm an insane person for even suggesting such a curse exists. But, you know, whatever. That's, it's left to the reader to decide, really, Jesse is what it is at the end of the day. We're just storytellers. But you can get that article over at go p.hnx.com. It's still there.

If you haven't read it, go check out that article. That's a good reason for you to go over there. That's a, yeah, we're really trying to show off our hard journalism skills here. That's right. Yeah, go read Derek's conspiracy theory about a curse involving the D-BAC's mascot. I might have a new piece up there tomorrow. now that our website is back to working properly, about this entire situation and my feelings on it.

But you can get that over at go phtnx.com. If you're not already a member, sign up to become a member. You can get an annual membership, and that will get you a free t-shirt over at the PHNX Locker, or you can get your first month for just 50 cents for signing up. But you don't want that first month and go to month-to-month option. Get that year membership option.

Get yourself a free t-shirt over at phtonx locker.com. get yourself add on a $5 sticker pack also you know you're already getting a free t-shirt why not throw $5 in there but you know what we want we we want from you is we want you to expect more from your valley sports coverage we want you to expect in-depth features film breakdown exclusive videos discounts on merchandise the most engaging discussion over on discord and so much more so sign up to become a member uh go p hnx.com and it's time to redefine what it means to be an arizona a sports fan. It's time to go P-H-N-X. And Jesse,

I am still trying to track down what's going to happen with spring training. But I do have on good authority, since this is a baseball podcast that we try to provide information and journalistic type content,

I have a good authority that Alec Thomas is here in the valley. I have it on good authority that a lot of the minor league guys are here in the Valley of the Sun. They are doing, because they are minor league players, the minor league guys can still be coordinated

for workouts. They can still be like coached and talked to by the team. So, and it makes me wonder, like, I don't know. There's so much that I still don't know how this is affected by the lockout. I wonder how many players are independently coordinating

workouts with each other. I wonder if they can they even do that? Can they go work out with each other? They can't text each other. They can't speak. Yeah. You guys are on the same team. You guys are faceless, you guys are faceless player profiles as far as we're concerned to us right now. Right. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing how this plays out because we are now two days away from your alleged date that we're supposed to hit. Well, it's probably, it's probably one day, unfortunately. by the time people listen to this it's probably one day one day away from

I feel I feel great Derek I just I can't wait I'm going to have a party we're going to celebrate I'm going to like pop bottles of champagne so I have to hear Eric did you read what the did you read what Mark Finesand wrote about the significant progress that was I am I heard about that only if that greedy MLBPA would get their act together right Jesse They end their demands, right? My gosh. I'll tell you what they should do is they should throw in a t-shirt for PHNX Locker.com. I think that would sweeten the deal at this point.

I think anybody out there having a bad time right now, bad day, go buy yourself a t-shirt for PHNX locker.com. Right now, I'll tell you, I'm pretty sure that it's 20% off all suns shirts for PHNX, go PHNX members at the PHNX Locker.com. and you can pick up any sticker pack for $5 or grab any t-shirt for $29.99 and get 20% off those sun shirts. Get that sweet go-eighth shirt based on my tattoo. That's the one I plug all the time. That one or any of them, they're all great, but go over to phnxlocker.com, get yourself a shirt. We thank you guys so much for checking out the show. On behalf of Jesse and myself, we just hope that this Players Association can just stop with all of their demands.

but you can get us on Twitter. I'm at Cap underscore Caveman with a K. Jesse is at Jesse and Friedman. Our show is at PHNX underscore D-Bax, but of course all roads lead to at PHNX underscore Sports. I'm running out of gas, Jesse. It's, I'm almost there. I know the finish line is in sight, but who I got to take a minute.

But we appreciate you guys checking out the show. Of course, as we said earlier, subscribe to us on your favorite audio podcasting app. If you haven't done so already, please leave us a five-star review as well. We appreciate you and thank you for doing so. Also, subscribe to us on YouTube and make sure to sign up for notifications over there. That way you don't miss any of the content coming out from the PHNX sports team.

And mostly sign up for a membership over at go phnx.com. Not only do that, then go over to draft kings, use our code, have yourself a wonderful weekend on this conference, last weekend of football playoffs before we get to the Super Bowl and win yourself some money. But on behalf of Jesse and myself, we thank you guys again. We implore the MLBPA to stop being greedy, apparently. And remember, kids, baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun when you write for MLB.com.