PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - This one is for Roland

Episode Date: December 14, 2021

On this episode, Jesse and Derek discuss the loss of a great man in baseball and a member of the D-backs family, Roland Hemond, and take a look at the free agents signed during Mike Hazen's tenure as GM. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome to the PHNX DVax podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Montia, occasionally known as the mayor of PHNX, and especially known as that today with all of my double and triple duties that I'm doing around here, involving football and baseball. And I can't even get names straight. It's the Diamondbacks. It's the Cardinals. I have no idea what's going on.

I guess we should specify we're recording this on Monday when Cardinals were on Monday night. Football. And of course, the song's played today. Let's rip the band-aid off. Let's tell them the truth. Let's pull the curtain back. It's 11.24 p.m. on Monday. It's almost Tuesday.

So if this is being posted on Tuesday morning, it's basically being recorded on Tuesday morning. That voice you heard is the voice of my vice mayor, my best friend, my co-host, the one and only, Thunderstick Jesse Friedman. They would never know, Derek. If we didn't tell them that it was as late as it is right now, they'd have no idea.

We were just our usual energetic. bubbly selves. These guys are up early. It's fucking Tuesday. Let's go. They got their coffee. No, I am 17 drinks deep. I did shots with Frank Sanders like 45 minutes ago.

And here I am podcasting with Jesse Friedman, who's doing everything you can to keep himself awake. He's got school. He's got five jobs. Jesse over here. He's got five jobs. And he's got just a lot of stuff to do. So, of course, we have appreciate.

appreciate you guys being here and sticking around with us listening to the show. This show is brought to you by the fine folks over at the Draft King Sportsbook app. Go download the Draft King Sportsbook app now. Use our code of PHNX and for new customers for simply betting $1 on any team to score in the NFL, you will get $100 in free bet should the team do that thing. Now, they don't need to win. They just need to score. And obviously that is something that the Cardinals did not do tonight on Monday night football.

They did not win, but they did score points. So had you bet on the Cardinals to score some points, you would have gotten those $100 in free bets instantly. Jesse, this is not an Arizona Cardinals podcast. I am done talking about football. It's a weird time. You brought this up prior to us getting on air. But obviously right now is kind of a feast or famine time, I guess you would say, in Arizona sports, right? We have the Arizona Cardinals and the Phoenix Suns, which are absolutely at the top of their game.

both tied for essentially the best record in their division. I know the Phoenix Suns lost tonight. Yeah, both teams lost today. But I guess entering today, they both had the best record in their respective league, which is insanity. It's insanity. It's a great time. It's exciting.

And I know a friend of Vine, Casey Brackley, shout out to my man Casey. He bet a thousand dollars on the Cardinals and the, the sons to both win their championships in a two-like parlay. So my heart- Yeah, to win their championship. Yeah, to win their championship. Not to win their games today. Okay, I was like, wow, that's just devastating.

Cardinals to win the Super Bowl, sons to win the championship, the NBA championship, $1,000, $2,000. Could you imagine, Derek? Could you imagine if both teams won? I can't imagine that, gosh. I think that's the reason why that seems like such a foolish parlay to. me, but it's kind of like what we were talking about tonight just in general, right? As an Arizona sports fan, I think there's like almost this feeling of too much good is

happening for me right now. There's, you know, and I, I said this when we talked about this on the PHNX sports podcast last week, but I think this is kind of a character trait of us as human beings whenever anything, whenever too much starts going good in a our lives, right? Like, it's hard for things to start rolling in the right direction and then not feel. Like, essentially, there is another shoe that's going to drop, that there's going to be some bad to kind of counterbalance all of this good happening to you. And I think that's what some Arizona sports fans are feeling with the Phoenix Suns and the Arizona Cardinals. However, Jesse, as we will remind you, you still have the coyotes and you still have the debacks. And we are

here to counterbalance you through these good times. What's funny is that like, like theoretically professional sports in Arizona right now is pretty much just kind of average overall because you have two like title contending teams and then you have two teams that are on tank watch. Just awful team. Yeah, just awful. But I would rather like as an Arizona sports fan, I think you'd rather have it this way, right? you'd rather have two teams at the top of their game and two teams that are that are really bad

rather than have like four teams that are like kind of all in the middle. And I feel like normally that's what the Arizona sports landscape is. It's like, yeah, we're a bunch of teams. They're like kind of okay. Mediocre. Yeah, there's one that might make the playoffs. But, you know, there's one that's tanking and horrible and, you know, their ownership situation is a nightmare.

And that's usually what we're used to around here. So it's kind of a fun change of pace over. all, I just wish we could kind of switch the teams around, Derek, so that we'd be talking about the diamondbacks on national television on a Monday night. Absolutely. And I mean, it's unfortunate because the Cardinals, they've struggled, right? They've had some opportunities in the spotlight. And unfortunately, they've lost those games.

They've lost some key games at home. They're still undefeated on the road. But, yeah, I've been thinking a lot about the debacks. I apparently so much that even when I was talking about the Cardinals tonight, on the Cardinals podcast. I called them the Arizona Diamondbacks, much to the chagrin of everybody on the show. I loved it, Derek.

I know you did. You just wanted to represent. We need to get our name out there. So if it means referring to the Arizona Cardinals and Diamondbacks, we'll do whatever it takes. I was like, yeah, you guys should check out the, you know, uh, PHNXD Bax podcast winning some games over here. I mean the Cardinals is what I mean.

But yeah, no, I'm with you. I mean, it's, here's the thing is that, as as an Arizona sports fan, it becomes such a, a daunting thing. You know, like, it's even, it's even hard at times to remember that the Arizona Diamondbacks brought us our first championship.

And even that championship, it seems surreal for that to be our one and only, right? Yeah, yeah. Like, really? This is the first one? I'm going to check the record books again. I don't, I don't believe that it's the first. one and it's the only one and only but it's the only one right so uh we are still leading the way as far as the arnazona diamondbacks are concerned and you know again like you said um it i i'm

i would rather especially with the diamondbacks and the coyotes being as bad uh i would much rather at least that uh we're so bad that we somehow move the needle for the yeah yeah it's It's a tank season. It's tank season, right, Derek? Don't maybe put the graphic up. Jesse, I'll put the graphic up. I will say this, though. I think that the suns at times, for me,

as far as the Arizona Diamondbacks, and as far as, I think, for Arizona Diamondbacks fans, it's kind of hopefully like a look into the crystal ball at your future, right? Yeah. The Sun's suffered for so many years of being not only mediocre, but awful at times, which is what you could say about the years on the Diamondbacks this season. They were on tank season for a long time.

Like 10 seasons, right? Yeah, yeah. It's, uh, at the very least, the Diamondbacks do have that to look forward to that they didn't. I don't think they're rebuilding process or whatever they go through is going to be nearly as long. No, no. And honestly, look at where the sons are at between reaching the finals last year and being one of the best teams in the league this year. at the very least you have that to hang your hat on that eventually we can get out of this pit that we're in now and be to a point of a little bit more positivity you know what i mean a little bit

more uh at least hope for for the team right the sun still haven't done it yet but the fact that they have made it out and they've established themselves as one of the best teams in the leave from being a 19 win season or 19 win team just a few seasons ago. Yeah. Things can change. So the hope is out there. And we want all Arizona Diamondbacks fans to keep hope alive. Even during the lockout, you know, we know we'd have no news to report or no things

happening right now. But that doesn't mean that once this lockout ends, that we're not going to see this huge signing period. Yeah. It's going to be madness whenever on January 28th when the lockout ends, it's going to be. Rational. Oh, my God. Chris, Chris today, Chris on Twitter brought up your irrational. I know.

I saw that. And it just fueled the flame, Derek. Now I'm all the more. I'm all the more on board with January 28th. But no, you're absolutely right. I mean, the diamondbacks are, they're not going to have to spend. 10 years, right, however long the Sons did, sort of in purgatory, waiting for, waiting for something to turn out well for them. I don't see the Diamondbacks going through that process.

We've talked about the depth of their farm system and the fact that things are looking up here. And that's an interesting point, right? Because when you look back at the Sun's draft picks and how many of them didn't work out for this team, you could see how, how much of an impact those draft picks can make. It's not to say that that's better or worse. I'm not trying to say it's better or worse, but I'm trying to say that at least with baseball, you know, it kind of takes a little bit more time.

And if a draft pick doesn't work out, it really isn't as... Yeah, you're not putting all your eggs in one basket. Right. Like it's not like if Dragon Vender doesn't pan out, then we're screwed. It's like, no, we've got like, you know, Slade Sikoni and Blake Walson and Ryan Nelson and Drew Jameson.

And like there's there's a lot of depth there. So it's a totally different situation in baseball. Don't even, don't even get me started on Marquis, Chris and how much we thought he was the future of this team at one point. Right. People did, I should say. But yeah, no, I mean, it's weird because draft picks can have such a big influence impact on the team, right?

But we've talked about it in the past. baseball, not so much. Baseball, it takes longer to not only have those draft picks come around and reach a major league level, but there's such a small percentage of draft picks that actually work out at a major

league level and be I guess fulfill that kind of you know, that hope that you have in them, fulfill that amount of, you know, assisting a franchise that you think a single player

is going to do, right? It just, it doesn't work out necessarily in baseball. And that's not to say that there's still not your Bryce Harper's and such out there, you know, that can impact the game, which is much fewer and far between in baseball than in basketball. Basketball seems to be one of those sports that every year, there is a handful of players that come out of the draft that change the NBA, right, because of how good they are and their impacts on their team.

So we're not going to see that out of baseball. baseball, but what we will see out of baseball is at least the lockout as far as Jesse is concerned for 28th more days. January 28th, sorry, 46 days. Sorry, sorry, 46 more days. As we record on Monday, it would be 45 days by the time people listen to this. It's awful. I don't like your confidence in that.

But what I do like is people's confidence in the Draft King Sportsbook app. Go download the Draft King Sportsbook app now. use our code of PHNX and simply for betting $1 on any NFL team to score any points, you will get $100 in free bets if they score those points. It's that simple. Drafking sports, but customers can also get skin in the game. With same game parlays, I am taking away my own nicknames for now,

and I will give them back to me after I hit a couple more, same game parles, but you can call yourself whatever you want by combining multiple bets from the same game for a bigger payout. also you can buy bets from multiple games and multiple sports for a bigger payout. The more legs you add, the more money you win. Draft Kings is safe, secure, and reliable. Best of all, you can deposit and withdraw your cash whenever the hell you want. Remember, download the Draft King Sportsbook app now.

Use our promo code of P HNX. And for betting that $1 on any team to score, you will win $100 in free bets. Should they score, you will score. Don't forget, Draft King's Sportsbook is the official sports betting partner of the NFL, 21 and over only, Arizona only, gambling problem, dial 1,800 next step, new customers only, eligibility restrictions apply. See draftkings.com slash sportsbook for details. Jesse, I, we had a big loss.

We had a big loss in the D-BACs community today. Not today necessarily last night, apparently, but Roland Heimand, individual that has been a part of the Arizona Diamondbacks organization. for a number of years passed away. The Divac sent out a press release morning the loss of Roland. He was 92 years old, born October 26, 1929 through December 12, 2021. His career spanned eight decades and 70 seasons with Major League Baseball. From 1951 to 2020, Jesse.

That's one hell of a career, including time. with Boston, Milwaukee, Los Angeles, Angels, Chicago White Sox, the Orioles, and last and most recently with the Arizona Diamondbacks. He even spent 19 season when the Diamondbacks as senior executive vice president of baseball operations from 1996 to 2000 and special assistant to the CEO and president from 2007 to 2020. And let me tell you, Jesse, tonight. I know all sorts of people are mourning the loss of Roland. There was a statement from his family that said he passed away peacefully in his son, Jay's arms. The human family shared many laughs with him until the end. And we appreciate the love and support of all of his baseball family.

And I know what a big part Roland played in the Arizona Diamondbacks and how much he meant to people within this organization. Yeah. Um, tonight I actually had the opportunity to speak, uh, to someone whose life was very, very directly affected by Roland. And, um, the interesting thing about this, I don't, this is weird for me, because the reason why this individual, uh, and I'm just going to, I'm just going to not name him. I figure it's, it's, since I don't know if I should name him or not. I'm just going to decide not to. But this individual played, he was the role of Baxter for a number of years. He, as he told me tonight, he was Baxter

number two, going back to my article about Baxter the fourth. He was Baxter Jr. He was Baxter the second. And so the thing that was very touching about his story with Roland was how much Roland impacted his life, how much he did for him personally to be able to go to school. Not only did he work towards a program that allowed Arizona Diamondbacks, you know, employees and people that worked in the franchise to receive a discount going to a college. Like I think he said, he got 25% off of his total schooling, but he also helped him towards a scholarship that helped pay for the remainder of his schooling. Wow.

And again, I think this just kind of goes to show, like, you can say what you will about baseball families and people and all of that. But it's such a different level within the organizations of how these people care for each other and what some people do for others. I can, like, this story that I heard about tonight touched, me and it was only one. It was only one single person's views of how tremendous.

There's so many people who have spoken up about this guy. Right. On Twitter's just been, and frankly, I didn't know that much about Roland Heeman coming into today, but I've just been blown away by the response from everyone, every diamond back, is everyone I know

who knows anything about the Diamondbacks who's ever followed this team. Everyone is speaking up about the impact that he had in one way or another. here's one thing I will say is I didn't have a personal relationship with him but one time I did speak to him and he had this completely selfless attitude you know he had this attitude of like that he was nothing special like he shouldn't be somebody that I was excited to meet or anything like that you know but then like I said I heard all of these stories. about how much he's done for people within the organization and such and how much he's met. You know, in his statement, Ken Kendrick and Derek Hall said Roland was one of baseball's greatest ambassadors. His impact on the game is beyond measure.

We were lucky he was a deback for 19 years as our organization is better because of his time here. His legacy will live on through those whose lives he's touched and mentored on a daily basis. As everyone who meant him became a friend and had a favorite, Roland's story. One of his personal mottoes, enjoy the moment, serves as a good reminder of a life well lived. And man, I don't know, Jesse. I'll tell

you at times, I have lived by this philosophy myself. And if there's one thing I think people should take away from this entire situation, whether you're touched by

the loss of Roland or you know who he was, maybe you a chance to meet him. Or maybe you have no idea who this person was. And his, you know, this passing, you know, understandably doesn't affect you or move you. But I will say this, coming from a guy who lived the majority of his life in baseball and almost lived to be 100 years old, the personal motto, enjoy the moment is something I

think we should all take away. Yeah, that'll get you pretty far in life, Derek. Enjoy the moment. There you go. It really will. I've explained this to my wife at times, Jesse. It's kind of a weird feeling I have where certain things that I do in life with my daughter or my family, I have this weird feeling internally like I've been there before, right?

Like a weird sense of deja vu. And I know it's not really deja vu. I don't really feel like I've been in this moment before. But I think for me, at times I've realized. you know, how quick all of this can end, how precious time is, and how little we appreciate time the first time we go through it, right? Like you talk to old, old heads, you talk to wise people, you know, you talk to our grandparents and you talk to people and you hear them always say stuff about wishing they had more time or wishing they could go back or wishing they could live in moments more. You know, and so for me personally, I've found myself doing that, especially with having a daughter, right? And I just, again, it's like, it's like I feel like I'm a weird time traveler that's already lived through this.

And here I am getting one more chance, like almost like a like a Scrooge kind of situation where they're like, all right, you get to go do it again one more time, you know? And I just find myself taking those moments with my daughter where I truly try to appreciate in the moment what's going on. And that like I'm watching my daughter at eight play on a playground and that in five more years, this isn't going to be something I see her do anymore. You know, it's like I don't think enough people take the time to enjoy the moment and enjoy whatever it is. I know we all are very ambitious. I know we all want to do bigger, greater things. But sometimes even in our jobs, we can just enjoy the moment a little bit more. We can not necessarily be so worried about the future or be so worried about advancing our position in life and just be a little bit more concerned with enjoying the moment.

You know, one of my favorite phrases to live by is we're not here for a long time. We're here for a good time. And I think that's something that everybody should remember is that, you know, we're not here. We're not here for a long time. We're here for a good time. It's something honestly, I hope baseball remembers, right? because with all this pettiness, all of this back and forth, all of these arguments and these, yeah, it's like what really matters here at the end of the day, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Making money, playing baseball, enjoying a sport, giving fans and people a sense of entertainment and a sense of, you know, an escape from their lives, from their jobs, right? So I just think that it's something everybody should do, and I hope that maybe everybody involved in this entire lockout process, could maybe take a little bit of a, of a, of a, you know, from Roland and just learn to enjoy the moment more and not worry so much about arguing about all this stuff

because really at the end of the day, none of this matters, right? So let's try to do that more. And shout out to Roland Heyman, rest in peace. We will miss you. I will miss seeing you around the ballpark. Yeah. And it was always an absolute pleasure

to interact with you when we did get a chance to interact. So I thank you so much. And I will take quite a bit away from this myself. So I hope everybody else can as well. Jesse, I know you have an article that you wrote on go phnx.com. By the way, I just want to let everybody know go become a member. Jesse worked incredibly hard on this article. And honestly, I'm going to credit you right now, I think it's one of the best things you've ever written. And the reason why is because I think the amount of work you put into it was substantial. And it was, it shows, right? I think your piece kind of breaking down, the article I'm talking about is Jesse kind of breaking down the best, it was free agent acquisitions, right?

Essentially in Diamondbacks history. And I thought it was a very insightful piece. there's a part of it that is kind of staggering to me, Jesse, which is really the lack of impact free agents have had on this team lately. You know, but that's definitely something everybody should go check out. It's over at go phtnx.com. You can become a member. Sign up to become an annual member.

You'll get that free t-shirt over at the p.nx locker.com. Or you can sign up to become a month-to-month member, and you'll get your first month for just 50 cents. But if you do become a member, of course, first of all, you're a member of our family, which means, you know, we'll say nice things about you and we'll try to help you always remember to enjoy the moment. But you also get access to our members-only Discord

and our members-only discounts over at the PHNXlogger.com, not to mention all of the wonderful content everybody's putting out at go-PHNX.com. And when I say that, I mean that. Jesse and myself, we're always trying to bring you great content. Jesse is an amazing writer, so I definitely recommend you guys to go check out his work. But Gerald, Johnny, everybody else that writes on the website, we are bringing it for you year-round. I know it's a little bit more year-round for us right now, considering that nothing's going on.

But we'll be here at all times over at go-P-HNX.com. We hope you become a member. Most importantly, we hope you enjoy the content and we hope you stick around. but Jesse, yeah, the piece that you have on the D-BACs free agents. Yes. Let's talk about that just a little bit because I wanted to ask you what was, like I said, it was a bit staggering. It's a bit crazy to think of some of the money that's spent,

but yet how few have actually worked out so well for this team. So I guess I wanted to get your thoughts. Was there anything that really surprised you in your research for this piece? there were a few things that really stood out. So I specifically looked at free agents under Mike Hazen's regime. Looking at free agents all time would be quite an under- Yes, for sure. But yeah, I think it's an interesting question.

I mean, Mike Hazen is, I don't think any of us see Mike Hazen on the hot seat, at least not like we saw Tori Lavello on the hot seat maybe a few months ago. Sure. Or some people still want him on the hot seat. Yeah, some people still want him on the hot seat for sure. sure. And I think there's, you know, I mean, it's not an unreasonable question. Like, is Mike Hazen the right guy to lead this team moving forward, given that they just won 52 games and they've kind of flopped the last couple years when they were expected to be quite a bit better, especially in 2020. But I looked at every major league free agent signing that Mike Hazen has completed since the start of his tenure back in, back in 2016. And all in all, it's sort of been just okay, which is kind of what. I expected, right? Like there's there's some good moves in here. There's Merrill Kelly, who I wrote a separate article about. He is, in my opinion, he is clearly the best free agent signing of Mike Hazen's

tenure. There's Eduardo Escobar. If you count him as a free agent signing, it kind of felt more like a contract extension, but technically it happened after his deal had expired. Daniel Descalso and Chris Sionetta back in 2017, they were super productive on one-year deal. So those really panned out. But then on the other hand, there's other moves like Madison Bumgarner, which kind of looks like a mess moving forward potentially. I wrote about him in the article. And there's other, especially on the relief market, things have been a little rough, right? Junior Guerra and Hector Andon and Tyler Clippard and these guys have struggled with injuries or just not a lack of ability to fill the role that they were brought in to fill. right so so one thing that stuck out derrick this is the kind of the quick the quick version that

i'll give is there's a big disparity between hayes success with role players and his success with relievers and that's really predominantly the two categories that he signed he has signed a lot of role players and a lot of relievers in his time with the diamond backs and if you look at the relievers it's kind of a mess uh fernando rodney um and you can check out the article to see the entire details in the backing for this. But Fernando Rodney, according to the research I did, is the only player that the Diamondbacks signed since Mike Hazen's tenure began, who has actually been worth his contract. Everyone else, every single Major League free agent that Mike Hazen has signed for the

bullpen has either broken perfectly even, which I think was the case with Yoshi-Hirano, or has underperformed their deal, which is rough, right? And I think that's not really shocking because I wrote another article about the bullpen and the ongoing issues this team has had with the bullpen. That plays into that a lot. And then if you switch over to the role player side of things, like I mentioned, there's Descalso, there's Ioneta, Jeff Mathis was really good for a couple years when he was here. Wilmer Flores was really solid.

Gerard Dyson was pretty good when he was here as well. So on the role player side of things, Mike Hazen has had a lot more success. So that was kind of my main takeaway. But as you said, it's a piece I poured a lot of work into. There's a lot there. So I would encourage you to go check it out for yourself and let us know it stands out to you. What stands out to me, Jesse, is that I still feel like Mike Hazen was given a broken franchise. I think the metaphor I used was, you know, it's the old 80s, you know, teenage or kids.

movie trope that someone broke the vase at the party and Mike Hazen is the one with the bottle of super glue and a bunch of pieces of broken vase required to put it back together, right? And to be honest, he did a

good job of it. And he was given duct tape to put it back together. It's pretty much what he's had to work with. You look at it, is it perfect? No, it's not perfect. I could see all the obvious cracks. You could put a plant in there though. It'll hold it. It might not grow, but.

Right. It'll hold water. You might be able to pass it off on your mom with bad eyesight. There you go. Give it to an in-law as a Christmas gift or something like that. Yeah. Exactly. But you're right.

And I think that when you look at some of the free agent signings that he's had, he never really had a clean slate and he never really had a good team. It was always kind of in between, right, where he had some. pieces to work with to put together. And yeah, maybe you can, you know, figure this thing out and put a team together on the field. But

yeah, eventually, like in 2021, you're going to try to fucking put water in that bitch and it's going to leak out of every single one of those little cracks that he didn't get right, you know, and you can see where the cracks are. I think that this team, I mean,

the contract situation, everything, even even if you don't like Madison Bumgarner's contract, you still have to applaud the fact that they were able to sign him while like structuring the deal inward so that they could get out of Yzmani Tomasa's contract in the first deal. That part of it's still kind of,

I kind of wish they'd been able to do it the other way because I feel like backloading contracts on guys who are going to be in their mid-30s by the end is a little rough. But you're right. That was the only way to do it. It was the only way to do. And so that's what he did. Yeah, you're right.

I mean, to get Madison Bumgarner to play for $6 million in his first year was impressive. Right. And the Yasvani Tomas was not a deal that he made, right? So it was something that he needed to get out of. He's had a lot of Albatross contracts that he's just inherited and had to deal with. Absolutely. Right.

But I also agree with you. I think, you know, I definitely will say I'm a person on this very podcast has said, I would like Mike Hazen general manage my life, right? But, you know, when you start talking about some of these free agent signings and what has and hasn't worked, you know, maybe, maybe at times we're giving him too much credit. You know, maybe we really should, you know, wait and see before we want to say in Hazen, we trust, right? And I will say that especially when it comes to pitching, it doesn't really seem like anything

he's done so far for this team has worked out. My hope is that, you know, here with this latest signing of Mark Malanson is the changing of that. Hopefully, this is the most productive reliever slash pitcher that he's signed over, you know, his 10 years general manager of this team. I just, you know, I will say this. I've felt patient. And I think a lot of people have been realistic about this team and when they're going to be good. But I feel like the clock is ticking now, Jesse.

I feel like it's ticking on Tori and it's ticking on Hazen. And I feel like they don't have much time to rectify this. It's not to say that they immediately need to get this team to the playoffs in 2022, but there needs to be improvements and it kind of needs to be all around without seeing that next year. I mean, people are worried about trading off Mark Malanson and other shit that this team might do. They have way bigger fish to fry if they have another season in 2022 as bad as 2021 was. They really do. And it's probably going to start with getting rid of territorial, unfortunately.

Right now, on the plus side of that, at least they have a coaching staff in place should they decide to do that, that can still steer this ship. Whereas I don't know if that was the case last season. I don't know. I don't know if Luis Eureta and, you know, Herges and some of those guys were ready to figure out and be interim managers until the end of the season. Victoria Lavello gone. So I think Jeff Bannister and some of the folks they brought on,

a little bit more apt for that position. But just like talking about trading Mark Melanson, I don't want to do any of this. This is all terrible negative talk that we don't even need to get into because hopefully this team will be much better. And I've staked my reputation, I think, at times, on how much I think this team is going to be better. So we'll see what happens.

But first, let's get this lockout. over and done with. And, you know, shout out to everybody within the organization that's, you know, still trying to still trying to make positive things happen. Let's keep that train rolling. And more importantly, let's get back to baseball. We need that to happen. I'm going out of my mind, Jesse. And I'm thrilled that we were able to fill 35 minutes tonight. But who knows what the future may hold for us or baseball. But we want to thank you guys so much for listening. We appreciate you guys checking out the show. please make sure to sign up over at go p hnx.com and become a member go over to draft king's sportsbook app and use our code of p hnx new customers again you'll get a hundred dollars and free bets for betting one dollar in any team to score should they score you can follow us on twitter i'm at cap underscore caveman with a k jesse is at jesse and freeman our show is at p h nx underscore debax but of course all roads lead to at p h nx underscore sports and that is on instagram facebook and twitter uh please

please if you're listening to us right now in your favorite audio podcasting app leave us a five-star review jesse is a five-star man i absolutely am not uh but i don't i don't go into the negative right so i don't take stars away from jesse and that's the thing to remember here so leave us a five-star review and subscribe over there subscribe on youtube as well and sign up for notifications that way you don't miss any of our arizona sports content coming out of this machine that we are pumping arizona content out of uh we thank you guys so much we don't thank the card and the Sons for losing tonight because you're making so much more pressure on us. We handle the losing around here.

Us and the coyotes, you sons of bitches are supposed to win, so get back to your winning ways. And I know all of you fans are on board with that. We thank you guys so much for watching and listening on behalf of Jesse and myself. We appreciate you guys being fans of the show. And remember, kids, baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun when you can bet on it.