PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - The rich get richer

Episode Date: March 17, 2022

On this episode, Jesse and Derek are discussing the Dodgers signing Freddie Freeman and the Rockies signing Kris Bryant, Ian Kennedy accepting the setup role for the D-backs, and Ketel Marte being named the top second baseman in MLB. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome to another edition of the PHNX D-Backs podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Montia, occasionally known as the mayor of PHNX, and also someone that's very just jealous of everything that's going on right now in the NL West. I'm joined by my vice mayor, my co-host, my friend, the one and only thunderstick Jesse Fried. Derek, we have Cactus League baseball today, my friend. And it's crazy to think that little over a week ago, we didn't. didn't know if we were going to have Cactus League baseball for a long time. We didn't know when we're going to have baseball, period. We didn't know when baseball was going to be here, let alone spring training, what capacity it would be. And it just all of this has just moved so fast. You know what I mean? Right. Like this entire situation has just been expedited so quickly. Yet at times I still talk to people within the organization and they don't seem to be too frazzled by this entire situation. In fact, I think there's a weird sentiment, and not everybody is on this same page,

but there's a sentiment like what Josh Rojas said, where this offseason might have been the most productive because baseball players typically wait to do anything until they're in camp. It's not to say that they're not still keeping in good physical shape, but they don't go out and typically start their like off-season regiment because of the fact that they actually need to rest their bodies. Baseball is a very long, long, long season. And you, you just can't go cross-train 365 days a year like you can, to be honest, with some other sports. Baseball actually needs that off-season. But in modern day, even that's gone out the window. I think there are a lot of top athletes in baseball that are just never stopping. It never stops for

them. The season never stops. And again, the diamond back seem to be very content. intent with the off-season workouts that their players organized and participated in. They said that many of them were ready to go much earlier than they expected as far as the spring training games in the Cactus League that are coming up. But before we get to that, we did have to let you guys know that this very fine episode of the Ph.NXDBX podcast is brought to you by the fine folks at the Draft King Sportsbook. Go download the Draft King Sportsbook app now quickly, quickly, before the first team tips off today and get down.

New customers can bet just $5 using our code of PHNX, and you will win $200 in free bets if your team wins. It's that simple. Winner, winter chicken dinner. Jesse, so much National League West free agency news to discuss, as well as some fun things that we saw in Arizona Diamondbacks camp. But first, let's get to the free agency frenzy, because today essentially...

Do we have to, Derek? Do we have to talk about this? Look, look. Look, do you want to go back to the lockout? Because that's the alternative. We can go back to the- I might. I might.

Is Freddie Freeman signing with the Dodgers better than the lockout? I don't know. I hate it here. I really do. But yes, as you said, Freddie Freeman has agreed to a deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers, which happened right before we recorded this podcast. The bigger news of the day up to that point was that Chris Bryant, who we have speculated but did not believe was actually being pursued by the

Colorado Rockies was in fact being pursued by the Colorado Rockies. Inexplicably enough, they have struck a deal with Chris Bryant. But let's first talk about the Freddie Freeman news because, of course, the Dodgers needed to upstage their NL West rival Colorado Rockies with their big news by signing essentially the second biggest free agent, I think, on the market besides Carlos Correa. Freddie Freeman is is really just one of the best players in the game. I mean, there's really no no other way to say it. I guess this is,

this is less painful than if Paul Goldschmidt had played for the Dodgers. So I guess we can hang our hats on that. But Freddie Freeman is that kind of a player, right? I mean, last year, 896 OPS, 31 homers, 83 RBIs. One of the most durable players in the game, as of over the last four seasons, Freddie Freeman is basically not missed a game. 159 games last year. He played all 60 of the shortened 2020 season, 158 games in 2019, 162 games in 2018.

And I feel like with the Dodgers, that's usually the one silver lining that we have, is that a lot of the guys that they sign get hurt a lot, right? Like AJ Pollock, it feels like he's, you know, been on the injured list every other week since joining the team, even though he's been really good, you know, when he's been on the field. and I'm not sure it's going to work out the same way for Freddie Freeman. He's been very, very durable over the course of his career. And this is a six-year deal. He's 32 years old right now.

This is going to make him a Dodger through age 38, which is an investment. It is a risk for the Dodgers. And I think it's certainly possible that on the back end of this deal, you know, maybe Freddie Freeman isn't worth quite what they're paying him anymore at that point. But we all know, how much the Dodgers spend year after year, they're going to be okay, you know,

if Freddie Freeman isn't quite what he once was a few years from now. I think this is the problem with MLB and what the lockout was all about, right? Because you have Freddie Freeman who has long been considered one of the best first baseman in the game, just now reaching the point where he can get that big contract, right? And it's not to say he might not have been able to get it at an earlier point in his game.

his career. But like you said, six years, $162 million at the age of 32. So, you know, again, this is the reason why baseball is so weirdly structured with their contracts. You have to be a Freddie Freeman to make it to this point to get this kind of ridiculously huge payout. But then, like you said, even the team that pays him that money now is taking on that potential risk of that player not aging well and not being as productive in the money. their later years of that contract as, you know, as as they want them to be or as they were when they signed them, right? So this, this, this whole thing is just awful. Jesse is really what is. Which, which one? I'm curious, which, which deal do you like better? Would you rather

have Chris Bryant for 7-182 or Freddie Freeman for 6-162? I think they overpaid for Chris Bryant. And that's my personal feeling. I think that if they were going to give Chris Bryant all that money, I see. still don't understand quite what went wrong with Trevor's story and Nolan Aeronato. I also think some of the things that you laid out as far as Freddie Freeman is concerned are reasons why, you know, I don't know. Age isn't the same to me. And I say this because I'm a 40-year-old man now. And I know my playing days are long behind me, Jesse. But at the same time, I am happy to say that on most days lately when I wake up, I feel like I'm currently

at my best in a lot of ways. I wasn't a physically fit kid. I was what you would call a fat boy when I was younger. And I really never took great care of myself. I've even talked about that when we do our athletic greens. Now that you have athletic greens, now that you have athletic greens takes care of you, Derek. You don't need to take care of yourself. But I will say, say, I will say this. At the age of 40, I'm running more. I'm working out more. I'm in better physical condition. I feel better. I feel stronger. I don't, I don't even feel as like sore and tired as I did when I was younger. So I will say speaking as on behalf of older guys, I don't buy into the, oh, at 38 years old, he's going to be ancient and no longer able to play baseball.

Sure. Sure. Right. And again, I think like, I, don't get me wrong playing sports takes takes its toll on you much more than me running my little mile and a half you know in the morning but again a mile and a half when I was 30 would have killed me and now here at 40 I'm able to do it daily without really breaking too much of a sweat about it so sure I think age is is all about upkeep and how well you're treating yourself and how good you're taking care of your body I've noticed a lot of older guys that are in great shape do stuff like drink athletic greens or like have gone completely vegan or just wild things like that that are super healthy but then it makes me question like well maybe maybe i should do that then like

yeah if christ paul is doing what he's doing as a vegan then we should all just become vegan right clearly that's the only way to live that's exactly it but the chris bryant deal is huge i mean all a lot of pieces started to fall today uh say suzuki signed with the chicago cubs we just we we had i think the free agency day that we have been expecting to have right and you know things things went at a steady pace but business really picked up today it really did it really did and i want to go back to the question of like which of these deals we like oh yeah i apologize yeah and by you're good i do like the freddie freeman deal more just because mostly i mean again chris bryant was somebody that i wanted for the arizona diamondbacks and i thought that he would

have been an excellent fit. I just didn't actually expect them to go after him, just like I wouldn't have expected the Colorado Rockies to go after him. It's a lot of money. It's a long-term deal. And I don't know, it's a very Todd Helton deal, right? But at the same time, I don't know. I don't know what they're doing aside from trying to ensure that they have a star, a big name,

that people can come out to that ballpark and see. At times it feels like they book the Colorado Rockies more like a venue, like a place you want to go just see a show at rather than a team that they're actually trying to win and become champions in any way. Sure. I'm with you. I think that Freddie Freeman is probably the safer move here, which is unfortunate because of course that's the move that the Dodgers made. But Freddie Freeman is, I think, pretty clearly just a better overall player. And that's not to say that Chris Bryant hasn't been, you know, hasn't had a really nice MLB career up to this point.

You know, career OPS plus of 132. That's nothing to sneeze at. But he also like over the last six seasons, Chris Bryant has been an all star twice, which at first glance is not like, oh, I'm going to pay that guy almost $200 million over seven years, right? So he's been good. He's absolutely been good. He's been reasonably durable. I wouldn't say maybe quite to the level that Freddie Freeman has, although Freddie Freeman has certainly

had his scuffs every now and then over his time with the Atlanta Braves. But yeah, one thing I do want to say about the Rocky side of this deal, I know the Rockies are taking a tremendous amount of flak today. And for a pretty good reason, I mean, it doesn't make any sense at all why they would not pay Nolan Aronado and trade him for pennies on the dollar and presumably not pay Trevor's story and then sign some other guy for, you know, around the same dollar figure that those guys would have commanded. It's inconsistent. It doesn't make sense. But what I will point out is the Rockies have a new general manager now. Bill Schmidt is now the Rockies general manager.

And I don't know if he's particularly highly thought of. But the fact that the previous regime before him, you know, did that bizarre thing with Nolan Aeronado where they, for some reason, were unwilling to pay him and just wanted to get off of his contract. That was a mistake from a GM before the current GM. And so I don't want to conflate like, you know, I don't want to, I don't want to say that the Rockies leadership is all one and the same when it was really a previous regime that made that decision. And it's a new regime that's making this decision. And I believe Bill Schmidt was part of the organization back then. So granted, you know, he might have had a say in things back then as well. But, but on the whole, fans have a, fans have a short memory when it

comes to that kind of stuff. Yeah. Like if I'm a, if I'm a Rockies fan today, am I really that disappointed that the Rockies have Chris Bryant? I don't think so. I think I'm ecstatic that the Rockies have Chris Bryant. And I'm also confused about why they don't have Nolan Aeronado. But I think I'm ecstatic that the Rockies have Chris Bryant. And despite the inconsistency, this, this is a, you know, a good day for our friend Patrick Lyons and, you know, the DNVR Rockies crew. Because I think even the Diamondbacks, even as much as we might be confused by the team making a push for a big name like that, there's nothing wrong with it, right?

I mean, it's cool to have good players. I would be thrilled to have a Chris Bryant on this team. And you know that. So that's not even a question, right? And again, yeah, it's. Patrick brought this up yesterday with the GM situation, and I totally understand. You can't make your moves based on the moves that were made prior to you being there.

All you can try to do is get the organization back on track. I often said that I was such a big fan of Mike Hazen, because Mike Hazen was, like, given one of those, like, vases from an 80s movie. Like, there was a house party, and someone broke the priceless vase and it's this trope where we have to put it back together. But nobody wanted to help. It was just Mike Hazen.

They gave him all the pieces. He wasn't even at the goddamn party. He wasn't even invited to the party. But he's the one that had to put the base back together. And he meticulously super glued piece after piece of the Diamondbacks organization and their franchise back together after what Tori. Excuse me, not Tori, but after what. Don't pin this on Tori, Derek.

Tony Rusa and Dave Stewart did in the prior regime, right? And then people still, like, he did it. It's back together. All there is is the little cracks that you can see that just won't go away when you, when you glue something back together no matter how hard you try. And like, that's all people want to talk about as far as Mike Hazen goes. And like, why isn't there a new vase and why don't we have five vases? Like Mike Hazen did what he could with this organization,

considering the pieces that it was in, but based on what they want to spend and based on the money that they had already committed, it was very difficult to dig us out of the hole that we were in. And they did. You know, they dug us out to have some pretty memorable moments after we were in that hole, right?

It's just not, it's not 2021. That wasn't a memorable moment. And that wasn't a memorable year. Despite having some pretty incredible things happened. Like two, no hitter. And I'm not dropping that one. But here's Mike Hazen today. I actually asked him today about what his spending, you know, kind of has been.

And it's kind of, it was kind of awkward, Jesse, because sometimes we talk about Mike Hazen so much that I forget when I'm standing in front of him that I'm talking to him and asking him these questions. But here was his answer in regards to being satisfied with the spending that they've done or the moves that they've made in free agency up to this point. You know, we haven't done a ton. We've done some of the things we want to do. We're going to keep working in other areas. You know, I think one of the things that we're going to see through the course of some of the reason that there haven't been probably more moves is, we've talked quite a bit about carving out opportunity for the younger players. And, you know, some of the balance of that is blocking them off.

You start to do that and then you're not going to get those opportunities. But it's not a limited opportunity. not just a, you know, just a camp for anyone to come in and try to make the roster in the sense of stopping us from trying to upgrade the roster anyway. So he's, and he's saying that, you know, like, he's still sticking with this youth movement, you know, with having those younger guys have an opportunity, right? But it doesn't mean that they don't see certain problems. The bullpen, for sure, has been a problem for them. that has been their major thing they've been addressing through free agency. I don't think right now that they are confident in their young arms coming in and being able to perform in high leverage situations. That's what I think. I think at this point, they want their young guys to watch guys

like Ian Kennedy and Mark Melanson come out and just have ice water in their veins in the middle of a, you know, one to nothing game against the Dodgers and hold it, right? That's, I think that they're trying to get some guys that can come in and lead by example, be a little bit of a mentor, at least more of a mentor than Mad Bump, for instance. But like, just come in and help these young guys get over the hump as far as performing in these high leverage situations. That's something that they've brought up quite a bit as far as the bullpen is concerned and as far as the losses last season go.

They really felt like, yeah, you know, the team didn't do well, but it didn't help that they had a catastrophic number of one loss games, you know, last season. And more importantly, it was really frustrating when they, you know, would be mounting a comeback in a lot of situations and then their bullpen couldn't just hold the game in any way for them to catch back up. I still believe, though, that they are committed to these younger guys. And somebody's name that keeps getting thrown around quite a bit is Alec Thomas. They were talking about the outfield.

They were talking about their candidates for center field. Alec Thomas's name was thrown into the to the mix for center field. I mean, you know, there was a lot of names thrown around. As a matter of fact, Hazen didn't even want to name names when it came to like the fifth rotation guy for the starting rotation. or some of these, you know, outfield needs. I will say that he did not sound like he was a fan of their third base situation. So I would say if we... I am also not a fan of their third base situation.

Right. He is not a fan of the law firm. It's the law firm of Van Meter Ellis and Rojas, Jesse. And he is not a fan of the law firm of Van Meter Ellis and Rojas. he very much sounded like he plans on doing something about that. However, with that being said, I just, I don't think they're going to do anything crazy. I don't think that they're going to do anything that's going to be,

you know, like he even made it sound like trades might be a higher probability than free agency. So it'll be interesting to see who from this team could potentially be on the trade block as well. The Diamondbacks are in an interesting spot where I think they are actually getting somewhat close to the point that he's talking about where, you know, in that clip that we play, he's talking about how you want this balance between opportunity for young guys, but also, you know, the veteran presence and depth you need to make the team viable. And when I look at the Diamondbacks roster right now, I don't necessarily see like all of this open space. You know, there's actually, in some ways, it's, it's even a little bit clogged, Derek. Like, I don't really know where Pavin Smith's at bats are coming from. Is he playing first base every day? Yeah, but they also have Christian Walker, right?

They brought him back. I don't know if Josh Rojas playing. Yeah, and Seth Beer. And I don't know if Josh Rojas is playing right field or I don't think he's going to play much second base. We figure Ketel is going to be there. We figure they're going to do something at third base, in which case, Rojas wouldn't be getting much time there.

We figure Peralta is going to be your everyday man in left field. Dalton Harshow, I guess, is in center, but then Alec Thomas is there too. There's not like a bunch of open space. Hazen was not a fan of Rojas at third base, it sounds like. It sounds like he would much prefer for Rojas to be maybe backing up at second and center field and then spending time in the grass. But they have weird policies where they're still deciding on keeping guys, maybe playing multiple positions, but then positioning them on the right side of the field or the

left side of the field. So if they're playing first base, they're going to be restricted to playing right field, and that's pretty much it. Or maybe third base. But they definitely, they definitely sounded like they made, they've learned from their mistakes. And even though they didn't at any point come out and say, hey, we made mistakes with where we put guys last year, between some of the things they said about Catele-Marté and some of the things they've said about, you know, maybe moving guys around a bit too often. It definitely sounds like they're admitting a, you know, some, some mistakes were made with playing guys maybe too often out of their position and rotating guys around too much. One concern I, one concern I do have on the flip

side is although I do think that there's a decent amount of depth on the position player side, right? Like, as in there is, you know, there's not a whole lot of open space like we've said right i do still have some concerns about the rotation there because last season the diamondbacks marched into the year with a pretty decent five pitchers for their starting rotation and then the season happened and the moment a few of those guys went down they just didn't have the necessary depth to to fill those spots when some you know if zach gallon or madison bumgarner gets hurt where are you going and i think right now the diamond backs are going the same place they went last year right they're still going to corbin martin

they're still going to uh you know matt peacock they're still going to those kinds of of depth options that are not necessarily um you know guys that you feel super confident in and i think they've improved the problem a little bit right like dan straley's here they've made some moves and and there are some guys in the miners too but i still think that's an area they could use some more stability I'm not concerned about that myself really because I think Corbyn Martin will probably emerge and be that guy for them. But they have him. They have Tyler Gilbert. They have Caleb Smith, who they're stretching out. They have Humberto Castiano. Oh, wow. They're stretching out. They're stretching out Caleb Smith.

That's what they said. They said they're going to be stretching out all the guys last year that got starting time that saw some success in that role. And it might not have been consistent for any of those guys. But I believe it was Hazen said that Caleb Smith was their best reliever last season. He was. He was. And he was. Like the biggest problem with Caleb Smith was probably the fact that they kept moving him into the starting rotation. And it's, you know, again, it's that inconsistency. I know he wants to be a starter, but sometimes you just can't be.

And sometimes your value is in the bullpen, right? And like honestly, maybe the fact that you're pissed off about that, maybe that's the reason why you're so good in the bullpen. So we're going to keep you pissed off. I might come by and poke you with a stick every once in a while just to keep you nice and angry. I don't know, but it's definitely working. And I understand them stretching him out, but I wouldn't be surprised to see him in a long relief role, something like that. They also discussed like the using of openers and having just guys go a couple of innings and stuff like that. It's too early in the season for that talk.

I just know that that's becoming a bit more of a reality in MLB. With what they're working with, I wouldn't be surprised to see that at times. I just don't, I hope that's not what they go to. I would just like to see a bit more normality with this lineup, a bit more consistency with the starting rotation, with where guys play defense, with everything. And I think that it could be very helpful when it comes to their bat.

That's one thing that I heard is a couple of guys have said that their bats are affected a bit by the switching of the lineups or the positions. So it's like if that's the case, stop fucking switching their positions. But what do I know? What do I know? I'm only a MLB, the show, 2021 manager. And I play on rookie. We've discussed that. But you guys can challenge me by becoming a member over at go phtnx.com and then getting in on our members only discord and just picking a date.

and a date to step up to the plate against me in MLB, the show. There's all sorts of fun options like that when you become a member over at go phnx.com. You can sign up to become an annual member and you'll get a free t-shirt from the PHNX Locker.com. If you're not interested in that, you can choose our month-to-month option and we'll still hook you up. We'll give you the first month for just 50 cents. So join our PHNX family over here, go phnx.com.

Get our wonderful articles like what Jesse's going to have out about some storylines here from spring training as well as his piece on Ian Kennedy and what's changed with him over his career, besides having seven children. Ian Kennedy and his wife have a family. Does he and Kennedy have seven children? They have a family big enough to field a nine-person baseball team defensively. Yeah, it's pretty impressive. He's a great guy, though, and I'm super excited to have him back.

It's been fun to see him back in the locker room the last couple of days. I'm not supposed to say that. He wasn't there yesterday, wink. But he was there today once it was officially official. And he was throwing bullpans. And he went out and did a live bullpen against some live batters. Josh Rojas in his very first pitch against the live batter, a single off of him.

That was kind of fun. It was one pitch, one hit. But he had some interesting things to say in the meeting, actually. He brought up in his press conference that he is indeed. it does indeed sound like he is going to be the setup man for Mark Melanson who will be the closer. Obviously, nothing is 100%, right? At any point on any team,

someone could lose a role like a closer role to somebody else who's doing exceptionally well and fitting the role better than them. But it does sound based on what he says here that that's what we're going to get. I'm happy to set up for Mark, who I saw it do it for so long, played with him, got drafted with him, being able to pitch before him and just hand it over to him. It's great. Like, he's one of the best around in the league, I think.

And I think a lot of people believe that. And he has a little lumps there, injury-wise. But when he's healthy, he's really good. We showed that last year and the year before with the Braves. That's exciting to hear. So that's exciting to hear. Not only is exciting to hear that Ian Kennedy gives him this ringing endorsement as being one of the best in the league, and he is now on the Arizona Diamondbacks,

it's also exciting to hear that Ian Kennedy is accepting this role of being the setup man and that the Arizona Diamondbacks actually might have a setup man and a closer, Jesse, solidified and ready to go before the season starts. I don't know what this is like. I don't, I'm not used to this. They've had, they've had some guys in the past that, you know, had filled roles like that before. But usually it was like a few years after the fact. They haven't, they haven't been in this situation where, you know, you've got two relievers who were both closers last season.

And yeah, I mean, Ian Kennedy kind of spilled the beans there. I'm not sure if Tori necessarily would have told us all that information. But hey, we, we now know from the man. himself that that Ian Kennedy is probably going to be the setup man as he just as he discussed and yeah I mean having those roles ironed out in the in the early part of the season I think is is really helpful especially for all of the younger guys the less experienced guys in that bullpen we've seen we've seen diamond backs relievers taxed way beyond where they should have been the last few years we've seen relievers and roles they never should have been they never should have been in not

necessarily because there's no way they could do it, but because you just don't want to put that kind of pressure on on guys who are, you know, early in their career or, you know, veterans where it's been a while since they've, since they've been on that level. And in this year, for the first time in a long time, the diamond backs appear to be setting up a bullpen where the roles make sense. And, and that in itself, Derek, is going to help us sleep a lot better at night. I couldn't agree more. I think that, you know, now there's a lot of guys that had value last year in the bullpen that can be that in between, that fill in the Noi Ramirez.

Yeah. Yeah, like if Noe Ramirez is in the sixth or seventh inning, you're, you know, you're set. Like, that's a really good, a really good role for him. I, and I just really like the way this has come together. Last year was bad. But again, a lot of guys got opportunities. And that's one thing like Mike Hazen was talking about was the open opportunities. The difference was there was almost too many opportunities last season, right?

There was too many holes to fill. And there wasn't enough guys that were really stepping up and claiming those roles. Caleb Smith was probably one of the only guys I think of that did it both with his, with his actions and with his words, right? He made it known that he wanted to be a starter. And then he went out there and proved it with his arm. And then he almost killed an entire umpire. What do we call umpires as a group?

Like a crew. There you. Sorry, I couldn't think of the word. I'm going to say that again. Umpire posse. umpire posse. He almost killed an entire umpire posse over a glove with sticky substance on it.

But yeah, we, you know, again, we have a couple of guys. I think really that did step up. Noe Ramirez, again, being one of them. And I think that they recognize that. And this year, it's going to be more probably of the same. But like you said, I think there's going to be less opportunities. I think a lot of the, a lot of the guys that are going to be playing their position are going to kind of see a bit of the writing on the wall,

that there is somebody kind of waiting in the wings to take over for them and that the Diamondbacks don't really have a problem at this point committing to someone else. besides, you know, a couple of their core guys that really still seem to be who they want to build around for the future and who they're going to, you know, really focus on as far as the stars of this team. Cotell Marte and Carlson Kelly, Zach Gallen. And Zach Gallen, we talked about him already being a Scott Boris client. I know, we just started this season.

I'm not going to start saying sad things. Like you might as well kiss that Gallup by now. But let's just say, don't get too used to Zach Gallen. Let's just enjoy him while he's here. and then that's it. That's all I'm saying. Let's just not get too serious about it. Let's not, you know, let's not, that way our hearts don't get broken again. But you, you, as our listeners, we don't want your heart to get broken. You can get down on a very excellent deal right now.

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New customers only minimum $5 deposit required. Eligibility restrictions apply. See draftkings.com slash sportsbook for details. And speaking of the core, speaking of the, the exciting young players of the Diamondbacks are going to build around. Second baseman, Cotel Marte, was named top second baseman in all of MLB by MLB.com. Or by MLB Network, right? Well, I guess those are kind of the one and the same.

Yeah, right. MLB Network, you're right, though. It's MLB Network specifically is the one that's naming these, these, ranking these positions. and they have Catele-Marte ranked as the number one second basement in all of Major League Baseball. Jesse, how? How can Cotel-Marté be ranked the number one second baseman in all of baseball when he barely even played second base in 2020? It is kind of abusing. Yeah, like if someone asked me to rank the top 10 second baseman, I think I would have wanted to

put Catele-Marte on the list, but I think I probably wouldn't have. I would have known that I shouldn't because like you said, he played 20 games last year at second base out of the 91 in total that he played. So, you know, less than a quarter of the time Cotel-Marté was playing second base in, in 2021. And if you go back to 2019, it was about a 50-50. He played 83 games at second base. 2020, he played 41 games at second base. So in 2020, it was majority second base when he was on the field. But anyway, I'm just surprised, Derek.

The second base thing aside, I'm surprised that Ketel Marte got this much respect from the Foxx-O-V-N-LB network. I am too. Because he's a great player. And I mean, I'll be the first one to go on my soapbox and tell everyone how good Catel-Marte is. But he only played 91 games. last year. He has not been very durable.

He's not been able to stay on the field. I think that this is a projection is what I think this is. I don't think this is based on their past experience. I think that MLB Network is projecting for Catelle Marte to have a big season. But that's just that's just so surprising, right? Like when was the last time that the national media projected a diamond back to, you know, to be in a spot at their position that they weren't necessarily, right?

Like, we're not used to getting more respect than we would expect from the national media. I was really stunned by this. You're right. But to be fair, they ranked him third last year and they were fucking absolutely wrong about that. So I don't know what to say when it comes to that. Now, again, like injuries and stuff, that's always going to be a factor. And I don't know if you really deduct a person being one of the best in the game because of injury. Right.

but at the same time too i have a hard time with like ozzie albies being eighth on this list and again that's mostly because i saw a lot of ozies albys during the postseason and the world series and i became very familiar and i think he's much better than several guys on this list uh i also think the same thing about jake croninworth because we see a lot of him with the san diego Padres as well. So I don't know. I mean, there's there's a part of me that that obviously thinks that the people that made this list are are much smarter than I am and no baseball better than I do. And I'm excited to see Cattel Marte up there at the top. I think that there is a lot of, I guess it's easy to say you think the Diamondbacks are going to be bad this season.

But let's not forget that before last season started, people thought the Diamondbacks are going be okay and they were also wrong about that just like MLB network was about ranking catel Marte the third best second baseman in a league in a year where he hardly played second base at all and and the other thing that bothers me about that is the plan for it was for katel Marte to play outfield from the beginning of the season last year that wasn't something that just came up I remember him playing outfield during spring training last year so don't don't or not spring training what was last year was it last year did we have spring training last year?

We had spring training last year. Just not, just no fans. No fans. Yeah, we were there for that. Right. And he was, again, he was playing, you know, center field then. And I mean, he didn't look terrible, but he also didn't look great. I remember he made one really good catch that made me go, you know what?

This isn't going to be so bad. And again, even I was wrong about that. So, but very exciting. And again, Catel Marte, a great guy. he had a weird thing with his with his eye where he scratched his eye with a putting on a contact lens. So he hasn't been out there yet. But it's going to be exciting to see him get out there and start taking swings. And just getting back to his normal self, he definitely said when questioned a couple of times that second base was where he wanted to be.

And I think based on the reaction from Hazen and Lovalo when it came to that, I don't foresee us seeing him anywhere but second base this season. I hope so. I really hope that that's the move. I mean, maybe it's some sort of double switch situation or something like that, but I don't think we'll see him on the like on the lineup card before a game as anything other than a second.

He was never really a center fielder. In my mind, he was a second baseman who played center field. But Ketal Marte was never a centerfielder. You know, these guys, trust me, I hear the answers all the time. And like, even when they give us kind of a bit of a provocative answer, they still end it with something a bit more diplomatic, right? Like, they'll say, like, Citell Marte would say something like this. Like, if you were to ask me, I think that I would be much better at second base, but I'll do whatever Tori and. Right, right.

Right. So it's like, it always ends with something like I'm always willing to do whatever or, I have no problem, whatever. But there is, the truth is in the statement somewhere. And Ketel quite often says how much he would rather play second base than center field in his statements one way or another. It's, yeah, I mean, Kattel is a good guy and he's not going to, you know, he's not going to put his manager in a corner where, you know, he has come out on record and said that he does not want to play somewhere. and he is, you know, unwilling to go outside of, you know, his preference of playing second base. He's not going to do that to Tori.

So, yeah, I mean, he's handled it how he should. And hopefully the Diamondbacks handle it how they should. And they put Ketel at second base every day. I asked Ketel my first poorly worded question of the year. So I'm excited I got that out of the way because I asked. Oh, what was it? It was, I'd asked if he stayed in, because he was in Dominican Republic up until the day, like up until Sunday before camp started. So the day that physicals and the check-ins essentially were was when he

got into the States. And I was meaning to ask, did he stay in good communication about the lockout with his teammates? But I said, did he stay in good communication with the team during the lockout? And the translator asked him that. And he kind of looked with me and he's like, he basically said Spanish, he's like, none. You know, and it was like, oh no i didn't mean the team like and i heard it because you know the word team in spanish is very different than saying like your teammates and so like when i heard them say it and the translator say it in spanish i realize uh how that that's not what i meant because uh you know josh rojas and others had talked about how good the communication was how they had a group chat and that

they felt like they could yeah they were being nick was telling them everything that he was getting back from the meetings and there was a chance for guys to kind of ask questions and bring up concerns and things like that. So just being so far away, I wanted to see if, like, he felt like he stayed in good communication about it. You can tend to feel a bit isolated when you're not, you know, around your teammates. And considering that most of the guys were here in town for weeks and weeks and weeks, I imagine that those guys felt at least that sense of, of camaraderie with their fellow,

you know, 40-man roster guys that also couldn't work out with the team. and couldn't come to the facility and things like that. So that had to form a bit of a bond between those guys and kind of help them not feel so isolated. Yeah, I mean, we often don't think about that, right? A lot of the players who were not, you know, not from here originally, they go back to their home country in the offseason. And it's a much different offseason experience than, you know,

the players who were born and raised down the street or whatever, what, you know, with their offseason looks. like well and i just think too i mean i imagine like how we were with getting information from twitter and from you know journalists and things like that i can only imagine when you're when you're that far away and that disconnected how you know how information is how how it can kind of go through the telephone game before it gets to you it gets to you kind of switch up and things like that so definitely definitely glad that he's back though and glad everybody's back now everybody's back no more travel issues. And again, very glad to hear from Tori LaVolo that he finds,

he finds several guys to be ahead of their progression. So we'll probably see some major league guys. I know Caleb Smith is going to be in today's game pitching. I know that there's a couple of major league guys that will probably get in in the first couple of games. But I would say if you're interested coming out and seeing, you know, the starters, I'd say probably by game four of spring training you'd be pretty safe uh to come out then and and start seeing they might they might only play for two innings but they are going to be out there they'll be there the most important i know what fans want fans want like spring training really what it's about is it's it's it's it's like that intimate setting it's like what i talk about about my my fun wrestling show that i go to in southern california jessie

the one of the great things about that is the fact that you're not going to get that kind of setting anywhere spring training is that like spring training is that small baseball feel but it's still the major league guys they're just kind of hanging out a couple of feet away from you and they'll sign autographs and cards and baseballs and all of that and just just saying just as a suggestion just as a reminder baseball really needs to be diplomatic and they really need to be very nice to their fans to kind of win everybody back so just remember that baseball players are probably going to be a little bit extra friendly especially during spring training time as far as, you know, signing those autographs or taking those pictures.

So, you know, come out to the ballpark during spring training because it's the best time of the year for all of that stuff. They, they're just happy to be out there playing baseball too and we're just happy to be watching it. So it's, it's that one time of the year where we vibe together at the same, the same vibe, the same energy. But we thank you guys. I'm excited.

I'm excited, Derek. It's Cactus League Baseball day one. Here we are. It's the, it happened. I'm just, Jesse, I'm just glad. Let's just. We get to. Look at box scores today.

I am so excited. I get to keep score on a scorecard, Jesse, of a real baseball game. Not a back lot inner squad game. I can't wait. But we thank you guys for vibing with us on this show. As always, you can get us on Twitter. I'm at cap underscore caveman with a K. Jesse is at Jesse and Friedman.

Our show, of course, is at PHNX underscore D-Bex, but all roads lead to at PHNX underscore sports. By the way, we're like 25 followers away from 2000. and I'm going to give away a free t-shirt once we hit 2K. So go tell your friends that love baseball to follow us because we want to get there and hopefully we can do it today. Let's do it today on the first day of Cactus League play. Let's hit 2000.

You guys would make me happy. Most importantly, you'd make my boss Saul happy. He doesn't like me very much and I need to do everything I can to win him over. Today I promised to bring him a piece of equipment that I said I had. I didn't have it. It was the wrong one. And I blew that. I can't really stop messing up.

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and now I'm going to leave that up to those two to try to figure out who I'm talking about. We thank you guys again so much for checking out the show. I guarantee you one of those two people is not Jesse Friedman. He's one of my favorite. I was a little worried for his time. Yeah, it's not you, Jesse, don't you worry? It's like, oh gosh, there's two.

On behalf of Jesse and myself, I love leaving you guys wondering who I'm talking about or even if I'm talking about anybody or just making it up. And remember, kids, baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun on opening day of spring training.