PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - The D-backs may be for sale, but the real question is how much of the franchise will be up for grabs

Episode Date: January 9, 2023

Per reports, Ken Kendrick and the Arizona Diamondbacks may be looking to sell a minority share of the team, so we speculate on potential investors for the franchise. We are also answering your Mailbag Monday questions! 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 the PHNX D-Backs podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Montia, occasionally known as a man who is irreplaceable, Danielle. I'm joined by, you know, this guy that I want to call a traitor, but I will refrain from doing so. It's the one and only thunderstick Jesse Friedman. I love that. So when Danielle was impersonating you, I was told that the shirt that she was purchased solely for the purpose. of impersonating you. That's a solid gag.

That's a solid gag. I appreciate that. Also, the first words that came out of her mouth were let's talk wrestling. Yeah. It's like, yes, Derek is better known for talking wrestling than for talking baseball. If we want to talk AED-W Dynamite last week, I was there first, and we could talk about that for 45 minutes easily. But I know you guys don't want to talk about that.

This is a D-BACs podcast, and the D-BACs might be for sale, at least a small portion of them. But before we get into that, we have to let you guys know. This show is brought to you by the fine folks at the Draft King Sports. book app, America's top rated sportsbook app. Jesse, there is more to these reports that we kind of discussed a little bit last week of the Arizona Almanbacks being for sale. Just not a majority of the franchise.

It would appear according to a report from Bob Nightingale, but the D-Backs, M-GP, I like that better. Managing General Partner Ken Kendrick, not owner. Managing General Partner Ken Kendrick is winning the possibility of selling a significant but still minority share of the team. Now, obviously, Kendrick has stated in the past that they were looking to consolidate some of the team at times. It actually, they actually got into a bit of a lawsuit at one point with a couple of the minority shareholders about seem like maybe forcing some of the shareholders out or something to that extent.

The idea was that they were being forced to relinquish some of their share in the organization. and apparently the price was not particularly high. They were kind of being forced to do it at a discount. But yeah, in the past, Ken Kendrick has tried to consolidate some of the ownership group. But it appears that, yeah, he's open to, he's like weighing the option. It doesn't sound like this is a done deal by any stretch of the imagination, but weighing the option of selling off a minority share in the franchise, which is a more substantive report than we were talking about before. Correct, right. Kind of like just speculation.

There wasn't a whole lot of meat to the original story, but Bob Nightingale is well respected and, you know, knows what he's talking about. So we'll see what comes to this. There's something else Bob said in his piece that could actually makes a little bit more sense. In consolidating, part of that could just be having less minority shareholders, less people. We've been we've been told the group was about 10 or 11 people. I'm not sure if that was before or after they forced the two out. But it sounds like there's a possibility that some of this could just be. other minority shareholders selling off their shares to one person. So there are less shareholders overall, but Ken Kendrick might not be giving up any portion of his particular stake in the team. Yeah, yeah, that's a good, that's a good point. So yeah, it's not, it's not really that the Diamondbacks are for sale and not, not in the sense of, you know, Ken Kendrick no longer being the primary member of this ownership group. So, you know, if that's what you're, that's what you're thinking this is.

It is probably doesn't, it doesn't appear to be, it doesn't appear to be that. However, you know, this is still interesting. We've seen in the past sometimes when you bring on a new minority owner. I think this happened with the Cleveland Guardians. There can be like a clause in the contract that allows for that individual to later become a majority owner. Right. In 2028, I believe is when the Cleveland minority hold, it could potentially become a majority shareholder, which again, that could at least. least give people in the organ or fans of the organization who haven't been happy with the way

Kendrick has ran the team that that optimism about there being new ownership. I mean, obviously a big part of that is just the lack of success and the lack of spending on the team, right? But again, it's part of a Ken Kendrick is a managing general partner for a reason. And that's because he's not the only one making, you know, decisions here when it comes to the money spent on this team. It just means that he has a big role, obviously, in that. so he gets the majority of the blame there when it comes to their lack of spending.

Right. But yeah, like you said, this wouldn't change the power structure, take away from him most likely. Forbes magazine currently values the Arizona Diamondbacks or did in 2022 as being worth $1.38 billion. However, that value is going to be strongly impacted by the sale of the Los Angeles Angels, which this article also says that Kendrick could potentially be waiting for the sale of other teams. that could obviously increase the market and increase the value of the Diamondbacks just by proxy. When your neighbor down the street sells this house for way more money than it's actually worth, guess what? Now for a brief period of time, your house is now worth more money than it was worth.

So shit like that happens when teams get sold for more money than they were valued at. And it seems like that's almost the status quo is like when a professional sports franchise in America is for sale. They inevitably sell for some bonkers amount of money that no one, you know, no one would have foreseen it at the outset. It seems like they're always going for more than you'd expect. Derek, you want to take a stab at in 2004 when Ken Kendrick purchased the Arizona Diamondbacks, how much he paid for the Arizona Diamondbacks back in 2004? $700 million. $238 million. Are you serious?

That's some pretty decent appreciation. $238 million. pulled our money together, you guys, and bought them for that much. Come on what the hell? What a misopportunity on our part as a fan base. Damn it. Well, here's the exciting thing, though, is that we can wildly speculate now on who might potentially be the new minority shareholder should Ken Kendrick sell part of this team. And I personally think this is why JJ Watt is retiring. Let's go, JJ. Welcome to the franchise. Welcome to the organization. I'm ready to name him right now. Let's go.

He's a big, big Arizona guy. Yeah, he seems to enjoy it here. His retirement was kind of sudden and unexpected a bit. I mean, he has had a wonderful career and he gets to go out on top. However, you know, he's got to have something else to do. That's what I'm saying here, you know? I mean, you know JJ Watt. Like, he's that type of guy to retire from football and just not have anything to do.

Right, right. There's no way. He's clearly looking for something. He's going to be up at 4 o'clock in the morning anyway. He might as well be working on something. He might as well be looking at baseball box scores. CP3. CP3 gets an ownership of the Diamondbacks.

Are you implying that CB3 is about to retire? I'm not implying that at all, but I'm sure there's a lot of Suns fans I would probably right now like to hear me say that. No, I'm just saying he seems like a guy that, you know, he... CB3 is such a basketball guy though, right? Like, have you seen, I don't know. Have we seen Chris Paul show up at a Diamondbacks game? I don't think so.

Oh, we've seen campaign? We've seen campaign. Oh, yeah. We've seen campaign at some Diamondbacks games. I can see campaign putting his money towards that. We've seen Cam Johnson at some Diamondbacks games. I believe ish Wainwright, McHale Bridges. Oh, McHale, no.

He's not going to, well, what is he going to do? He's going to buy us to sink us. He's going to buy out the Philadelphia Phillies. Yeah, that's what he's obviously going to do. I think the obvious answer here is Randy Johnson, right? Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, I know he's got the photography gig.

You can do both of those jobs at the same time. That's all I'm saying. Ben says fits already has shown tons of interest in our teams, which I think is, yeah, I mean, that seems maybe a little bit more. That also says, not Elon, not Elon, not Elon. You're absolutely right, not Elon. Oh, my God, tweets are going to be 4,000 characters in a month, you guys. I don't know what, what do we do?

Do we just abandon Twitter at that point? I don't want to read that. I don't want to read all of that. I'm just telling you guys that now. So let's check that. But no matter who becomes a minority shareholder, hopefully it brings some excitement to this team. And I mean, I don't really know the capacity in which my time. shareholders have a voice in the franchise.

So that's something obviously very interesting to see. But, you know, hey, maybe somebody that has been in sports, even though we kind of joke about these guys, maybe they can lend something to this organization. Obviously, Jerry Colangelo was one guy that impacted this organization in a very positive way, quite a bit. So, you know, you never know when somebody like him might swing through. And maybe Jerry Calangelo, let's go.

Yeah, there you go. There you go. I feel like, yeah, like this news in and of it, itself is not, is not huge, right? Like if the diamondbacks were to go through and, you know, some minority share of the organization

was sold to some investor, it sounds like they're particularly targeting the investors who are bidding on the angels and it's sort of like, you know, the backup plan if one of those, however many of those people miss out on the angels, maybe they'd be interested in owning a portion of the diamond back,

similar location, somewhat similar franchise values. So I think, that that makes a lot of sense. But in the long term, what you wonder here is, is this, is this the beginning? Like, is this the first step in a process where Ken Kendrick actually might be looking to not, you know, have this role in the long term, right? And that's something we don't know, but I think it's, it's an interesting storyline and I don't think it's impossible. I think this could be sort of a first step, you know, bring in a minority owner. Maybe that person later on

it becomes the majority owner, takes on a bigger role. That's something that we at least should be monitoring here. By the way, Jacob is here in the background making all sorts of noise because, as I said on bets today, he's on Daddy Watch. Every minute of every hour is Daddy Watch right now for Jacob. So I don't know. I think he might have got a text message. You got scared really fast.

I don't know what happened over there. But of course, Jesse has a brand new piece for you guys to check out. Of course, on the Zach Davies signing or resigning to the Arizona Diamondbacks. and what 2022 taught us about Zach Davies. So make sure if you haven't done so already to grab yourself a PHNX diehard's membership. You can get one over at go phnx.com. It'll give you access to Jesse's wonderful diehard only pieces, as well as get you free merch from the phnx locker.com,

this beautiful hat shirt I'm wearing underneath. Jesse's got this sold out limited edition, Sethservasa shirt that you guys could have had for 99 cents during the old Black Friday sale. of course, make sure to grab yourself a membership. Not only do you get all that. You get access to our members-only Discord Lounge. You get access to all of our wonderful discounts that we provide, including 20% off at the PHNX Locker.com.

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And that will give you unlimited range balls. We're renting out the entire driving range. It's going to be blast. X is excited and I'm excited. So make sure to join us out there for this. Oh, G's is going to be out there. Four Peaks is going to be out there. Everybody's going to be out there. Everybody's going to be out there. Everybody's going to be out there. We're going to be crushing balls on the driving range. Jesse is going to be beating you in ping pong. It's a good day to come out and get beat up by the PHNX crew in games, assorted driving contests, putting challenges, all sorts of stuff. We're going to have cornhole pickleball. And of course, the unlimited range balls and set of rental clubs if you don't have your own. You will also get a set, a one hour range time and golf balls at Dobson Ranch to be used at a later date. It's an absolutely beautiful driving range. You guys got to make sure to come out and check it out. I've talked it up a bunch, but it's unlike anything I've ever seen.

It's four peaks or excuse me, it's top golf, but better, right? It's outdoors. It's on a real driving range. You get to track your balls and have all sorts of games. It's also four peaks. It's also four peaks. He's not right. Four peaks will be there giving out beer samples and swag.

We're going to have all sorts of games. of fun. So make sure to join us. There'll be free food and beer samples from our, from our partners. OGs will be out there. Let's go. O.G.'s. And of course, the Sun's Watch party against the Timberwolves. Hopefully they can get their shit together because, look, I'm just going to say this. The coyotes, they already have this block when it comes to sucking you guys. So like, let's not go there. I already told you in the week, the last meeting of the year that we're all counting on you. And the last thing I need you is choking. But of course, if you can't join us, grab some Four Peaks beer, wherever you get your beer at.

remotely join us in spirit on Friday the 13th. Make sure that you're 21 and over to grab that beer and enjoy responsibly. Also, if you come out with the kids, there'll be a free kids clinic for children 10 and under. So make sure to come out. We're going to have a blast on Friday. What's up? Danielle Cortez was outrageously confident about her ping pong steals. I saw that portion of it. I just could not believe what was happening. It kind of stressed me out. I was there. I was like, Jesse's got this. Jesse's going to walk that ass. Yeah. Yeah. She has a ping pong table on her garage.

She does. Yeah, she has a one car, one ping pong table garage. That's commitment. Which is that's, that's commitment. I wonder how much dust is on that ping pong table, Jesse. I'm just saying. Just saying. I don't know.

Do you think, I guess things still collect dust in the garage. I guess that's sort of how it works. We need to talk about a lot of stuff. You're going to own a house soon. There was a serious moment there. I was like, no, it's in the garage. How could it possibly be dusty? And then I realize that's a pretty idiotic statement.

So here, here we are. You are adorable. sometimes. Sometimes he's adorable, but every week, you know what we do here. Every week is Shark week. Every single day is Earth Day. And every Monday, we go to the mailbag. Fellas, let's go to the mailbag. My mailbox. I try to get to everything in my mailbox. And then once in a while, there's a letter that makes me go, wow, wow, my mailbox. What the hell is going on with this, Jesse? What do you think? I think, I mean, what's going on is that Scott Boris's camp is trying to make it sound like there is as much interest in,

in Carlos Correa outside of the Mets as possible, right? Which I mean, I'm sure it's valid, right? Like the twins maybe, maybe they have reached out. But the reality is that I think we're all pretty confident, like we've said over and over and over again, that Carlos Correa is probably going to end up with the New York Mets. And it's just kind of a matter of time

and working out all of these little details and whatnot. But I have a hard time really buying into, you know, the interests of other teams. Bob Nightingale and his story yesterday wrote about how the twins are not interested in Carlos Correa until they get their hands on all of the same medical information that, of course, the Giants and the Mets have been so concerned about. So I don't really see there being many developments there.

So we're just kind of in Carlos Correa limbo, which is just, it just feels right. I mean, it just feels normal. If we knew where Carlos Correa was going, like if the deal was actually official, official.

If Carlos Gray is showing up at a press conference wearing a jersey, I think it'd be a little off-putting at this point. Like, I wouldn't know what to do with myself. Where would the fun be in that? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we need at least one more deal to fall through, you know, another team to get seriously involved. There's got to be another layer here before this gets settled.

Scamp. All right. Well, we know where he's not going, and that's the Arizona Diamondbacks. As much as we'd love to speculate on that. Sorry, not interested. We don't have that kind of money. What else do we got? Next question comes from Rick Hughes. Rick asks,

with the acquisition of Davies, do you foresee a six-man rotation to accommodate two of the youngsters, or does it make the possible move of Mad Bum more likely if he performs well in spring training? Well, first, I think, I don't know about a six-man rotation, but it could be. I have heard some things, despite the way things broke down, I heard that Ryan Nelson might have a little bit more likely

of a chance to make the starting rotation than Dre Jameson, despite the fact that Jameson really had a solid performance last year. There is an idea out there that Jameson might be being looked at for the bullpen potentially, but I think that a lot of it is going to be based on how they perform in spring training. I think Madbom does have a chance to be moved. I think at this point, the Diamondbacks are probably even willing to accept, you know, eating a portion, a good portion of Madbom's deal in order.

to make that happen. But right now, I don't really think that there's much value there. So I would see them waiting until maybe he performed well before they can possibly move him. Yeah, I mean, I think Bob Nightingale reported a few months ago that in spring training, the debacks may look to move Madison Bumgarner, which still wouldn't totally shock me. Like, I think there is a world in which you sort of replaced Madison Bumgarner with Zach Davies in a sense. I wouldn't say I'm expecting that to happen. It's still, as you said, it's going to be a really hard contract.

to move, you're probably going to have to take back a contract that is similarly not great. Or just eat it. Or just, yeah, or just eat it. So we'll see exactly what that might look like. But a six-man rotation is possible. I mean, theoretically, you could definitely have a six-man rotation. There's more than six guys contending for a rotation spot that have a decent shot at getting one. I'd be pretty surprised, though, if that's something the debacks did in the long term.

We saw a six-man rotation toward the end. of this past season, but I think that had more to do with, you know, getting the young guys playing time and maybe trying to cut down on innings totals for a few guys than anything else. I don't think it's something that Tori Lavello or the Diamondbacks love, like, as a long-term setup. And when you're opening the season, you're not really, you don't have to pigeonhole yourself into something that you don't really want in the long term.

So I'd be pretty surprised if they open with a six-main rotation. Ben says maybe a stupid team like the Rockies will take them. I'm, Sh, Ben, you're going to blow the deal, all right? Let's calm down on that, right? We don't want to outwardly call them stupid.

We want to speculate on what a stupid team that might take it might be, you know? But I do think that there is a strong possibility that we see Matt Bum in the rotation and we end up seeing one of the younger guys in the bullpen. If not,

maybe multiple guys. I don't know at this point. I don't think that's... It is fascinating. Like, if you don't have both Ryan Nelson and Ray Jameson in the rotation, do you... do you send the other one down to Reno or do you put the other one in the bullpen?

I could see them going either way. I still think Mike Hazen has some hesitation with like turning a guy into a reliever before he's really proven that he needs to be a reliever. So I'm a little skeptical of that, but it is a pivot that we've been thinking they might want to make for some time. Like maybe we put these guys in the bullpen a little bit sooner than they normally are. Drey Jameson's trajectory, I think, got changed a bit last year. You know, I do think that he came up and had a 1.48 ERA and the majors and had multiple outings that were just, you know, against the Dodgers and the Padres.

Yes. Yeah, but I mean, I think that that kind of messed things up a bit, you know, and honestly, it messed them up in a good way. But it made it more complicated as far as maybe what they thought he was eventually going to be for this team versus what. You're right, Derek. If they had both come up and just been terrible. Oh, it's so much easier. So much easier. So much easier.

So much complicated. All right. Shut up. I did not miss you. Next question. All right, Spencer O'Gar asked, would you have Fott start the season in the rotation to try for the Padres debut Magic one more time

or have another arm in there instead? Fott is definitely starting against the Padres, 100%. I don't care when he's going to start when he starts. When he debuts, it's going to be against the Padres. That is a rule we have around here, and I'm sorry, but I do not make the rules. Yeah, this is interesting. So, I mean, if you're looking at the team's schedule,

you do have their fifth game is against the San Diego Padres. So, you know, if Brandon Fotz are number five starter, then it does, it does theoretically work. It does line up nicely.

It does line up pretty, it does line up pretty nicely. I don't, I think it's a less than 50% chance. That's more of a personal take than anything else. I think it's not really something we've seen the debacks do before.

Like have a young starting pitcher like this just, open the season in the rotation from opening day. That's not something they've done. However, there is some added incentives to do that. We've talked about the new CBA rules and how if a player wins the rookie of the year award, then the Diamondbacks would net an extra draft pick. And in order to do that, they have to be on the roster right at the beginning of the season.

So there is some added incentive. If you feel that Brandon fought, you know, could win a rookie of the year award, which the debacks probably think that's at least possible. then, you know, maybe you do have incentive to like, hey, we're not totally sure if he's ready, but let's just throw him in there and see what happens. And given how good Brandon Fought was in Reno, you know, he's the kind of guy you're going to be pretty bullish on, I think. Gabriel Moreno could have been a third guy there for the rookie of the year, except Toronto had to go botch his day period.

Yeah, his service time was whack. He spent way too many days on the active roster for only having like 73 plate appearances or whatever. was so somebody somebody forgot to submit some paperwork or something yeah I don't know I don't know what what happened there but yeah he he unfortunately did lose his rookie eligibility so Gabriel Moreno

a lot of fun to watch but he he won't be in the in the rookie of the year mix this season all right now tie on to the most important question of the day of course it's from Don's bread and Don asked excuse me Mark asks got you Mark if you had to create a boy band using the

Arizona Diamondbacks who would you put in that group? Obviously Madison Bumgarner. Okay, right, right. And Josh Rojas, right? Well, yeah, Josh Rojas, too. You're not wrong. Madison Bungarner needs to be the older bad boy that pretends like he's the younger guy. Maybe he shaves that beard up. Maybe he does something to kind of fit in with the group. In sync, Backstreet Boys, they always had that weird older guy in the back that you always

questioned his age. I think Mad Bum could be that for this group. But if I'm putting boy band together here, we're going Jake McCarthy. It's got to be the young guys, right? We're going for the band. We're going Gabriel Moreno. I feel like Alec Thomas. Alex Thomas 100%. 100%.

Who's your fifth? Who's my fifth? I mean, I guess if we're sticking with the young guys, maybe Heraldo Prodomo. Maybe Geraldo Prado gets in there? No, the answer is Zett Galen. The answer is that gallon. If you're not putting Zat Gallo in there, you have failed with your boy band 100%. We need to figure out who of these people actually plays instruments.

That's something I've not really asked Diamondbacks players before. What we knew, or we could just get the S-tier hairs in there. That would be, there we go. That would be Uriel, that be Cotel Marte, Zach Allen, Jake McCarthy, of course. And who's the new one of them? We'll have to do that. We'll have to, we need to show your tier system.

Yeah, the tier system is broken down. Yeah, for sure. I have a whole tier, again, thanks to Mark. We have a tier system. Mark created it so that you can rank the hair of Diamondbacks players. And it is one of the better things. I have it up at all times. by the way, I'm always adjusting it.

I'm always making changes to it. Elizabeth asked which one would be the lead of the band. If Zach Allen's in the band, Zach Allen's the lead. I know he might not be that personality to lead, but I feel like if we're going to put a boy band behind him and he's going to be the leader of this thing, right? Maybe Jake McCarthy, I don't know.

Yeah, I could see Jake McCarthy. Yeah, yeah. And see, Heath Client says no boy bands play instruments. your argument is negated. Forget who plays instruments. They barely sing. They're on the tunes. That's fair.

That's fair. PHNX boy band. PHNX boy band? Oh. Totry. Yep. Just. Sun Devils.

Oh, yeah. Just them. Yeah. Just Totry. No. Just Totry bombs up. No, the Sun Devils. Max is on this boy band.

And then Pidi, of course. P.D. has to be on it. Right? PD has to be on the boy band. Again, every boy band needs the guy that's older, but you question how actually. actually only is. Everybody needs that. Anyway, well, we thank you guys for being here right now

on the PHNX Sports YouTube channel. We always thank you guys for being here. Thank you for being in the chat. Of course, if you haven't done so already, make sure to subscribe to the PHANX Sports YouTube channel. Sign up for notifications. That way you don't miss when we go live or any of our wonderful shows on the network go live. And leave us a little thumbs up. Jesse loves that. It's his favorite thing. Also, if you're listening to it with the thumbs up. Yeah, people did really well. Apparently, we just need to ask for it a little bit more. Yeah. Because the people really, I mean, at least they listen to me. I don't know if they listen to you, but last week they

listened to me. He immediately goes into that. Immediately has to be better than me. But of course, if you're listening to us right now on your favorite audio podcasting app, make sure you subscribe to us there. Leave us a review. We appreciate you for doing that as well. Thank you guys always for being here. And of course, we haven't had, we have more mailbag Monday coming up. But before that, we got more furniture to talk about because Jesse has a new house. We have to talk about things that Jesse needs to buy. Yeah, we're down to like a week away. He doesn't even have, like,

I have, like, nothing for this place. Yeah, so send us your best suggestions on Twitter as to things he needs to buy for more furniture for his house. Of course, you get your stuff all figured out because you know you need stuff for your house. The big games coming up, all sorts of exciting stuff's coming up. Opening day and WrestleMania is the same weekend. So come on, sports fans, slash baseball slash wrestling fans. Let's get ourselves a new living room, maybe a big old TV. from MoreFurniture.com.

And also get their white glove delivery service like we got here in the office. It was very posh. I felt very high and mighty with the white glove delivery service. It might have been the OGs on the high part. But make sure to check out more furniture when you need to save big on furniture here in the valley over at morefurniture. com. And we are on to more mailbag Monday questions. Let's go.

What else we got? Brian's accusing me of last minute shopping again. Ooh, well, guilty is charged, I would say. I don't know what to do here. What we got, Jacob? So you're going to have to read the rest of them off. I don't think we have them on crap. Okay, no, no worries.

That's fine. We'll go on to the next one. Next question comes from our friend Michael Rokickey, and Michael asks, which player who disappointed last year do you think is most likely to rebound? Melanson, Mason Saunders, obviously, or Catele Marte, Jesse? Most likely to rebound.

Probably Catell. Cotell. I think it has to be Catelle. Cotel Marte is just like, like he was a pretty darn good player, not that long ago, right? And I know Mark Melanson, I mean, led the league in saves, right, in 2021, but Mark Malanson is also at the age where you kind of have some doubts about him, you know, kind of getting back to his former self, whereas Cotel Marte is not that old.

He's not at that level yet where you're like, oh, yes, this player is still. very much on the down swing of his career. I don't think you're you're in that position with Catelle. He's still 29 years old, which honestly kind of blows my mind. He feels like the old guy, but he's not even 30 years old yet. So, yeah, I would probably say Catell out of the three. Well, we were talking about this before the show a bit with Emmanuel Rivera. He's still very young.

You know, this is going to be the third season in the league for him. So the Diamondbacks might very much see him still in the prospect aspect, that that might be something that bringing Evan Longoria might be helping develop towards both him and Josh Rojas. because right now they still don't have a solution for third base as far as long term. And maybe those guys are it because they're still young there. But I do like the idea of Melanson bouncing back. I think there is a probability that we could see a much better version of Melanson. Yeah.

Especially if he's maybe not in that role. I don't know. We joked quite a bit about Melanson coming in and non-save situations being the most disastrous. But I will say that there just feels like a bounce back. I felt like he had a better second half and especially kind of wrap. up the season. He did have some strong outings. I just don't know if what we saw last year was more of the anomaly. When you look at his career, this guy has been fairly consistent. So for him to have the season he had, the erratic start, you know, erratic outings he had and to mostly be for blame for

a decent percentage of the bullpen losses, he, I think he could still be much better than he was. I agree. Yeah, I totally agree. And I'll probably write about that at some point. Like, like, what would it take for Mark Malanson to get back to the player that he was in 2021, which was one of the best relievers in baseball. Don't lie. You know, don't lie about what you said a year ago about the Diamondbacks bringing in both Ian Kennedy and Mark Malanson and being excited about it. Right, right.

We all were. There is not a Diamondbacks fan who didn't think that was a pretty good move. I mean, maybe there were some people concerned about the age of both players, which of course did turn out to be sort of a problem. But at the moment, it was viewed very positively because Mark Balancen was just a very, very effective pitcher. Last year, if you look at just like VLO numbers and whatnot, numbers did take a bit of a step back. His cutter was 92 miles an hour on average in 2021.

It dropped to 91 miles an hour in 2022. I don't know if that one tick is necessarily that important for him, though. I think there's still some adjustments that could be made here. Brent Strom throughout the season very much defended Mark Melanson and talked about how like from a pitch Arsenal standpoint not much had changed. I remember at one point I'm talking about

Melanson having one of the better years of this career in terms of just some of the underlying metrics on his pitches. So which has to make it even more frustrating. Yeah. I mean, because I mean that's just what. That's just what life is like for relievers, right?

Like you can feel like you're doing everything as good as you ever have. But you know, if you have a few rough outings, which obviously Malanson and more than a few. A few. There were quite a few. But yeah, I do think there's a chance that Mark Melanson bounces back next year.

All right. D-Backs Burner at AZ Burner 602 on Twitter asks, what do we do with Nick Ahmed? I personally think he's over the hill and would rather see Perdomo get another season of daily work in. I would say Nick Amet is probably in a similar position as Evan Longoria, where, yeah, he probably is on the other side of his career. I think he still has a lot to offer. And I think that this is a young inexperienced team that can benefit from having Nick Ahmed.

They're at shortstop on the field leading the way. I mean, he is their player representative. He is a leader in the locker room. There is no reason why, even if he's not batting over 250, that he still can't contribute to this team not only defensively, but also kind of in a leadership way on and off the field. Yeah, I totally agree. This is a big year for Nick Ahmed.

It's a walk year for him, right? He's a free agent at the end of the season. He's probably not going to return to the Arizona Diamondbacks with Jordan Lawler not too far away. And of course, for Alda Pardomo there as well. So this is a big year for him to kind of prove what he has after hardly playing at all last year with the shoulder surgery. A big thing will be what is his defense look like? Is he still a plus defensive player or is he kind of inching closer to average? If he's inching closer to average, unfortunately for Nick Ahmed, it's a little bit hard to sell him as an everyday big league.

because so much of his value has come from his glove for a number of years. I will say that I think people are maybe a little bit harsher on Nick Ahmed than they should be with his bat. I've seen a lot of people talk about like, oh, you know, Geraldo Pardomo is clearly a better player than Nick Ahmed. Heraldo Pardomo, his offensive numbers last year were close to the very bottom of the league for how many played appearances he got. There were not many. Unless you're talking about runners and scoring position. Unless you're talking about the runners and scoring position. The wrist king was very good in those situations.

But Pardomo, I'm not at all saying that he can't become a good player. He's so young, but definitely not making that case. But he also, at least from my standpoint with what he did last year, he didn't earn anything. I don't think he earned, you know, like, oh, Pardomo is your shortstop. And then maybe Nick Ahmed can dethrone him. That was not what happened last year. Perdomo just really struggled offensively. And he looked like he struggled from the lack of depth on this.

roster and that's one thing that the diamond backs have put together they have much more depth than they did last year whether it's it might not be you know quality starting they might not have gone to invest all of their money into a big name to upgrade a particular single position however it does feel like they upgraded the team almost at every position and made this team deeper and i and i mean that by bringing on someone like evan lagoria and now having josh rojas the ability to kind of be a utility infielder everywhere and not just playing a bunch of time at third base like he most likely would have if it was just him and Emmanuel Rivera. Right.

There were small moves. They're not huge names. But the things they did with the names they're getting back, with Nick Ahmed coming back, there's just a certain element of depth that this team absolutely didn't have last year. Yeah. And honestly, when you talk about the team losing games late and the bullpen being responsible for so many losses, a lot of that is the team also going flat. So it's not just the bullpen.

It's the lack of offense in general and the bullpen just kind of giving up a lead. You don't really see this team put their foot on team's throats and really take as much of a lead as they can. You really saw them even in the wins kind of winning, you know, a lot of close games last season. So I think that the depth is going to improve this team. And hopefully the changes they did, you know, at the bullpen along with a rebounding Malanson could be the key to this team being a better team. The debacks gave her all the Pardomo 500 played appearances because they didn't have another choice. That's all. Yeah, exactly.

And not to say, again, that like Pardomo is going to be a bad player in the long term necessarily, but he clearly wasn't ready for the wealth of opportunity that they gave him. He struggled early in the year defensively. Later in the year, he looked better. But, yeah, like you're saying, in 2023, I don't think the Dbacks are at least on paper. I don't think they're going to find themselves in as many situations where it's like, we got to just keep playing so-and-so, even though the numbers aren't good, because we don't have anyone else. They have a lot of depth at pretty much every position on the diamond at this point.

All right. Next question comes from our friend Jacob Giacoma, and it's a question we get quite a bit, actually. So Jacob asks, are there any updates on Christian Robinson? I think his probation is about to be over, and the fact that Hazen hasn't just cut bait on him to me suggest he believes K-Rob can still make a major league impact. I found reports that Christian Robinson has been at the complex training and that his probation ends in February, which hopefully allows him to fully participate this spring. And maybe what we see is this guy that at one time was one of the Diamondbacks absolute top prospects have that bounce back. We have no clue where he's at as far as his athleticism.

I know we saw him a bit during like the minor league camp. He was out there. He looked in shape. He was participating, and he was in there with a lot of the top prospects. So that was something encouraging. When I saw him in the lineup during that minor league training camp that they had prior to the end of the lockout, this time last year just about. He was participating, and he was in there with De Laos and Loller and those guys. So it's encouraging, that's encouraging to me as well, that he was part of that group.

They seem to be grouping those guys together during the minor league camp in certain ways. So I will also say that, you know, of course, you know, the idea there is how much he has been actively been participating in his own, you know, kind of training. And like I said, keeping himself in shape. If he's ready to go when when that probation period ends and he's available to participate in team activities, we might see this guy. He's still 22 years old and still has a lot to give. We might see this guy make a comeback. Yeah, I mean, it's just crazy to think. Like baseball prospectus had Christian Robinson as the 16th best prospect in baseball in 2020, pre-2020,

pre-2020. So like this guy has had some, like a lot of scouts have been very high on what they've seen from Christian Robinson over the years. My understanding of the situation is that what he needs to happen is for his felony to be reduced to a misdemeanor. And the expectation is that that will happen when his proboscow. ends in February. So if all goes well and that happens, then yes, I do think that Christian Robinson

theoretically could have a fairly normal season for the first time and a long time since I guess 2019. But yeah, you still have to believe that there's some upside here. And he did get some opportunity last year. He wasn't able to play in games where they charge for attendance. That was part of the deal with. his probation, but... That's so weird. That's such a weird.

Yeah, it is a weird, kind of a weird role, but he was able to participate in extended spring training, so he was out at the complex in Arizona, getting opportunity, getting some at bats until about mid-June. And then that's when extended spring training ended, and there wasn't really anything else for him to do at that point. He's a right-handed bat. Last time he was in a minor league for the Hillsborough hops, he hit 319. So there's a lot of encouraging things to think about Christian.

Robinson making a comeback and again you know his his lack of being here kind of has impacted the diamondbacks you know rebuilding effort that they were kind of banking on him being a key piece of the future of this team yeah yeah he was like the like the right fielder of the future like you know that your big middle of a lineup bat and he still has a chance to be that like there's a lot of upside here even though the timeline has been pushed back a few years um all right our last question comes from our friend who now lives in Colorado, the Fox, aka at the Adam 027 on Twitter, and he asks, I just moved to Colorado, too many Rockies hats and jerseys for me to bear. So my question for the mailbag, how can anyone survive completely being surrounded by all things,

Rockies, Nuggets, Broncos, abs, pray for me. I have no idea how. I am so sorry. Trust me, it's just as bad for us in our All-City chat. We get these DNVR guys. They're just brutal. The Nuggets guys, they hate the Sons. The Avalanche won a Stanley Cup, the World Stanley Cup, as I've said in the past.

At least the Broncos suck, so that's something. But they might take the head coach we want. So, like, there's all sorts of things that I'm annoyed with. And the Rockies are just Rockies. They continue to perplex me on how they fill up that stadium with a terrible baseball team all the time. I guess that's what happens when you make a nice, pretty place for people to go hang out. Yeah, and it is a nice pretty place for people to go hang out and watch baseball. We talked about that with Patrick Lyons last week when he, when he filled it on the show,

a friend of friend from DNVR Rockies. Another name we have to deal with all the time. But yeah, so, okay, so his question is how can I survive completely, how can I survive clearly surrounded by all things, Rockies? Yeah, I mean, like, you know, you can still rep the Diamondbacks and that I don't think. Surround yourself with all things, Arizona, right? There you go. Plaster your living room with all Arizona sports.

Wear an insufferable amount of clothing that rep your team. Paint the wall, Sedona Red. That's right. Maybe a teal accent wall. Ooh, that'd be nice. Like a trim. Yeah, yeah, trim. Maybe we do the sand color and the trim.

That sounds boring, but whatever. I mean, maybe we just go classic colors. Just go purple and teal. That's fair. Yeah, that's fair. You should always go purple and. copper accents. Ooh, there you go.

Whatever you need to do. I would suggest going to the DNVR bar because they are wonderful people there, but that's not going to get you away from this. So I don't know. I strongly suggest you don't convert, though. It does not seem like the grass is much greener on that side of the fence if you know what I'm saying. So I don't know.

Of all the teams that, you know, like you could fall in love with, the Rockies are not at the forefront of that list right now. No, definitely not. The Diamondbacks are, you know, you're just being an unbiased baseball fan. The Diamondbacks, the immediate future looks quite a bit more promising than the immediate future of the Colorado Rock. Chris Bryantal doesn't seem so good. Let me tell you that. That doesn't seem so good.

Anyway, and Chris says people aren't fleeing Denver for months of baseball season because the sun is trying to kill them. Okay, fine, Chris. That's valid. But that is a great point. Yeah. I mean, I feel like the personal shot attack. here and shots were fired at Arizona that didn't need to happen.

Kyle says I live in social or SoCal, sorry, so social I live in social. I live in social. If anyone lives in social, Derek, it's you. It's you. I'm always on Twitter all the time. 3 a.m. 11 o'clock at night, 10 in the morning. I'm always there. Kyle says, I live in SoCal and rep Dvex all the time. It isn't too bad once you get used to it. Just don't expect much in the way of team camaraderie. Yeah, like you're not going to bump into a bunch of people

and be like, hey, fellow Dbex fan. I will say that when I am in another city, like when I was in Seattle, and I pumped into a guy wearing Cardinal stuff at the wrestling show. And we both had a good laugh at the fact that one of their bad guys played the end of the Super Bowl that the Seahawks lost on the screen in the arena and it was delightful. You would see those people and you high five and you hug even tighter than you would. Just if you were a normal fan, you see your fellow fans all the time. That's true.

If you're in another state and you see a Diamondbacks fan. Oh, I lose my mind. Yeah, there's got to be quite a moment there because. at least like, I don't know. It's a very low probability of that actually. Where in the U.S. outside of Arizona do you think there are the most? Like, can we even identify a place where there's like a contingent of Diamondbacks fans outside of Arizona? No, I can't.

I can't think of any. Do they still have some followers in Australia from like when they played over there? I don't know that was a thing for a while. Yeah, I haven't really heard much from Australian baseball fan Diamondbacks fans recently. We were number one in Brazil. I don't know if we still are. That's true. Yeah, we were the number one baseball podcast in Brazil.

So clearly Brazil is teaming with Dinembacks fans. We'll figure it out. Of course, if you haven't done so already, make sure to hop on the Drafking Sportsbook app as a new customer. You can sign up. Football is here. And we are doing football again. The wild card playoffs is going to be a blast. And of course, all new and existing customers can get a no sweat bet each day of the wildcard round this coming weekend.

Just place any NFL bet of your choice. and if it loses, you will get a free bet back up to $10. If you're a new customer, get down on using our promo code of PHNX. New customers can bet $5 on the NFL and you will get $200 in free bets instantly. Nothing else attached to that one. Just get down as a new customer and get some free bets. Only at the Drafking Sportsbook app with code PHNX. Minimum age and eligibility restrictions apply.

See show notes for details. Words are hard to me sometimes. So excuse me on that. Of course, if you haven't done so already, make sure to bet on the Natty National Championship. Check out our bets over on PHNX Betts. Of course, you can get down on that. There is an opt-in right now that might get you up to a 100% boost on your bet for the national championship games.

So as much as I want to say, go Georgia, because I did bet on the dogs. Oh, hail the Hypnottoad. So whatever happens, I'm going to be good with it. Either the underdog is going to win and I'll be happy or the team I bet 50 bucks on is going to win. But you can get down on that. You can hedge your bets emotionally like that. Over at the Draft King Sportsbook app. Of course, we thank you guys, again, so much for being here.

Things are exciting. Baseball is happening, and we can't wait as we move closer and closer to not only the world. Baseball classic. We're like a month away from pitchers and pitchers. We are about a month and like, I would say, five or six days. So basically a month and a week, kind of. I'm so excited to have, like, baseball to watch again. And I'm also like, be careful what you wish for because from mid-February to October.

I'm going to be a, I'm not. I'm not going to have a life whatsoever. Me and my wife have this day where I sing to her wife left John's gone until November song and then we kiss and embrace because that's the last time we're going to see each other for a long, a long time. She's accepting of it. That's how our marriage works. Of course, we thank you guys so much for being here.

So much baseball coming up. Not only do we have spring training coming up, world baseball classic. We also have the Savannah bananas coming into town right as the season opens up. And then we have baseball season. So much baseball coming soon. we have one more bullpen arm on the way potentially. Mike Kazen seemed to seem to indicate that. I don't know, but was that Mike Hazen in the shadows in the dark?

Yeah, we can't really, yeah, we can't really be sure. Yeah, his lighting wasn't good enough to identify. We are going to mail the debacks a ring light for Mike Hazen, and it's just, it's complimentary of PHN. We just want you to try harder. That's all we want. Just get a ring light is all we're asking. But of course, we thank you guys. I think he likes it.

I think he likes being in the shadows. Yeah. because he was, when we did a press conference for, I think it was one of the relievers, he was on vacation. And I think it was dark in Arizona and it was light wherever he was. But the way he positioned his camera was such that you couldn't see him at all. Like it was a complete silhouette. It's like, I'm pretty sure he like he kind of likes it. He's trying to like position his camera perfectly so that, you know, he just kind of lingering in the shadows.

He's going to do the Elon Musk floating head thing again. in the next meeting we have with them. But hopefully that meeting will bring maybe an Andrew Chafin to the Arizona Diamondbacks. So that's something to look forward to still as we move on. But again, we thank you guys so much for being here. As always, you can follow us on Twitter. I'm at K-Ur-K-Man with a K.

This guy is at Jesse N. Friedman. Our shows at P-HNX underscore D-Backs. But of course, all roads lead to at P-NX underscore Sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. We appreciate you on behalf of our new homie Damon, Fage. Jesse and myself. Thank you guys so much for joining us. And remember, kids, baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun when JJ Watt retires to buy a portion of your team. Let's go, JJ!