PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - The latest on the Arizona Diamondbacks' farm system

Episode Date: August 25, 2022

Jesse and Jacob discuss the latest on Blake Walston’s resurgence, Jordan Lawlar’s aggressive promotion to Double-A and everything else you want to know about the Diamondbacks’ top-ranked farm system.They also laud Zac Gallen’s 27.1-inning scoreless streak and preview this weekend’s series against the Chicago White Sox.SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeWebsite: https://gophnx.com PHNX Locker: https://phnxlocker.com/Head on over to The PHNX Locker to pick up one of our new PHNX hats!SOCIAL: Twitter: https://twitter.com/PHNX_DbacksInstagram: https://instagram.com/PHNX_Sports Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app now (https://bit.ly/3Jl1dMX), use promo code PHNX and make your first deposit and get a RISK-FREE BET UP TO ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS. Minimum age and eligibility restrictions apply.If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, crisis counseling and referral services can be accessed by calling 1-800-GAMBLER (1-800-426-2537) (IL/IN/MI/NJ/PA/WV/WY), 1-800-NEXT STEP (AZ), 1-800-522-4700 (CO/NH), 888-789-7777/visit http://ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-BETS OFF (IA), 1-877-770-STOP (7867) (LA), 877-8-HOPENY/text HOPENY (467369) (NY), visit OPGR.org (OR), call/text TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN), or 1-888-532-3500 (VA). 21+ (18+ WY). Physically present in AZ/CO/CT/IL/IN/IA/LA/MI/NJ/NY/PA/TN/VA/WV/WY only. Min. $5 deposit required. Eligibility restrictions apply. See http://draftkings.com/sportsbook for details.OGeez! We have free stuff for you! Enter the “Flavoring Life” sweepstakes. One winner will receive 3, YES THREE, bags of OGeez including Orange Creamsicle and Tropical flavors, an OGeez! Hat, a PHNX shirt of your choice and a PHNX annual membership. Sign up at gophnx.com or visit https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfIplqDYsxYeiotn5Zc6hRahaX0a5qG99eHVzkhOlGZDRdgUA/viewform Check out OGeez! online at ogeezbrands.com and on Instagram @ogeezbrands. You can also find their products at your local dispensary. Must be 21 years or older to purchase.Enter to win the “Toast of the Month” sweepstakes to win a $50 Four Peaks gift card, a PHNX shirt of your choice, and a PHNX annual membership. Go to goPHNX.Com or visit https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfOabxo8KQxOWwn9wTilMBuTMAJdrL0CaH9lzfuJqgKN9vfSg/viewform FOCO has you covered with the best Arizona Merchandise. They have officially licensed gear for men, women and kids and everything from bobbleheads to swimsuits to crocs. Head on over to foco.com. For all non pre-sale items use the promo code “PHNX” for 10% offTake advantage of Mor Furniture’s Labor Day sale at https://morfurniture.com 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.

Welcome in to the PHNX Diamondback show, brought to you by the Drafking Sportsbook app. America's number one rated sportsbook app. My name is Jesse Friedman, and I am joined today, not by Derek Montia. He is still off in California hanging out with a bunch of people whose names I don't even know. But today I'm joined by, it probably is. It probably is. But frankly, Jacob, it wouldn't be the first time I've disappointed people with my lack of pop culture knowledge. on this show. That's sort of par for the course for me. But Jacob, we're happy to have you here

today filling in for the mayor of PH&X today. Of course, course. I was pretty disappointed in you when Derek was sending photos from the red carpet event. Did you see his Instagram story? Do you see that he met Machete? Do you know who Machete is? Please tell me. No idea. No idea who Machete is not a clue. Yeah. I mean, machete is not, it doesn't sound like a name. It sounds like, you know, like an object to me. But, but, uh, but anyway, yeah, my, my, my, my, my hair pod. Yeah, there you go. There you go. We're with a good hair pod on now. That's exactly. We're also the, the tall white guy, uh, podcast as well. When it's me and when it's me and Fodge. Uh, but it should be, uh, should be a fun show today. We're happy to have all of you here with us in the comments. We're going to do a, uh,

bit of a deep dive today into the Diamondbacks Farm System. Of course, we talk about the Diamondbacks Farm System all the time. And no, I don't know who Machete is by the Johnson. No idea. If you want me to know, you can educate me in the comments and maybe I'll pay attention. We'll see. But anyway, we're going to do some farm system talk on today's show, Jacob. But before we get there, a couple of other things I want to note from last night's game.

We didn't mention last night on our post-series show. I'm sorry, Charles Willall Pike. I disappoint people. That's what I do with my lack of pop culture knowledge. It's just what happens. They are. They are and I've just sort of come to terms with that at this point. But anyway, Jacob Christian Walker hit his 30th home run of the year last night.

And that is a career high for him. He had never hit 30 home runs in a season in the major leagues before. A bit of a milestone for the Diamondbacks first basement. It was a missile. It was a missile to center field. So, you know, it was a fitting way for him to get his 30th. obviously a really disappointing game you would have liked to see Zach get a win there. I mean, I know Zach's been on a tear, so you want to win pretty much every game that he's on the bump.

So for them not to be able to provide enough run support for Zach to get a win was pretty upsetting. But at least the Christian Walker home run gave it a little bit of a silver lining last night. Yeah, Elizabeth says, Jesse, you're not alone. I don't know who that is either talking about machete. So thank you, Elizabeth. Just Google him. You will recognize him if you Google it. I probably would. I probably would. I'll do that at some point later on the show. We'll see if we can, see if we can help out my ignorance a little bit.

But anyway, a big day yesterday, Jacob, not just for Christian Walker's 30th home run, but for Zach Gallen, 27 in the third innings, his scoreless streak continues. It is alive and well. I was doing a bit of a look today on candidates for August pitcher of the month in the National League. Obviously, Merrill Kelly won the award. in July. And it does not seem out of the question that Diamondback's pitchers could go back to back year. He has some stiff competition. Jacob de Grom has had a really, really good month. Justin Steele, the lefty with the Chicago Cubs has had a good month as well. But Zach Allen has thrown like 10 more innings than any of those guys this inning or this month is what I'm trying to say. So he probably has a leg up right now as far as I can tell. Back-to-back months was pitcher of the month.

Can you imagine, like, if you came to me at the beginning of the season and you said, hey, the team's not going to be great, I probably said, okay, sure. But if you came and said that they would win back-to-back pitcher of the month awards, I would have probably laughed in your face because that was one of the worst things last year on this entire team. Like, right, the pitching was probably the bane of this team last year. And the hitting wasn't great either. I mean, it was all around just kind of a bad year. but if you told me that Merrill Kelly and Zach Gallen would win back-to-back pitcher of the month awards,

I probably would have just laughed. Yeah, it's wild. It's wild with those two have been able to do this season. Both have sub three ERAs. Zach Gallen has a 60% ground ball rate in the month of August, which I think is wild. He's not normally like a ground ball artist, but that's sort of how he's doing this, is the strikeout numbers are extremely high, and the ground ball numbers are also extremely high. And when you're doing both of those things, it makes it very, very difficult for opposing hitters to really do anything off of you. Diamondbacks bullpen, Jacob, I know you weren't with us last night, so you haven't had a chance to comment on what's happened the last few days.

I believe they have an ERA north of 13 going back to the beginning of the Cardinal series. They've allowed 23 earned runs in that five-game stretch from the start of the Cardinal series to the end of that Kansas City Royal. series yesterday. It's been a little, been a little rough, Jacob. That's not great, Bob. It's not, it's not, it's not what you want from, not what you want from the back end of your, you know, you're pitching. It's just,

it's unfortunate that you have guys like, I mean, even Zach Davies, I would throw him into the mix right now, where he's, I think he's got something like a 2-1-8 over his last five starts. And Merrill Kelly's still pitching well. Zach Gallen's pitching really well. Tommy Henry's pitching well. Madison Bumgarner. Well, that's another story. because apparently he's getting skipped in the rotation.

He is. But it's really unfortunate if you get all of these great outings from your starting pitching, but then your bullpen comes in and just can't hold on to a lead and or helps the other team extend their lead, right? You're starting pitching. It isn't just to, you know, it is to keep a lead, but it's not just that, right? It's to keep you in a game that maybe they gave up a couple runs early and you're trying to claw your way back, right?

and so you need the bullpen to also kind of hold up their end of the bargain. And this team isn't asking the bullpen to do much at this point because they're getting six or seven innings out of Merrill Kelly and Zach Gallen twice through rotation. Even Tommy Henry, five and a third, a majority of the time. It's just it's unfortunate that they're not being taxed, but they're giving up all these runs because it puts the offense in a really, really hard spot. And maybe that's kind of why we've seen a little bit of the offensive struggles late in games. score a lot early, but can't seem to keep putting on the pressure late in games.

And I think that might just be because they're pressing a little too much because the bullpen is just struggling to hold on to anything. Chris says spoon feeding runs to opposition is bad. Yes, can't confirm. But yeah, I mean, as of last night, the Diamondbacks bullpen is now taking more losses than any other bullpen in Major League Baseball. I believe they're up to 31 at this point. It's a lot.

I mean, it's too many. Obviously, we don't look at wins and losses as being like, you know, the more finely tuned baseball statistics for pitchers. But when you're talking about a bullpen as a whole, like having the bullpen that has taken more losses than any other in the game is, is pretty telling and probably is a pretty good indicator of what's happened out there. The Diamondbacks bullpen has a 4.40 ERA on the season, which is quite a bit worse than they're starting pitching ERA.

Normally those things are flip-flopped. normally your starters have a higher ERA than your relievers. But you would hope for the Diamondbacks very much not the case. Their bullpen ERA is 25th in baseball entering today. So all the way around just a rough stretch for the Diamondbacks bullpen. Hopefully they can get things back on track. But Jacob, you did mention that Madison Bumgarner is being skipped the next time through the rotation.

The Diamondbacks are setting out to Chicago. for a series against the White Sox here. We have the probabilities for that matchup, as you can see here on your screen. If you're joining us live, there is no Madison Bumgarner. This is true. Madison Bumgarner is being skipped as we talked about on the show yesterday in order to work with Brent Strom and try to work out some of the kinks. But there's some fascinating pitching matchups here, Jacob.

Friday night, we've got Tommy Henry against Johnny Quato, who somehow Johnny Quato is still pitching. and is actually quite good. He is 6 and 5 with a 2.580RA. This is not the more washed up version of Johnny Quato that we saw a little bit in San Francisco. He has really turned things around with the White Sox this season. Game two, it's Merrill Kelly against a to be announced starter for the White Sox.

They still haven't announced a starter for the Saturday game as of right now. And then in the finale, it's Dylan Cease, who is by all means a Cy Young contender, very, very good. He's 12 and 6 with a 2-2-7 ERA, facing off against Zach Davies, who has been pretty solid lately for the Diamondbacks. Jacob, looking at this, what stands out to you? Well, I typically don't like to preach the unders when I'm looking at baseball games, especially Debex games because of the bullpen. But looking at these pitching matchups, I'm feeling pretty confident about some of the unders this weekend if you're looking at run lines, because that typically sits around eight and a half runs a game. So you're asking for nine runs a game out of these two teams with these guys going head to head.

I'm really excited for, is it tomorrow night? Yeah, tomorrow night's matchup. Tommy Henry going against Johnny Quedo is extremely exciting for me. Because with Tommy Henry, you kind of know what you're going to get at this point, right? Doesn't throw hard, likes to throw a lot of strikes. He's got a good couple secondary pitches to work with. but he's going up against a guy that is probably the opposite of that. You never know what you're going to get when you look at Johnny Quato pitch.

He finds creative ways to deliver the ball to the plate. Yeah, the shimmy. We love the shimmy. I think it is one of the most electric things to watch as a baseball fan. It's watching vintage Johnny Quato pitch because every single delivery is different. He tries the quick pitch. He does the shimmy. He'll sit there at the top of his, I mean, he just mixes it up.

And so to go out and watch the complete opposite of guys, right, like Tommy Henry is going to go out there. He's got a repeatable delivery every single time. You know what you're going to get from him. And then Johnny Quato, for all I know, he might throw, like he might just throw in a cartwheel and throw the ball toward the plate. Like, you just never know what you're going to see. So that one I'm super excited about.

And then the Dylan C's one, I actually haven't gotten a chance to watch a lot of White Sox games this year. And I love watching good pitching. It's why I love watching Merrill Kelly and Zach. gallon pitch, but watching Dylan Sees, I'm pretty excited about too, because yesterday, Bo Brock and I were looking up how the White Sox ended up with Dylan Sees. And man, if I told you that Jose Cantana was the only name going back to the Cubs in that deal, that would have been looking back on it now. As a Cubs fan, you're probably wondering what would have went down,

but they got a World Series out of it. So, yeah, hard to complain. Hard to complain about that. Yeah, Brett Johnson said in the comments, the White Sox hold themselves back with Tony Larusa at the helm. This is a bit of a reuniting, right, with Tony Larusa out there doing his thing in Chicago. Jacob, is it safe to say that Diamondbacks fans don't miss that guy in Arizona too much? I heard some stories on the back end of what went on in that front office when Tony LaRosa was there.

And it was some interesting stuff. So I'll just leave it at that. Let's chalk it up as a grumpy old man. That's kind of what the vibe that I was getting out of it was. But I mean, you've seen the videos this year. He's falling asleep in the dugout, whether that was true or not. There was another time where there was a video that surfaced of a fan yelling at him to go pinch run somebody in the middle of an inning.

He almost woke up out of a trance and then all of a sudden he sends him. the player out to go pinch run like yeah no safe to say Arizona is is happy to be rid of Tony Lou Rousseau right now yeah that that pinch running scene was wild it was like the fan the fans were like yelling at him and then like in short order he just like does it he just does exactly what the fans are telling him to do and it did not appear at all that he was going to make that move anyway it 100% looked like he was basically doing what the fan told them to do it was wild it was yeah it was not a good look for the white sox i know white sox fans and even our our friends over at c hdio have have definitely been less than pleased with the man at the

helm of their team because if you look at this white socks roster they should not be a 500 baseball team i mean they should be well above they had nine of baseball's top 100 prospects and almost all of those guys are up in the big leagues now right like you've got your entire fleet like this is supposed to be your window. But for some reason, like, this shows you that managing can really hold a team back, right? Like, if you make the wrong decisions, you pull the wrong strings, it can hold the team back. So I'll be curious to see what happens if they miss out on the playoffs this year. But it just hasn't been a good look in the south side over there.

It is not. It is not. But the Diamondbacks will be facing some tough pitchers over the weekend. So we'll have to see how all of it. that turns out. Giselle says spill the tea in the discord, Fajz. Giselle wants to know all of the all the dirt that you have on Tony Lerosa. Become a member and you can hear a story. Become a member and you can hear a story. It is a perfect segue because all of you should head over to go phtonx.com today and become a member of the family. You'll either get a free t-shirt from the

P H&X Locker or you'll get your first month for just 50 cents just for signing up. If you go with the annual membership, you'll get that free t-shirt. And if you go month to month, then you'll get that first month for just 50 cents. Also, I believe all of our gear is still on sale. All of you should check out our PHNX summer sale where you can get our hottest teas for up to 50% off. Head over to p.h andx locker.com. You can see our Rattler shirt on your screen there in the top right corner.

also have our Seth Servasa shirt. That one is the full 50% off. So there is no time like the present to add to your arsenal of pH and X gear. We would love, we would love for you to do that. There's no better time than right now. Also, Jacob, I haven't been in the office for a while, but I'm told that there's like stuff from more furniture, just like everywhere, like all of these lovely recliners. This is true. It's phenomenal. No, if you walk into our office space, like it's, it's like walking into the most amazing place you've ever been, right? Like, everybody dreams about having like a theater in their house, right, where they can either watch movies, play video games.

Like, I don't know about you, Jesse, but I've always wanted like a basement that I can put like rows of theater seating in for either movie night or baseball night or football Sundays. Like, it's the dream, right? You've got, so you walk into our office and you've got two rows of these really, really nice recliners from more furniture. but they're all facing this wall that has 200 inches of televisions spread across it so that we can watch just about any game that you can imagine. So we're pretty much in heaven here.

It's just as a matter of how quickly we can get the working spaces together because we're pretty set when it comes to the relaxing side of things. I mean, the relaxing side of things is really all that matters at the end of the day. Who needs Wi-Fi when you have recliners, right? That's how it works in my book. but it goes without saying that we are so excited for all of you to check out how our friends at Moore Furniture have hooked our entire office up starting at some point next week, hopefully we'll be live from our new studio space. We're super stoked to share that with you.

But yes, for more furniture, we have new furniture. We have all of these new sets and everything. It's going to be extraordinary. And if you're interested in checking out Moore's Labor Day sale, be sure to visit more furniture.com. We have a very, very, very large amount of appreciation for more furniture, given everything that Jacob just told you. So absolutely, be sure to go and check them out for their Labor Day sale right now.

But Jacob, we're going to go ahead and jump into some of our farm system talk here for the Diamondbacks. Of course, it's no secret. The Diamondbacks have one of the better farm systems at baseball. We're just going to sort of go crazy from now. through the end of the show, just talking about some updates with a lot of these different guys. Before we get into that, I want to kind of set the stage here by recognizing that today is Thursday, August 25th. If you look at your calendar, Jacob, what is one week from today? One week from today is when Corby and Carroll gets called up to the Arizona Diamondbacks on September 1st

to come play baseball games here in Phoenix. that is entirely possible entirely possible and we i guess we don't know for sure right like we're not we're not like reporting news here although chris does say that fodge doesn't lie i guess we'll find out um i don't lie i'm just an honest man fodge fodge never never told a lie never told a lie um but absolutely this is possible right corbin carroll uh could be called up literally a week from today right that we're a week out from september 1st at this point a roster do not expand to 40. Rosters expand to 28. So you're only getting two more roster spots a week from now. It's not the way that it used to be. But yes, we are approaching that time of year, right, with September call-ups. And so that's why this is becoming like really relevant at this point in the season. You know, this conversation about the farm system and how these guys are doing and who might be the best candidates to get called up. But it is entirely possible. We may only be a week away from Corby and Carroll's tenure starting in the majors, which is, of course, super exciting.

Another thing that's exciting, Jacob, is that Jordan Lawler somewhat unexpectedly was promoted to AA this past week. He'd only played 30 games in High A Hillsborough before the call up. He started. He was like three for his first 32 after being promoted to High A. And then he's hit like 370 there in the month of August. And so the Diamondbacks wound up calling him up. I do want to add a caveat here.

There is an extra piece to this puzzle that you should know about. The Hillsboro hops are in Vancouver currently. They're playing in Vancouver. And based on what we know, Jordan Lawler is not able to travel there. Presumably because of a COVID-19 related issue, we're guessing it's probably that he's not vaccinated. And so he's unable to make the trip over the border. Something COVID-19 related, that's officially all that we know. It also could be a passport situation.

We've heard from these teams that a lot of the times, they've got these young kids that when they get called up for a very brief amount of time, they have never had their passport ever purchased in their life. And so you can't get into Canada without your passport. You're looking at a possible situation where maybe he is vaccinated, but his passport situation doesn't allow him to head up to Canada with the rest of the team too. Yeah, there have been a few reports about this out there. I believe that some people have made it made it a little bit clear that it seems to be more so on the COVID-19 side of things.

But you're absolutely right that that could be a factor as well. He hasn't been playing in Hillsborough for very long and he didn't have to travel, you know, north of the border previously. So that could be a factor as well. We won't speculate on that. But either way, Jordan Lawler being promoted to double-a. there is another piece here where we for whatever reason he's unable to travel to Vancouver and so in a sense they kind of had to send him somewhere else. When this happened a couple of weeks ago, that somewhere else was low A Vysalia rather than

AA but this time the Diamondbacks made the choice to bring him up to double A. And so the question Jacob is like, is he going to stay there or is he like is he going to be sent down once the trip to Vancouver is over looking at his numbers from his first couple games in AA. He's three for nine with three singles and a walk. So he doesn't really seem like overmatched or intimidated by anything at AA. And he looks like a guy who will probably stay there as far as we can tell.

Yeah, for me, I mean, what are you going to, like, do you gain anything from sending him back down, right? Like, I think part of the reason they didn't send him down to Visalia was because he actually had hit so well over the course of the last month that maybe they, I mean, to me, this was no accident that they sent him up instead of down, right? This is a, hey, like, you seem to be handling yourself pretty well on a consistent basis in high A over the last month. Like, let's see what you can do because if he goes up for these three or four games and, you know, he's on base at a 400 clip. If he's hitting 300, like, is there a reason to send him back down, right?

This is all about progression through a minor league system. And if he shows that he's capable of handling double a pitching, right? Like there's no point in my mind for them to send him back down. Like he's only going to get more at bats. And I actually think it's really good for him because Amarillo is actually in the middle of a a playoff push. They're headed toward the playoffs. Like this could be a really big moment for him to get some experience in a postseason setting

too if he continues to stay up there. Yeah. Brett Johnson says I'm so excited to talk about Drew like this next year. Oh man, he's gone from low A to double A. one year. Yeah, I mean, possible, right? We don't want to necessarily set the bar that eye for a guy who's 18 years old. But yeah, I mean, you never know what could happen.

But yeah, I think the optics for me of like bringing Jordan Lawler up to double A and having him do okay and then bringing him back down is just really bizarre. Like it just doesn't really seem like something the Diamondbacks would do. Heck, even like even if even if he doesn't play that well, I still think the optics of bringing him up and then sending him back down is weird. It's just sort of odd to like do that to the psyche of a young player, like give them a promotion and like let them taste the next level just to like have it only last for a few days. So I'm inclined to think that Jordan Lawler will stay in double A for the rest of the season.

The AA season also has seven more days of games. There's an extra week in the AA schedule than there is in the Hillsborough schedule. So that's also a benefit for him as well. But looking at some other guys as well, we're going to kind of talk on the hitting side of things here in this segment and then we'll finish it off today talking about some of the pitchers as well. We mentioned Corby and Carroll briefly. He hit his 23rd home run of his minor league season last year.

He's up to 294-401-529. That's a slash line right now with the Reno Aces. Jacob, we talked about earlier. It could be a week from now that we see Corbyn Carroll in the big leagues. How are you feeling right now about what you're seeing in the minor leagues from him? Yeah, I mean, there's not much more you could ask for

from this kid. Like, it's just clicked at just about every single level he's gone to. He's got every single tool you want him to have. He's got a good army. He plays great defense. He's got the power tool that no, but like, that was the biggest question mark in the draft, right? Like, he could hit,

but he's not the biggest human being there is. He's not exactly a large guy, but he, I mean, he's got 23 in the minors this year. Like, we talked about this a couple weeks ago. It seems like he could bid for 20 to 25 home runs a year in the big leagues. And that's coming from a guy that is not like large in stature. Like he just... He's 5'10, 165 is what he is currently listed at. It's pretty crazy.

Yeah, he seems to just generate. effortless power. Some of these home runs that he's hitting, they're not just chief shots. He's taking the ball out to the opposite field. He's driving the baseball. He's not just looking to, and the funny thing is like,

he's totally one of those guys like a Billy Hamilton that like it wouldn't surprise me if he's had a coach at some point in his life saying, hey, drive the baseball into the ground, try and beat it out to first base, right? Like I wouldn't be surprised if somewhere in his career someone has told him to do that. And he could,

but he seems to, to understand that like driving the baseball is what is going to give him the best chance of becoming the best player he can be. And if you can have a guy with his speed that consistently finds gaps and finds it like hits occasional home runs, you can't ask for much more than that. Brett Johnson says he was comped to Jacoby Ellsbury out of the draft and Ellsbury wasn't really a power guy. I'll take an Ellsbury with power. Hell yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's hard to argue with that. We had Mike Ferran on the show a few weeks ago. He made the comparison to Jacobi Ellsbury with Corby and Carroll as well.

I honestly am inclined to think that Corbyn Carroll is arguably could be better than Jacobi Ellsbury. And I mean, you hate to like put that level of expectation on a player when they haven't even played a game in the big leagues yet. But Jacobi Ellsbury, I mean, Jacobi Ellsbury was a really good player in this league. But it does feel like Corby Carroll, as you said, he's shown some power in the minor leagues. Not an outrageous level of power.

The 23 home runs this year, you do have to take with a grain of salt because it happened for Amarillo and Reno. So you absolutely have to take that with a grain of salt. But nonetheless, he's still showed some power there. And I think he has a chance to be, to really show some power in the big leagues and be more than, you know, a slap hitter,

like center fielder, speedy type. I think he can offer a little bit more than that. Moving through the minor league system here, Jacob. Ivan Melendez is one name I want to touch on. Of course, the Hispanic Titanic guy the Diamondbacks just picked up in the 2022 first year player draft. He got off to a really rough start in Visalia. He played a couple games in the Complex League and then they promoted him to Visalia.

He got up to a rough start there, but he started to pick things up a little bit. Right now, he's sitting at a 200, 344, 360 batting line. with the raw hide. So nothing like super impressive or anything yet, but it's really started to look better for him more recently. Yeah, he's started to come around. And for those of you in the chat, if you want to keep tabs on some of these guys,

like the best way to do it for me is I actually have the MILB app and it lets you make every single affiliate that you're a fan of technically. And then you can go through like each day, whether it's just during the V-Back scheme, I'll check in a couple times on the Aces game or I'll check in a couple times on that. But I go all the, it goes all the way down to Visalia. So like, you can get updates on just about anybody in this organization. So it's been kind of cool to see some of the draft picks from this last year,

especially the Hispanic, start to see his name pop in a few times. He's got two home runs. Like, when I open the app, like, I know it's hard to get adjusted initially. And so if you open the app and I see, you know, a couple hits for him or a walk and a double like that's all i'm looking for right now like he's got time to progress um yeah and so it's been good to see him kind of flip around the the rough start that he had yeah he really has uh if you look at the numbers over the last like 10 days or so uh things have really looked better for

iven melendez that's great to see uh davison delos Santos we've talked about him a fair amount lately uh he continues to do uh incredible things in hillsborough he has a 287 322 54 batting line with Hillsborough this season. He's been really, really good there. The concern for me with Davis and Delos Santos, Jacob, and I think a lot of people are wondering why he's not higher on prospect list. Why isn't this guy like a top 100 prospect? He's 19 years old and like leads minor league baseball and hits, right? Like he should be ranked higher than where he is. I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that Delos, his walk rate is quite low and is, strikeout rate is pretty high.

And so as you move up the ranks, you know, you can, you can sort of deal with that in Hillsborough, but as you move up the ranks, that sort of tends to get you if you're, if maybe your approach isn't quite where it needs to be. So I think that's the main thing holding him back at this point. But on the other hand, I mean, the guy is six months older than Drew Jones. I mean, he is very, very, he's not, he's not old. Crazy. He is not old.

He is not old. It is wild what De Lo Santos is doing this year. And Jacob, it gives some hope for the future because, you know, if you're looking for a third baseman for the Diamondbacks future, which is something that they need, he could be that guy potentially. Yeah, I mean, he's got the big power that you would want out of a third basement, right? Like, he's in a really good spot. He's super young, so they're going to give him as much time as he needs to develop.

And that youth is to me what leads to his strikeout rate. That's not something I'm super concerned about. You can have a guy that's overaggressive. Like every team's got a guy that's overaggressive. But as he gets a little bit older, I expect to see him mature at the plate. The most fun thing about this kid for me and Jesse, we've talked about this too. I've sent you things that Hillsborough has pointed out that he just to me, like he loves to play baseball. Like all these guys do.

There are people that take it to another level. and there's rumors that when Deveson de los Santos takes a called strike like when he takes a strike he yells at his bat like he gets angry at himself and his bat when he gets a called so like dude like that's a guy that loves to play baseball like he wants to go out there and he wants to hit so obviously like there's some aggressiveness that he needs to probably tone down because it's crazy to think that his on base percentage is what it is like even with all these strikeouts like can you imagine if he took a couple more walks or worked a little bit deeper into counts.

Like, this kid could be a monster. You just never know how they're going to turn out. But he's got all the makings of a player that looks like he could eventually be a monster at third base. Brett Johnson says almost 35% K-ray. I don't have the number in front of me, but I do think it's in the 30s, which is quite high. But yeah, you're right.

I mean, he seems to have this intensity about him. And I talked to someone who was at a hops game the other day. And the report was that like his swing decisions actually looked pretty good. It does, you know, he's not like a wild hacker type at the plate necessarily. So I think there's some hope that his approach can, can improve with time. Baseball America, I think has him at a 70 grade power tool on the 20, on the 20 to 80 scale. So you're talking about some like big time raw power with this kid. So at 19 years old, I mean, you know, he could break into the majors at 21.

22. You know, he could be one of those guys. So that's pretty, pretty exciting stuff there. Sticking with third baseman, another hitter I want to touch on in the farm system is A.J. Vukovic, a guy that we don't necessarily talk about a whole lot. And I guess the reason for that, Jacob, is that the numbers have never really looked that great for Vukovych. They're not eye-popping. Yeah. They are not eye-popping. He does not lead minor league baseball in hits. He is not that guy. Vukovic. is sitting 262 with a 299 on base percentage and a 413 slug in Hillsborough. Based on scouting reports that I'm seeing, it seems like there's still some hope that

Vukovic can develop and turn into a majorly caliber third baseman. He might move into a corner outfield spot as well at some point. He was originally drafted as an outfielder. Diamondbacks have tried to move him, move him into the infield. He's a big guy. He's six foot five. So Vukovic is one of the taller third baseman that you'll find out there. But I think the biggest issue for him, Jacob, is that the power hasn't really shown up in games yet.

There's a big raw power asset there. But, you know, with a 413 slugging percentage, it's an isolated power around 150 right now, which is pretty average. It seems like some of that power hasn't translated to games yet, but maybe it could down the road. Yeah, I mean, the thing with like, and you might know this too, Jesse, the thing with people like us, like these big, tall, slender guys, right? Like he's 10. So he's not, I mean, he's not massive. But, you know, every, every tall individual is usually pegged to somebody that can either A, be a pitcher or have a lot of power, right?

There's no in between. You're not typically going to be referenced as a versatility guy. Unless you're a Neil Cruz, then you're a short stop. Exactly. So like, so it makes sense that there's all this, like. For me, sometimes these taller, larger, lankier individuals, like, they struggle to tap into that power because they don't understand that a lot of what their power is going to come from is effortless, right? Like, you can just generate a lot of power if you let your limbs and your length work for it, like work for you versus trying to force it and hit the ball hard. Like, this is nowhere even near the level of this.

But like, it's the same thing that I get told when I go golf. Like if I take a golf lesson, they're like, why are you trying to swing so hard? Because you're just tall. Like the ball will go further because you're tall and you've got all this leverage, right? And it's on a much different scale. The same thing for these kids, right? Like he doesn't have to work hard. You know, he's got to swing hard, obviously, but he doesn't need to swing out of his shoes to generate the same amount of power

that a kid like Corbyn Carroll tries to generate, right? Like there's two completely different body types. And so maybe he's just pressing a little too. hard or he's trying to swing too hard to generate that power that he's being told that he should be that he should have right he's told every single day that he should have a power tool and so maybe he's just trying to generate it in a different way than he should yeah for like longer linkier people i think there there could be like a lot of moving parts in the swing too so that that might be playing a part for vukovic as well um but it's it's a name that we haven't talked about a lot so i wanted

to at least at least bring him up. We're going to take a quick break here so I can tell you about our friends at OGs, where we have some free stuff for all of you. You all should go right now and enter the flavoring life sweepstakes with our friends at OGs. One winner will receive three, yes, three bags of OGs, including orange creamsticle and tropical flavors, an OG's hat, a PHNX shirt of your choice, and a PHNX annual membership.

It's quite a haul all the way around. sign up at go p hnx.com or click the link in our show notes. Also, check out OGs online at OGsbrands.com and on Instagram at OGs brands. You can also find their products at your local dispensary. Must be 21 years or older to purchase. Jacob, we love our friends over at OGs. I know the Maya Day Club event was a little bit intense for Derek in particular. He struggled for Derek.

blame Shane. That's our motto around here. We blame Shane or Tochery for most things around here. So this is really just par for the course for us. But a great event at the Maya Day Club over the weekend with our friends over at OG. So be sure to check them out. Also, I want to tell you about our friends at four peaks. I'm being told we do not blame Shane. We are being told. We are being told. We are being told. that. Emma is speaking from behind the Mac as we are here on the live show. But I also want to tell you real quick about our friends at Four Peaks. Emma says maybe Tochery. Yeah, that's fair. Everyone has to blame Tochery, at least for some things that go wrong. We will be broadcasting live.

Speaking of things that could happen next week, Corby and Carol could be called up on Thursday. And we will be broadcasting live on Wednesday from Four Peaks. Our month. monthly last Wednesday is right around the corner. Join us all day at Four Peaks on August 31st for good fun, food and beer. Speaking of last Wednesday, we'll be announcing our next winner then as well. Enter to win the toast of the month sweepstakes to win a $50.4Peaks gift card, a PHNX shirt of your choice, and a PHNX annual membership. In order to enter, just go to go phNX.com or click on the link in the show notes. Must be 21 or older. enjoy responsibly.

Jacob, I just can't wait to eat some chicken tenders again. I just can't. I just can't wait. They are really good chicken tenders. I also might try a... If you're talking a five-tool meal,

like that's a five-tool meal, right? Like the chicken tenders, the fries, the beer, the ranch, the blue cheese, whatever floats your boat, if you want the blue cheese over the ranch, that's you. Like, do you, boo-boo?

Like, I just, you know, like, it is a five-star meal, has all the tools. It just is where you should go. Much like Dalton Varshow. It does have all the tools. And speaking of floating your boat, I might try a beer float, which apparently is a pretty good thing. Oh, it's so good.

Yeah, yeah, I'm going to have to get my hands on that. Emma will stop putting. Yeah, you just got to do you. Emma will not stop speaking through the. messages on the bottom bar of the screen and it's it's pretty fantastic um anyway we're going to jump back into some talk about the diamond bags farm system here we're going to switch over from position players to pitchers here on the last segment of the show you don't want to talk about leandro sedano you don't want to talk about leandro there is there is leandro sedano would you what would you like

to say about leandro sedano i'd like to say that he hits the ball hard and that people should keep their eye on him that's just that's my scouting report that's extremely hard it's uh it's a extremely hard It's a pretty good, pretty good scouting report. Pretty spot on stuff there. I believe he has 27 home runs now. He hit a couple of them in a game the other day. Leandro Cedino, for those of you who don't know, is the guy you hit 420, a 500, excuse me,

527 foot home run just a few weeks ago. He was like all over the news when that happened. That is the guy that we're talking about. He's 23 years old and in AA. So he's not a top-ranked prospect for the Diamondbacks, but definitely someone to keep your eyes on. Moving over to the pitching side of things, though, Jacob. Blake Walston is the main name that comes to mind for me

as far as guys who are really, really doing well right now. If you look at the season numbers for Blake Walston, you might not be that impressed, but he has a 2.16 ERA over his last six starts. he's going relatively deep into games. He's covered 33 and a third innings over his last six starts. He has 44 strikeouts against just 12 walks in that span. He has a whip of 1.02.

All of the numbers over the last month or so for Blake Walson are looking really good. And frankly, Jacob, as far as the Diamondbacks pitching prospects go, a lot of them have seen their stock drop a little bit, if anything. but Blake Walston is one guy who's definitely trending upward right now. Yeah, I mean, you hope that he can figure out some of that stuff, and it seems hopefully that he's turned a page in that. The adjustment to AA seemed to be a bit challenging to him. Obviously, you have Amarillo being a really big issue for a lot of these pitchers

because it is just notoriously hitter-friendly. But they invested a lot of draft capital in Blake Walston, so they really, really need him to pan out in an organization, that has a lot of depth when it comes to position players, especially outfielders in their prospect system. They need some of these pitchers to pan out. Tommy Henry being the first one already up in the big leagues, like,

got getting the call up to AAA. But Walston seems to have semi-figured out what they're looking for out of him in AA. You know, his case per nine look great. He's got 10 strikeouts per nine innings. Like, that has never gone away. It's just a matter of if he can throw strikes. And for a young kid, oftentimes that's really hard. Because if you're looking for a ton of strikeouts,

like you're flirting with the edges of the zone. Strikeout pitchers notoriously look for edges, and they want you to chase off the plate, right? They'll come in and get a strike across, and then everything that they do after that is just to try and get you to chase. And so for a young kid to get promoted, like they're looking for him to throw a lot of strikes. And where he gets himself into trouble as he throws and gets behind in a lot of counts.

And so, well, he might, I think his walk rate is like three and a half or something like that, which is lower than some guys. It's kind of average. I don't know a ton about walk rates, but to me, that's somewhere in the middle. I don't know if you can shed a little bit more light on that. But he's average, 10 hits per nine is a lot. And that's inflating his whip a lot. And so that, to me, signifies that he's getting himself behind and counts and then has to come across with a fastball. zone and or an off speed pitch in the zone that people are taking advantage of that.

Yeah, the walk rate isn't, it's not too bad. Since up to, since being called up to AA, he's at 34 walks in 83 and two thirds inning. So, yeah, maybe slightly higher than average, but nothing too crazy there. But you're right, it's really been more hits that have caused issues for him more than anything else. He's allowed 95 hits and 83 and two thirds innings in double A. and a lot of that is just AA being AA and Amarillo

being Amarillo and the fact that it's a very, very hitter friendly environment so you have to keep that in mind. But yeah, I mean, he's a lefty in AA who's 21 years old. So the future is bright for Blake Walston for sure.

Yeah. Ben in the comments said, did you see Bailey from Foolish Baseball included a debaq's pitcher, Yumen Lynn, in his stat line scouting series? Yes, yes. And Yumen Lin is another name that I wanted to get to. Some of you might have noticed there, there's been quite a bit of a transition on the Diamondback's top 30 list.

If you look at MLB Pipeline, a lot of new names on the list and maybe you haven't seen there before. And Yumen Lin is one of those guys. He's ranked 16th by MLB Pipeline. Um, Umin Lin is a lefty who's currently pitching with Vysalia. He just turned 19. So he is very, very young. even for being at low A at this point.

The Diamondbacks signed him last February for $525,000. So it was a signing. He pitched for Chinese Taipei in multiple World Cups. So this is a guy who has quite a bit of pitching experience internationally already. The Diamondbacks this year, Jacob, started him in the rookie league. And he was incredible in 23 innings. He allowed nine hits. and had 41 strikeouts.

So he completely shoved in rookie ball. The Diamondbacks called him up to Visalia. Recently, he's made four starts in Vysalia so far. He has a 4.58 ERA, but 26 strikeouts in 17 and two-thirds innings. It seems like a lot of pitchers, a lot of guys who come over who are signed internationally, come over and have like eight different pitches. And Yumen Lin is maybe not quite to that level, but he does have a variety of pitches in his arsenal,

a lot of different weapons that he can play with. The fastball I've heard is about 90 to 92 right now, but being 19 years old and being a pretty skinny guy, I think there's some expectation that he might be able to grow into some more velocity over time. So yeah, Umin Lin is absolutely a guy to be watching moving forward, especially as he's now pitching in low A ball. other names Jacob Ryan Nelson Dre Jameson seems like we've been talking about those guys

for a long time what are your latest feelings on those two for a while there was they were both pitching extremely well over a course of like four to five starts Ryan Nelson is not dropped off like neither of them have really dropped off completely but they've had a couple rough outings in their last three or four it just kind of seems to fluctuate and I don't know if that's the Reno factor or just the nature of baseball, right? You're going to go through your hot streaks.

You're going to go through cold streaks. Like, we would be crazy to come out here and say that Zach Gallen will never give up a run for the rest of his life, right? Like, while some people might feel like every single time he goes out, there's a chance he throws a complete game shutout. You're looking at these kids and you're just looking for consistency. And that's not what we're seeing right now, right? They might have one outing where they go seven innings, give up one run, strikeout six or six. seven guys. And then the next outing, they go five innings. They give up four or five runs and strike out two or three and they walk five. Like it just, you're not seeing a ton of consistency.

And so where I might have been, it's more confident last month that I would have seen them in September. And I'm still not ruling it out completely that you see one of these guys in September. But it just seems a little less likely to me now. I wouldn't be surprised if we see Brandon Fott going to start, though. Out of those three guys, that would. That's the one I'm the most confident in possibly seeing somebody get an attempt at big leagues before September is over. Yeah. The issue with Brandon fought is that he doesn't need to be on the 40 man roster because he's not Rule 5 eligible this winter. So there's a little bit of like decreased incentive to bring him up at this point, whereas both Ryan Nelson and Ray Jameson do need to be called, do need to be on the 40 man roster.

I don't necessarily have to be on the active roster, but they have to be on the 40 man roster in order to protect them from Rule 4th. five this winter. So we don't really know how that's going to factor in to when they, when they get called up just yet. But yeah, I was looking at some of the numbers on, on Ryan Nelson last night, Jacob,

and he's throwing a lot of fastballs. He's throwing a lot of fastballs. Looking at some of the data, it's been ranging anywhere from 65 to 75% of his pitches are forcing vass balls. So it's really, really, really a heavy amount of heaters, which is maybe that, you know, maybe he needs to add a little bit more variety there at the end of the day.

His four seamer is often said to be his best pitch. It really has some good riding action. I think it plays up over its velocity. It's averaging around 93, 94, can touch 97. So there's a lot there with Ryan Nelson's fastball. I think getting some of those secondaries up a little bit is going to be big for him. Drey Jameson's been throwing a sinker quite a bit. Interesting.

Which is, yeah, it's a pitch that we've known that he's had, but I wasn't aware that he was throwing it as much as he is right now. In most of his recent starts, he's throwing the sinker almost 50% of the time. He's throwing the sinker about twice as much as he's throwing the four seamer. We got to see some of the four seamer in particular in spring training. I know there was this video circulating of Drey Jameson. Jameson striking out. I don't remember who it was,

but someone in spring training with a 100 mile an hour four seam fastball up in the strike zone. Some of you may remember seeing that. Pretty incredible stuff, right? So it's a little bit odd when you see a four seam fastball like that. And a guy for whatever reason is like throwing a sinker instead. But that's sort of what Dre Jameson has been doing lately. His fastball, his four seamers,

been averaging 96 lately in AAA, touching 98 to 99, depending on the start from what I could tell. The sinker is more like 93, 94 something in that range, which is still really good velocity for a sinker. The slider is sort of supposed to be the bread and butter for Dre Jameson. He's been using it, maybe not quite as much as you'd expect for a guy where that's sort of his elite pitch, according to a lot of scouting reports. But it's sort of weird, Jacob. I mean, you hear these numbers, which all seem pretty impressive. You hear about like this elite outpitch slider and this hard sinker and this fastball that

touches almost 100. And for whatever reason, Dre Jameson is just not, the numbers just don't line up, right? Like the numbers just don't match the scouting report right now. I've heard some people say that his fastball is just somewhat hitable for whatever reason. maybe if he's not like driving it up in the strike zone, for whatever reason, it's been relatively easy for hitters to track. And so guys have been able to hit Ray Jamison fairly consistently this year.

Something that does give maybe a little bit of hope on his front. He's gone seven innings in four of his last five outings. So that's a good thing. Sort of inspires some confidence that maybe he can start down the road. But yeah, I mean, after seeing what he did in spring training Jacob and seeing him showcase some of this stuff, he had really high

expectations for this guy. And sometimes this is just the ugliness of like pitching development, right? Is that like the stuff that you see. Yeah, the stuff you see like just doesn't always line up with the results. Yeah, I mean, you have to think about how repeatable every single pitch is.

Like these guys are throwing high leverage pitches every single time. Like they are the one, right? Like the defense is great and all, but they're the ones that dictate whether a ball is even put in play or not, right? Like, it's their job to go out there and they're looking to not give up a hit every single time they go out, not walk a guy, not give a hit. Like, that is an extremely hard job, especially on a kid who's 23, 24 years old and has to work both physically and mentally through the adjustments that he's gone through to get to AAA. And even beyond that, in AAA you're facing certain guys. Like, you might get some top prospects here or there.

but then you get up to the big leagues and pretty much every one of these guys was a top prospect in their own regard right like if if jameson shows up to the big league level and he has to face one soto and he just he throws the most immaculate slider that he ever could right starts on the outside corner drives hard down inside and and one soto just spits on it and lets it pass like that's not something he's probably used to right like yeah and so you go out there and you can get rattled real quick. If you can get by on talent in the minor leagues to some degree, right? You've got guys that are trying to prove themselves. They're going to swing it a lot more. Like you get up to big leagues and you throw your best pitch and that hitter stares it down doesn't even blink, doesn't flinch, doesn't do a single thing. That can rattle you really quick.

And so it's always going to be an adjustment. And it's even harder for pitchers than it is for hitters in my opinion. Yeah. Brett Johnson says is Dan Heron still a part of the pitching development? Yes, yes, Dan Heron is absolutely a part of, he's a pitching strategist, I believe, is his official title. I think that's more with the Major League roster than anything else, but he is absolutely still a guy who's around and contributing. We're at about 55 minutes, so we can talk, we can talk prospects all day. We're going to go ahead and cut it off there.

Of course, we'd always love to hear from you all on social media. We're happy to continue some of these conversations over there. but before we go, I want to tell you all quickly about our friends over at the Draft King Sportsbook app. College football is now officially upon us, and you all should go and download the Draft King Sportsbook app now. Use promo code PHNX bet just $5 on college football and get $200 in free bets instantly. That's code PHNX only at Draft King Sportsbook. Jacob, if I'm on the Draft King Sportsbook app, I'm probably betting on Zach Gallin, like just taking all of the Zach Gallen.

The over on innings is usually a good bet for him right now. The over on innings, the over on strikeouts probably. Yeah, the under on runs has been probably a pretty good one every time he's pitched. I mean, the under would have hit even with the five three game yesterday because typically the over is set around eight and a half. So there are a few good things to bet on on this team pretty much on a daily basis. but the over on innings is usually somewhere around the four and a half mark. And so a lot of the DBAX pitchers, the starting pitching especially very rarely goes under five innings.

That is true. Usually a pretty solid bet, if you ask me. So we're going to call that our Draft Kings pick of the week. Just like bet be over on everything Zach Gallen for his next start. That is going to lead you into a good place. He is at least as far as we can tell the favorite. for August pitcher of the month in the National League. He has been extraordinary to say the least over his last few times out.

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Jacob, they have an extraordinary Seth Beer, like home run swing bobblehead over at Focco that we absolutely need to get for one of our new sets. I don't know if you're the person I should talk to about that, but we need to get the ball rolling. Okay, all right. I'll talk to Saul because I think of all the investments we could make for the new studio space,

at least one Diamondbacks Focco Bobelhead has to be in there. there somewhere. So we'll get on that and you all should as well. Again, that's phocco.com. You can use the promo code PHNX and get 10% off. Well, that is everything that we have for today.

Everyone, thank you all for being here and joining us in the chat. If you haven't already, be sure to give us a follow on Twitter. You can find me at at Jesse N. Friedman. You can find Fage, aka Father Overlord Jacob, aka at Jacob underscore Franklin 4 on Twitter.

You can find him over there. We would both love to interact with you on Twitter. Our Diamondbacks page is PhNX underscore D-Backs, but of course all roads, as Derek would say, lead to pH and X underscore sports. And that is on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. So be sure to interact with us on all of those platforms. We would love to see you there.

Thank you all again. So much for being here today. really appreciate it. And remember kids, baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun when September 1st is just one week away.