PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - The House that MLB Built

Episode Date: October 19, 2021

On this episode, Derek and Jesse are discussing a surprising NLCS, changes being made to MLB streaming services, and big news on improving the housing conditions for minor league players. 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-BACs podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Montia, occasionally known as the mayor of PHNX, not even occasionally known as full-time, committed, paper-pushing mayor of PHNX. And I'm happy to be that for you all. And of course, this show is brought to you by the Draft King Sportsbook app. Draft King's Sportsbook app is America's top-rated sportsbook app. You can jump on there right now and use our code of PHAF. for betting $5 on any NFL team, you will get $200 in free bets if that team wins.

Again, just $5. I'll tell you this much. We were talking a lot today about the Cardinals and their next matchup against the Texans. They're favored by 17 points currently. Might be a good time to drop that $5 bet on the money line. Don't worry about that. Don't worry about that covering that spread. Just drop it on the money line.

But you guys can do what you want and have a good. time on the Draft King Sportsbook app. Of course, I am happy to have you guys here for a little baseball talk. I am joined by my vice, vice mayor. The only Jesse Friedman. Derek, I'm a big Braves fan today. How about you? We all are, Jesse.

We all are. Holy shit. What a series that we are seeing right now. We asked the question just on this podcast on Friday about who was going to be the Dodgers. We were obviously immediately overlooking the Braves. The Braves have, you know, had a great run here at the end. They have a really good team. They've experienced some injuries. So I think that's why without Akuna, Akuna, I think a lot of people just kind of wrote them off. But I mean, man, they have really stepped up and delivered against the Dodgers team.

They really have. I mean, in dramatic fashion, no less, right? I mean, back to back walkoffs. I mean, this has been super, super fun to watch. It's Choctober, Jesse. It's Choctober. It really is. I mean, I always love the postseason, Derek, and I'm sure you do too, you know, even in years where the, where the diamond backs aren't in there. It's always just fun to watch. But this year has been something else, man.

I mean, there's been, there have been a lot of close games. I feel like pretty much every game I tune into, at least it feels like, you know, comes right down to the wire. And that's really what creates, you know, lasting memories in baseball. is when we have moments like this in the playoffs. And yeah, I mean, I don't want to get too carried away with this because the Braves were in a very similar situation last year facing the Dodgers. They had a three to one lead in that series and they ultimately lost the series four games to three.

Correct. So I don't want to like, let's not go too far. I mean, we're going back to Dodgers Stadium, right? I mean, this is, this is still a really tough fight for the Braves against the team that is just has absurd talent. but I think we're seeing the NLBS kind of wear on the Dodgers a little bit. After everything that they had to do to win that series against the Giants, they're kind of running out of arms, it seems like.

They used Julio Urius yesterday. Max Scherzer said at the beginning of his outing, apparently he told Dave Roberts, like, my arm feels kind of dead. And we saw that in his outing, right? He did not last nearly as long as you normally expect Max Scher to last. And yeah, I mean, that just, just kind of goes along with the point that the Dodgers put in a lot of work into that series against San Francisco and now against Atlanta,

they're going to have to, you know, they're going to have to find a way to throw everything they can at the Atlanta Braves now in order to win what appears to be another tough series for them. That is the absolute best part about this is that the Dodgers essentially had to pull out all the stops in order to beat the San Francisco Giants. And they barely did it, right? in a very close game in a very close series. They were able to pull out the win.

It was a controversial ending, but to say the least, it was an amazing series, the first matchup between these two teams. And I mean, it almost feels like the Dodgers have a little bit of a hangover. You're right. The Braves do have the home field advantage. So that is part of this as well. I think the Dodgers, I think Dave Roberts and the Dodgers overplayed their hand a bit just to get past the Giants.

and now they're dealing with the lingering ramifications of that, a bullpen and a starting rotation that's kind of in disarray, you know, not not something that they still can't get back on track, but something that he kind of played, you know, played the game with to the point where now he's left figuring out who's going to start, when guys are going to start,

if guys are going to pitch on a couple of days rest instead of their normal, you know, four or five days rest, it's and honestly it's it's going to be a tough series here against the Braves and if they make the World Series if they can make it past the Braves it's going to be a tough series in in the World series so the Dodgers have a lot of managing here as far as their their arms are concerned their pitchers are concerned and on the Brave side I mean we haven't even seen Charlie Morton pitch yet and he's the best pitcher on the entire Braves pitching staff as far as I'm concerned So the Braves haven't really even used all of their weapons just yet.

Freddie Freeman has actually not played well at all so far. I think he is like 0 for 8 with seven strikeouts or something like that. He has really struggled to this point in the series. So the Braves still have some weapons that they haven't really even tapped into yet. And I know you could say the same thing on the Dodgers side, right? Walker Bueller hasn't pitched as of yet. Mookie Betts, I don't think has done a whole lot so far in the series. Which I think that's the matchup tomorrow, right?

Is Bueller versus Charlie Morton, right? That's going to be a great pitching matchup. Yeah, no, that should be super fun to watch. But I don't know. I mean, Charlie Morton is the best that the Braves have to offer. And with, I mean, if Charlie Morton can come out in game three and do what Charlie Morton has been doing for a good portion of this season, I mean, staring down a three nothing deficit, even for the Dodgers.

I mean, that's going to put that. I could put them in a really tough position. And this is a must-win game essentially for L.A. I imagine the Braves aren't going to forget about what happened last year either when they had a lead against the same team, right? So I feel like, yes, there is sometimes very little you can do against a Dodgers team that is as potent offensively and has as many weapons, you know, still, like you said, in their bullpen and in their starting rotation. I just think that the Braves are definitely going to approach this, you know, learning from their mistakes with the lead that they have. I just, I don't know.

I mean, it feels like it's pretty good. We'll see how that ends up on the other side. On the ALCS, we have the Red Sox and Astros tied at 1-1. Again, another exciting series. The Astros definitely look like they have probably all the teams that are left. They are the teams that seems like they're overcoming. injuries and loss of personnel the most. And they're still figuring it out.

But I think this Red Sox team could easily take this series based on what we saw in the game two. It's living up to the hype, especially, you know, we expected this series to be high scoring. And it has been that, right? At least relative to what we saw, what we've seen recently from some of the other series, 5-4 Astros in game one and then 9-5 Red Sox in game two. It's been a lot of fun to watch just with all the offense.

And that was expected. I mean, these are two teams where the pitching staff is not exactly what you expect from teams that are meeting in the ALCS, right? The Red Sox kind of have Nathan Evaldi and then Chris Sale, who's not really himself. And then after that, it's a little sketchy for the Red Sox. And on the Astros side, it's kind of equally sketchy. They don't really have a true number one, especially without Lance McCullers right now. So these teams, as far as their pitching staffs go or, you know, maybe not. exactly what you expect in the ALCS, but on the offensive side, Derek, I mean, these teams are

about as good as you could possibly imagine. And that's made for some pretty fun baseball to watch as well. I think that's the biggest part about the final four teams left right now in baseball, is that any of them can win it. None of them would be surprising at this point. They've all, I think they've all, you know, suffered their fair share of injuries, loss of star, players. You can't say that enough about the Dodgers. They don't have Max Muncie. You know, I think that no matter, and it's a marathon, right? That's what it comes down to this Dodgers Brave series. You can sprint all you want past the Giants, but that's just, that's just a third of the way to your end goal. So you got to maintain a certain pace,

and it'll be interesting to see if the Dodgers can kind of recover from all of that overmanagement to win that series. For all the flack that Tori Lavello gets, I have to give a shout out to Dodgers fans in this time who somehow like Dave Roberts is just the fall guy for everything. In that organization, it seems like Dodgers' Twitter is always, always clamoring about what Dave Roberts is done. And I mean, I guess I see it, right?

I mean, yesterday's game, the way that he's approached managing these last few games has been a little unorthodox in some ways. But I saw a story that came out today, Derek, that basically said that Dave Roberts is not really making a lot of these decisions himself. A lot of these decisions in terms of, you know, what bullpen guys they're putting in what spots. A lot of this is coming from from higher ups, from people above Dave Roberts who are kind of feeding him instructions on how to play these different situations. So that's, I guess, part of modern baseball, right? The guys upstairs, you know, playing with the spreadsheets and whatnot. those guys are having a say in this too.

And I think that, you know, that's probably something Dodgers fans need to hear right now is it's not all your man, Dave Roberts, who's making these decisions. And I imagine when it comes to the Diamondbacks, it's probably similar. It's probably not all Tori Lavello making these decisions. I'm sure a lot of the things he's done throughout the year,

you know, were at least informed by things that he's been told by people above him. I think that's definitely the case. I have personally attacked, attacked and and completely unfairly blamed Dan Herron at times because Yeah, Dan Heron, oddly enough, is sort of a

fall guy around here too. Just being the pitching strategist numbers, the pitching strategist, the problem is, is that these guys speak in code, right? So when you go to a Madison Bumgarner or Mason Saunders interview, depending who he is that day, you'll hear weird things that he's not trying

to give out too much information, but he's like such an honest person that he'll say something. Or, you know, it's like when we heard about Catelle Marte being asked about switching positions and him not sounding like he was a big fan of it, but basically saying I'll do whatever the club asks me to do. When you say something like that, it's basically saying, I don't like it, but, you know, this is my job and my boss told me to do it, just like what you're saying. I feel like with some of the things Bumgarner said during the stretches where he was having difficulties, he made it sound like he was being given too much information.

So that's why I speculate, like I said, unfairly, that Dan Heron might have something to blame with some of the troubles this pitching staff has had, mostly because baseball at times is a very analytical game. Yes, you have to have these numbers and yes, you have to know a lot of this information tendencies and all of that. That's why the shift works so well against certain guys and can completely ruin a batter's career based on the fact that they can't do anything. hit to the right side.

You know, there's things with pitching analytics, obviously, that are important. You and I both play MLB the show. We know how important the blue and the red zone is when we're looking at the strike zone and whatnot, right? These are all things that are good, it's good information. But at the end of the day, it's still someone grabbing a ball in their hand and throwing it, you know, 90 feet away from him. And it takes me back to Paul Goldschmidt, Paul Goldschmidt and his simplistic approach

to batting where he would. just always say he was just trying to hit the ball hard, right? Right, right. I know, I know things are more complicated than that, even for someone like Goldman, he just doesn't feel like explaining it. The bigger thing for me is there seems to be a common thread with the debacks pitching staff, and I don't know what that common thread is. The only common thread I can link anything to is Heron,

because even Herges has only been here for two seasons. And yes, we saw the pitching staff definitely take a down to, turn with Heron, but it's not like they were elite prior to, you know, or I'm sorry, with Herges, but prior to Herges being here. It just makes me wonder at times if the analytics might be a problem. I don't even know if Dan Heron's still around. He's one of those secret things like the Humidor that we don't even know if it still exists because they don't talk about it, right? But I mean, I could just see in a game like this, especially for some guys, right? You're right. Younger guys are growing up in an age of analytics, so they're probably

probably way more used to it than old old timing cowboy guy, you know, riding his horse and wanting to just do his, you know, pitch his pitches, pitches every five days and prep the way he knows how to prep and the way he's prepped his entire career. Yeah. Matt Hurgis is not a big analytics guy. So I think you're, you're on point. There's probably something else there, right? I don't think this is all coming from, from Matt Hurgis. But on your earlier note about MLB the show, when you said that, I have, I had this picture in my mind of, you know, all of the diamond backs advanced analytics people just playing MLB the show looking at like the the you know the red spots and that's a good move you'd save so much time yeah that's how they figure it out Derek that's

that's where all the diamond backs you know analytics guys spend their time they're just playing melby the show you know jesse the blue spots and the red spots it doesn't take much to impress me let me tell you i don't it's not the gameplay it's not the improvements they made it's not like oh it has a faster, faster refresh rate or, you know, the graphics are so much better on the PlayStation 5. You know what gets me is that I can play like the live schedule on there. Yeah. That's still, as an adult that has played baseball games my entire life who's 40, I still can't wrap my mind how that's even possible, how I can just go on and play the current day's schedule

of baseball games and have everything be up to date. The lineups are all set to the way that those teams are setting. their lineups, batting averages, and guys suck in real life. They're sucking in the game. That's the way it is. It is incredible. And that'll be the show is, yeah, we're going to have to do a little tournament at some point. For sure.

And I think the team should save themselves a lot of trouble and just do exactly what we just said, right? And I think you should save yourself a lot of trouble and go download the Draft King's Sportsbook app. The Draft Kings is NFL's official betting partner. And of course, you can get $200 in

free bets for simply downloading the Draft King SportsPick app using our code of PHNX and betting $5 on any team to win. As long as that team wins, you will get your $200 in free bets. Again, go Cardinals. You guys, I know your listeners today and not viewers and you can't see what I'm doing, but I'm holding up my Kyla Murray jersey right now. And I'm encouraging everybody to say go Cardinals because six and no, it's an exciting time. And man, they're really picking up the slack for what the debacks did this season.

season. So thank you, Arizona Cardinals. But again, use that code of PHNX and you will get your $200 in free bets simply for betting $5 on any NFL team to win their game. As long as they do, winner winner, chicken dinner, that simple. Download the Draft King Sportsbook app now and use that code of PHNX, 21 and over only, Arizona only, gambling problem, dial 1,800 next step, new customers only, eligibility restrictions apply. See draftkings.com slash sportsbook for details. And it's not just draftkings.com slash sportsbook that we want you to go to. We want you to go over to go P-HNX.com. Check out our work.

I wrote a piece this past weekend on, you know, why everybody should just appreciate that game that we saw. I totally understand people's feelings on it. I started off my day by dropping a big FU to Robert Orr just for fun on Twitter. That's how I started off my Monday. So I understand. That's like you start every Monday, right, Derek. Pretty much.

It's a good way to start a Monday, just. I will say this. Petiness is totally okay with me, and I understand people not being excited about that series, because as far as most DeBAC fans were concerned, they would have preferred a tie where both teams lost, and the Braves just automatically went on to the World Series. However, I think that it should be appreciated for what it was,

one of the best divisional rivalry series that we've seen in the playoffs in years. And please, if you would, check that out, see if you agree with me. It's on go phtnx.com. You can become a member, either 50 cents a month, or either a month-to-month option where they'll get 50 cents for your first month, or of course, there's that annual membership option. I'm always talking about where you will get a free t-shirt.

You can go over to p.nx locker.com and get your free t-shirt. I've even heard a little rumor because I mostly, you guys are getting this information, mostly because I've been hyping up that coyote shirt. But I heard a rumor that the coyotes, our low coyotes group over there, is even going to hook you up with a gift card. for the PHNX Locker.com for signing up as an annual member on top of getting your free t-shirts. So check out that offer with those guys. And as a matter of fact, check out all of our fine shows on the PHNX Network.

I am happy to be a part of this. Today, I was on three different shows because of how much I love Arizona sports. Oh, my gosh. And mostly how much I love. I like gambling, Jesse. I like gambling. And I took some losses. I jab back and got some wins this weekend.

And I did that all in the Draft King Sports. You can too and use that code PHNX. But we have some more exciting news about an app or about convenience for you as a baseball fan. Not just can you use the Drafking sportsbook app to get your bets in, not do what I did in Vegas, stand in some long stupid line at the link waiting to put in a physical bet with some guy who was just going to just shame you. He just snoop-nazied me the whole way through my parlay and my order, right? But right now, per the New York Post, MLB is in talks to launch,

nationwide streaming service for home games without cable TV. And we're talking about no blackouts, Jesse. No more blackout restrictions. No more. Oh, I live in Las Vegas, and that's apparently too close to Chase Field for me to get games or no more of any of this stuff. There is so much nonsense with the blackouts.

MLB, I think 100% has shot themselves in the foot with how they restrict access to watching their sport. A sport, by the way, hate to break this to you, isn't very popular lately. So maybe, just maybe, this might be a step in the right direction to get everybody access to their favorite teams and to have no more of these nonsensical blackout restrictions. And honestly, if you'd ask me like even a year ago, honestly, if you'd ask me last week if the MLB would ever get rid of blackout restrictions, I would have been like, I mean, I'd like to think so. but probably not, right? It just kind of felt like this thing that's been around for years and years, right? MLB.tv has never given fans the ability to watch local games.

And yeah, it just kind of felt like the structure, the, you know, way that this entire system works with the cable network sort of having all of the leverage, it seemed like that was just something that would never change. And this is, this is truly groundbreaking. I mean, if this is something that could happen, basically what's being proposed here is a streaming service that is essentially run by Major League Baseball. And there are some rumors that other leagues might want in on this too, so that maybe you could pay one price and get your local MLB games,

maybe NHL, NFL, NBA, maybe a couple of those on top of that just for the price of one. But the idea here, Derek, is that Valley Sports Arizona, right, the network that carries Diamondbacks games, and the Sinclair Broadcast Group, which owns all of the Bally Networks. There's a whole bunch of them across the country. They're in pretty deep water right now. They spent essentially way too much money when they acquired all of the regional sports networks from Fox. And now they're in a pretty tough spot.

And essentially what that's doing is it's giving Major League Baseball the leverage in this situation to actually kind of take this thing over. And Major League Baseball is trying to essentially just take all of these rights away and make it their own and make it their own streaming service. And there's still some negotiations that have to happen here. The regional sports networks and Claire, they want to have control over the whole thing. Major League Baseball doesn't want them to have control over the whole thing. So there's still some details to work out here. But this is really exciting.

I mean, they're talking about somewhere between like $10 and $20 a month, something in that range, which I can speak from experience, Derek. I share a direct TV stream account with my family members. And the only reason we have it is in order to watch, you know, Balli Sports Arizona, essentially. It's, it's only the local networks that we really care about. And it costs like a hundred bucks a month. So this would be a huge home run, even just for me and my family. And I know there's, you know, a lot of our listeners probably do the same thing. Sometimes you kind of get roped into buying cable or buying some sort of a streaming service just because you want one thing. And this could be a real game changer for those people and give them a much cheaper option

where they can just get what they want. It's so wild because you're right. Really, when I think about what we watch on TV, few things that I watch as television programs aren't available on one of the streaming services that I also pay for on top of my direct TV. Yeah. I almost pay primarily for direct TV because I want local news and stuff. sports, which is absurd because I have the full package. I have every channel.

At this point, we all have like 12 different streaming subscriptions. Exactly. And we just kind of deal with it. Well, and when I go to some of them and I see the availability of shows on there, right? Like the WWE network, obviously me being a huge wrestling fan, I had that. And they condensed it down into Peacock, which is NBC's network. But then they also lowered the price on it to $4.99. And it doesn't work very well, especially during live.

pay-per-views it's kind of atrocious uh they still don't let you like pause or rewind while you're watching you know stuff like that is direct tv stream you're just yeah yeah things like that that are just kind of silly that you should be able to do in in 2021 you know but uh still it it reduced my bill as far as what i was paying for that network in half and it mixed it up with all of this great content from peacock right that i mean just shows like i like and movies and stuff like that I've just noticed that between the networks I have, I don't really have a need for TV. I don't even really watch a lot of things live anymore anyway. I typically watch it recorded on a TVR, right?

But sports definitely watch live. And sports is my main reason for keeping it. So we'll see what happens with this. It's exciting. I think anything that kind of changes this hold that companies have over us to overcharge us for, you know, watching things we don't want to watch. right? Yeah.

350 channels that I don't need as opposed to the ones that I do, you know, and I still can't get Pack 12 network. Damn it. But anyway, yeah, that's going to definitely change things. That's a game changer. And you know what else is a game changer, Jesse? Manscaped. Manscape.com is a game changer.

It's going to change the game for you. It's going to change everything for you. Of course, this Halloween, Jesse, you know, it's, you know, it's spookier than seeing a black cat on Halloween. Oh, gosh. Having two hairy full moons and some nose hairs in your face, son. Now I'm just

reading the ad reads. You're going to hear these and this is what's going to happen. When it comes to below the waist grooming, get your man or get yourself shaved up. I'm reading the female Halloween ad and that's never good. But you know, get yourself hooked up this Halloween with 20%

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Of course, we still need to have that talk. But spend the spooky season using the best tools for the job at Manscape. And don't forget. Also, go over to draftkings.com and use. our code of PHNX, and you will get $200 in free bets for betting $5 on any NFL team, as long as that team wins their game. So you pick a winner, you get your money from that bet, plus you get $200 in free bets. It's a $5 bet minimum, but you can bet more than that.

Go bet on the Cardinals. I already told you to do that earlier. They're awesome, and so are you. So thank you guys so much for listening and go check out Draft King's Sportsbook app. now we got one more piece of breaking MLB news what is all this breaking news talking about game changing man this man this one is game changing because this address is a problem that we just discussed recently on the show which is mental health and just kind of the treatment of minor leaguers in the baseball system the way that minor league players kind of have to fend for themselves

on these really minimal salaries and are expected to not only you know make it to major league level with with that little pay but also i think overall as i suggested how are you enticing the top athletes in the world that have an interest in baseball to come play when they hear about these conditions obviously some kids get bigger signing bonuses than others some are drafted higher but at the end of the day to hear these stories would make me very concerned now per jeff Passan. Breaking news, Major League Baseball teams will provide housing for minor league baseball players starting in 2022. Sources tell ESPN, Jesse, how big is this for baseball as a whole? This is huge, man. I mean, it literally Jeff Passen's article starts out amid mounting pressure

from players and advocacy groups, right? Like the Major League Baseball has had no choice but to hear the cries of many people out there have been talking about this issue for a while and they've responded and owners it says in this article voted unanimously to put this plan in place. So it is it is great to see major league baseball coming out and supporting minor leakers in this way.

And I know you know I mean minor league baseball players obviously we talked about last show they're not necessarily bringing in thousands of thousands of dollars for the organization but this is just this is just a good thing to do right. I mean give these guys just a place to live. And, you know, I mean, they're not going to be living super lavishly by any means, right? Sure. You're not necessarily making their life like overly comfortable or anything.

But it's just a, it's just a great thing to do, right? Essentially, this, this requires major league baseball to either give players a living stipend that they can use to find housing themselves or to just directly provide that housing themselves for the players. And this is just a, it's just a great, It's just a great situation. And honestly, there's really no bad side of this, right? I mean, it's just great for everyone involved. It hopefully gives players a more comfortable situation where they can, they can just thrive and, you know, hopefully become the players that they're really capable of being.

When we talked about the salaries that we brought up the other day, we were talking about single A players making $10,000 a year. I understand we broke it down in the five months that they perform and all of that. but still 10,000 to $14,000 a year is not a livable wage. And I don't really, I can't really wrap my mind around, again, as we talked about, neglecting your investment like that when these kids are supposed to be the future of your organization and the future of the sport, right? Right. This move makes all the sense in the world and it feels absolutely like the right thing to do.

It's a shame that we had to have, you know, people go through what they've gone through to tell those stories that have affected this, right? The article we talked about on our show last week was about, you know, mental health issues and how there have been multiple players that have attempted suicide based on their conditions and just, you know, being in the situation. Yeah. Yeah, it's huge. I mean, we literally talked about this like at the end of last week. I don't know if, I don't know if Major League Baseball's commissioners, you know, and the owners are all listening to our podcast. No, that's exactly what it is.

They're listening. They heard us out. They were like, you know what? This mayor guy's on to something. I'm going to tell you guys right now, I don't want a job. I know it's a thankless job in baseball. So I don't come offering me any kind of position to manage this situation for you. It's not happening.

I will consult for very, very high fee, but I will not take on any kind of responsibility. Baseball seems to be a mess. I don't even know how to get out of it. I mean, I would start with Saturday morning cartoons about, players and shit like that. I wouldn't even know where to start building a new fan base, getting them out of the situation. I've noticed people really don't like the changes that have been made to the game.

I for one appreciate like extra inning games going faster with some of the changes and such, right? But really what it comes down to it, and again, I'm going to reference wrestling here, is after a while when Vince McMahon and the WWE treat people bad for so long, especially you as a fan feel bad watching that thing anymore. I was at a bar today that my friend started texting me about how a story just broke a few days ago on it and how they have like multiple reports of mistreating their female employees.

I didn't feel like finishing like I didn't feel like staying there anymore. I finished up my beer. I paid my left. Like things like that kind of can make you not want to support that thing. And the treatment of minor league players and the treatment of a lot of people in the baseball system is enough at times. to make certain people walk away from not want to, you know, support it, not want to be a part of it. I know a lot of people that cared very deeply about the players that they watched and met at the Arizona Fall League. And to see some of those players go through what they went through of not making it to the majors

and everything that, how their careers were kind of, you know, bobbled by the, by the teams that they played for, the organizations that they were a part of, broke the hearts of the fans. I knew that like, you know, fell in love with these players as rafters or, you know, any of these other AFL teams. It's, it's, it is a situation where not only can you make it where players don't want to play the game, but you can also turn fans off with that, that treatment. This is, again, just like the cable TV situation, this is a step in the right direction to making baseball a better game and, and doing right by the people that essentially,

you know, bring in the fans and give you a product. There's been, I mean, I think there's been a lot of uproar about both of these issues, really. I mean, the minor league baseball, you know, how they've been treated. That's been an issue for a long time. The blackout restrictions thing, I mean, I feel like I've been hearing about that for more than a decade. I have a t-shirt about it, Jesse. I have a t-shirt about blackout restrictions sucking. What are you going to do with that t-shirt, Derek?

I'm going to still, it's going to be like good old times. I'm going to wear it. I'm going to remember when we did have blackout restrictions and how terrible they were. It sounds like MLB.tv will continue under this plan and we'll still have blackouts. It's just that there will be this additional service that is also offered that gives you access to your local team. So I guess maybe your shirt is still semi-relevant for the people who only have MLB. TV for whatever reason. You know what?

I know how much you're going to hate this. So I'm going to give you one more connection here to WWE. And that is the people that designed the MLB TV are the same ones that designed the WWE network. It was the same company and be behind both, right? Both seem to work pretty well as far as accessibility. I think obviously there's no blackout restrictions with pro wrestling. So that was the big culprit with the MLB, you know, with MLB TV. But I did enjoy, I like MLB TV's access to clips and finding things easily. I like the accessibility of it. There's a lot of things to like and there's a lot of things to build on. It seems like a simple way to allow people to pay the money for

the service and get to watch whatever god damn team they want to like that's really what it should be at the end of the day whether you live in Hawaii or you live in Alaska or you live in Phoenix and you want it to watch the Diamondbacks you should be able to watch your team no matter what and you know that's it's as simple as that it's crazy to think that it ever became anything other than that especially when you talk about a streaming subscription service that's supposed to give you access to every major league baseball game essentially that's televised. It's just crazy what the price tag is, right? Yeah.

Oh, yeah. The problem is that, you know, it's out there. You can, like you can watch Diamondbacks games if you live in Phoenix. But the only way to do it is to pay basically a minimum of $100 a month because you have to get the entire cable subscription or the entire DirecTV stream subscription. Correct. And there's just no way around that. And that's just a huge barrier to people being able to be.

fans of their local teams when the when the threshold that you have to reach is a hundred dollars a month just to have access to watch those games so this is this has the potential to be huge for baseball absolutely uh and also what's huge for baseball this podcast y'all i'm hoping you guys are enjoying what we're putting out uh you can go over to go p hnx.com again sign up for either an annual membership or one of those month-to-month jobs you'll get your first month for 50 cents also If you're watching this on YouTube, I don't know how that's possible because this is an audio only podcast. I'm just shut up, shut up. We're just going with it. Go download one of your favorite apps and subscribe to us there.

Obviously, you're probably already listening to us on one of those or on megaphone. So if you're doing that, subscribe to us on your favorite podcasting app. Go over to YouTube, subscribe to PHNX Sports over there, sign up for notifications. You'll get all of the wonderful array of Airs. on the sports shows that we have to provide from the Phoenix Suns podcast. I was super hot today talking about DeAndre Ait and not getting his extension to the Cardinals, which I appeared on today talking about an incredible win against Cleveland Browns. One I am calling a very surprising but confidence building win in a team that absolutely was

not at 100% still found a way to dominate the Cleveland Browns that are a good team. So all sorts of great content over there. Of course, you can follow us on Twitter. I am at Capital. underscore caveman with a k. Jesse is at Jesse N. Friedman, but all roads lead to at P.HNX underscore sports. You can follow them on Twitter. You can follow them on Facebook and you can follow them on Instagram. Jesse, I look forward to watching so much more baseball with you. And I like these changes. I think it's going to make it happen even more. So you come down here, though. You come down

here, you can sign up for it and then you don't have to worry about blackout restrictions when you get back down to Phoenix. Thank you guys. Yes, absolutely. Thank you guys again for listening. And remember, kids, baseball is fun, but it is so much more fun when you bet on it.