PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Throw out the rule book! MLB continues to experiment with new rules in the independent league

Episode Date: April 27, 2023

The Arizona Diamondbacks have three off days this week, and we don’t know what to do with ourselves. We take a look at what has made the D-backs offense effective in the month of April. We also discuss the new rules being tested by MLB in the Atlantic League and how they’ve truly opened up Pandora’s Box for baseball. WATCH YOUR FAVORITE TEAMS HERE: https://www.fubotv.com/phnx SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports Keepin It 100 Golf Scramble: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/phnx-keepin-it-100-classic-scramble-golf-tournament-tickets-617328515207 Gametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase.BetMGM: Download the BetMGM app and sign-up using bonus code PHNX (betmgm.com/phnx). Place a pre-game, moneyline wager in the amount of at least $10 on any market at standard odds price. You will receive $200 in Bonus Bets instantly regardless of the outcome of your wager! Just make sure you use bonus code PHNX when you sign up!Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER (CO, DC, IL, IN, LA, MD, MS, NJ, OH, PA, TN, VA, WV, WY). Call 877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY). Call 1-800-327-5050 (MA)21+ to wager. Please Gamble Responsibly. Call 1-800-NEXT-STEP (AZ), 1-800-522-4700 (KS, NV), 1-800-BETS-OFF (IA), 1-800-270-7117 for confidential help (MI). Visit BetMGM.com for Terms & Conditions. US promotional offers not available in DC, Nevada, New York or Ontario.Knockout Nights: Join our cornhole league during the 1st Friday night of every month! They’re free to enter and will include food and beverage specials, giveaways, and BetMGM prizes: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/622016186157Pins & Aces: Check out pinsandaces.com and use code PHNX to receive 15% off your first order and get free shipping.PHNX: Join us at the BetMGM Sportsbook at State Farm Stadium for all Suns’ away playoff games. Our PHNX Suns watch parties, presented by NUTRL, will feature food and drink specials, PHNX giveaways, and BetMGM deposit matches. Join us by grabbing your free ticket: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/616706063437Circle K: Make sure you’re not missing out on all this great stuff, and be stocked all March Madness long! Head to https://www.circlek.com/store-locator to find Circle Ks near you!OGeez!: Learn more about OGeez! at https://ogeezbrands.com//. Must be 21 years or older to purchase.Rotowire: Get your free trial and unlock all the best fantasy sports news and analysis at https://rotowire.com/phnxFour Peaks: Enjoy a refreshing Four Peaks’ Red Bird Lager during the NFL Draft on April 27th. Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. Roman: Go to https://ro.co/PHNX today to get 20% off your entire first order. When you shop through links in the description, we may earn affiliate commissions. Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. 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 in to another edition of the PHNX Devac podcast. Righty on PHNX. My name is Derek Monta, occasionally known as your mayor of PHNX. And for Michael Rokickey, here in Phoenix, this is where I'm the mayor of. I have to stay here centralized. This guy, he's my satellite mayor. He goes wherever the team goes. And he oversees whatever city of the team is.

He's my vice mayor. It's the thunder stick Jesse Friedman. Yeah, going in Denver later today, Derek. It should be... Soonish. Soonish. Soonish. We're going to do the show.

We're going to take care of some final things. We're going to say our farewells. Our farewells. Which takes a good hour or two. Yeah, you guys know I'm going to be so worried about him a whole time. Absolutely mortified from my safety while I'm on the road. I want to be a wreck. I'm going to be a nervous wreck.

But today is kind of a boring day for us. It's a good day for you to travel. travel, one of three off days for the Arizona dive-and-backs over the next week. And, Jesse, what do I do with my hands? This is, I don't know what to do with myself in my hands in this time. The only other time this happens is basically the final week of the season, actually, like, the last, I guess two weeks you could say, but the only other time they have three off days is basically the last week of September.

And I don't know what we do with all this time. Yeah, I mean, this bullpen has been taxed very heavily. It's a good point. Over the last couple weeks. Good time for this, I guess. I don't think, I don't think Tori Lavello and the D-Backs coaching staff are too disappointed by the D-backs having some off days here. But it is a little weird.

I mean, having three off days in the span of, I guess it's technically eight days. I mean, that's a lot. That's kind of unnecessary. It probably don't need quite that much time off. It's just a small span of time. It's today, Monday, and then also next Thursday, right? So, like, yeah. I mean, it's just kind of crazy.

But when you talk about the Diamondbacks bullpen, eating it. You're absolutely right. Like the bullpen has been very good, but the one thing that it seemed like was happening to the Diamondbacks bullpen was, it seemed like things were going to catch up to them very soon. And like eventually it was going to come to a point where every single guy was essentially going to be taxed a bit and we were going to see this maybe sneak up on them and be a problem for them soon. Yeah, yeah. I mean, somehow we still saw Andrew Chafin pitch in that game yesterday, even though he threw 35 pitches two days prior. the debacks a big part of them being able to navigate this situation and the fact that you know jay jameson only went one inning and then Tommy henry had a short start they've had a lot of short outings of late but what's allowed them to get through that in recent days is the fact that they have a nine-man bullpen right now they only have four starting pitchers so they have an extra reliever down there which is certainly certainly helped them out

yeah in the long term though you know eventually they're going to get they're going to get a fifth starter in here at some point. We still don't really know when that when exactly that's going to happen. Allegedly. Allegedly the D-PACs are not going to have a four-man rotation of the rest of the year. But yeah, we'll see how things work out. The bullpen for the Diamondbacks, not great. The ERA for the D-BACs bullpen, not outstanding. But you know who else is at a bullpen? Bad bullpen, I guess you should say. Every single team in the National League West. Right now, I want you to guess who has the best. bullpen right now best bullpen er a who i haven't looked at this i know it's it's not there's no way it's

the giants because the giants bullpen has been miserable you would be correct um it's not the debacks it's not correct the the Padres have some i think their back end guys have been good but i think they've had some middle relievers be terrible i'm going to go out and say something a little crazy i think the Rockies have the best bullpen you're right yeah the Colorado Rockies have the best bullpen ERA right now in the NL West at 4.17. That's why. Diamondbacks have the second best at 4.50, tied with the Padres at 4.50. The Giants have the fourth worst at 4.1, 5.17, and the Dodgers have the worst bullpen

ERA right now in the entire National League at 5.32. That's crazy. I mean, and their offense today, Derek, I know that, so the Dodgers lost 62 to the pirates earlier today, they've got Jason Hayward in the three hole, which is, I believe Will Smith must be hurt right now

because he hasn't played in a few days. But still, I mean, it's Betts Freeman, Jason Hayward, and then James Outman, who went 0 for four with four strikeouts today. Not a great day for him.

What was that, Jesse? Yeah, James Outman, not. He might not win the rookie of the year award. Oh, he had four. We'll see. Oh, Four strikeouts. You had four strikeouts.

Give it to him. Gotcha. Yeah, he was over for the four strikeouts. Give it to them. Everyone in this office is just very anti-James outman. We're at anti-James Outvin, anti-Jordan Walker now, right? We're also,

anybody that tries to come for our Corbyn Carroll's title of rookie of the year? Yeah, you're on our list. But the rest of this lineup, too, man. I mean, David Peralta, old friend here, hitting 183 for the Dodgers in the early going. Chris Taylor has really struggled. He was 0 for 4.

They've got Trace Thompson, who is, who is O for three with three strikeouts today. He is really, I think he's hitting like 111 since that that big three homer game against the debacks early in the season. This Dodgers offense is very fragmented right now as well. And there's a reason they're 13 and 13. Yeah. It's not just, it's not that Freddie Freeman is hitting 180 or something, you know. It's that this team is not at all the caliber that we've, that we've seen in the past.

I do think some of those bullpen guys will, we'll figure things out. I don't expect the Dodgers to have the worst bullpenny RA in the National League for very long. But they have their warts. This is not nearly the team it's been in the past. And they can only have Mookiee bets play so many positions on the field, right? And at the same time, I mean, they're close up. Well, they had them play two today. Today was in both second base and in right field.

They've had him at shortstop. They've had him. They might have even had him at center field at some point. They'll do whatever they can. By the way, with all this time off this week, we decided that we're going to make Jesse watch another movie. Oh, are we? So this is news to me.

Yeah, it's news to him, but it's not news to me. I'm the one that makes the decisions around here. Jesse Friedman gets to watch, do another movie review for us next week. Oh, you haven't picked it? Yeah, we haven't picked it yet. We're going to let you guys pick it. So give us your suggestions on Twitter. Maybe we'll put together a little poll with any suggestions you guys have.

Anything that you can think of because there's a very high likelihood that he hasn't seen it. Don't even. Yeah, that's true. Just whatever movie you think any human beings should watch, he probably hasn't seen it. Don't you have to give them options, though? Shouldn't you make a poll of like four options? Like a theme or something like that? Something like where they kind of met?

No, let's not. Let's just do whatever. The chances of like any two people suggesting the same movie doesn't seem particularly high. Well, no, we'll get some good suggestions. And I will put together a list of four options and then people can vote on the four options. So we'll do that because of course, this is what we do whenever we have time off. We make Jesse watch movies. Something else we like to do.

It's like work for me, Derek. Yeah, I know. We give him more work to do. We give him more work to do. But somebody that has put in the work, obviously, is our very own Zach Gallen, who has continued to be very impressive. We've been tweeting about him. I'm not sure if you've seen the thing, the scoreless streak stuff. But Zach Gallen in yesterday's game debuted something that's kind of been the talk of Major League Baseball a bit today, which was maybe not even a pitch that he threw on purpose.

but it's leaving batters shook across Major League Baseball. And that's the fact that Zach Gallen has now added a cut change-up to his arsenal, I guess. Well, okay, we should be clear about this. Zach Gallen has not added a cut change up to his arsenal. He accidentally threw what appeared to be, at least we think it was accidental. We have no idea. It looked accidental to Zach. He did not seem to know what he did.

But yeah, Zach Gallen threw a very bizarre pitch yesterday that no one, no one really. No one really understands. We got some screenshots of it. Can we take a look at these? This is kind of what it looks like coming in, right? It was supposed to kind of be a cutter with some horizontal change up, right? It's a change up. Yeah, it's wasn't, it's not a fastball.

It looks like something a little bit softer. It's changed. Surely it's going to go down, right? It's going to just like dive down. Oh, wow. Oh, no. How did you do that? Doesn't gravity, like, isn't gravity supposed to make it go down there?

you go down, Derek? I didn't think a ball could do that. I didn't really think that it could do that. And then what else we got? Let's go to the next. This is where Vinny knew he made a big mistake and even attempting to swing at it. And right here's where the umpire figured out

he made a mistake by where he was positioning himself. I'm now how his mask is now missing. But my favorite shot is this final one. Zat, look at this guy. Just looking at his hand, like what did I just do? I just throw. This is what like one of the X-Men look like the first time that they like threw fire or ice, you know, or a or a projectile out of their hand. Like they look down at themselves like, am I this powerful?

This is a superhero origin story. Yeah, that's exactly what this is right here. This is incredible. But Zach Allen, of course, leaving, like I said, leaving batter is shook because we do have some tweet, at least one response to the tweet from the batter himself. Yeah, this is incredible. Vinny Pascontino said this was quite possibly the craziest pitch I've ever seen. I've never been more confused in my life. Was it a cutter? Was it a changeup? Somehow it was both. That's such an admission of loss right there. Like you're coming on a public forum. He's not replying to MLB or anything. That was a reply to pitching ninja, our guy right here. And he just had to say like, hey, I still don't understand. understand what took place yesterday, but that was pretty hilarious. So can I break down some numbers behind this pitch real quick?

Oh, please. So please do. This is fascinating. So looking at the vertical and horizontal movement of this pitch. So I'll give you the baseline of what Zach Gallons change up and cutter normally do. So Zach Gallen's change up on average has about 33 inches of vertical drop and 13 inches of horizontal break. All right, so keep those numbers in here at 33 and 13. This pitch, 21 inches of vertical drop.

So way less vertical drop. And that's why it has like what kind of appears to be like a rising action almost. And it only had nine inches of horizontal movement. So it had both less horizontal and vertical movement considerably than his changeout. So why did it give that optical illusion like that? Is it basically because it rode it out and it was supposed to kind of dip and it didn't? And that's just why it looks like it rose up? It's a weird effect.

I don't really know like, because we know it didn't rise, right? Like gravity doesn't work. I don't think. Maybe. Maybe something superhuman happened yesterday. But no, gravity is still doing its job. But the pitch was very resistant to that vertical drop that you would expect out of a pitch that was this soft.

This was about 83 miles an hour. In terms of velocity, it was exactly identical to a normal Zach Allen changeup. If you look at Zach Allen's cutter, normally that pitch has 31 inches. of drop and is about 88 miles an hour. Although Stadcast has all sorts of issues with his cutter versus a slider, it kind of just groups them together. Zach Allen calls it a slutter. So do with that what you will.

I like that. I knew you would. I have fucking blown that. But that pitch normally has 4.6 inches of horizontal movement, so much less horizontal movement, pretty similar, pretty similar vertical movement. So what you saw with this pitch is a pitch that for an 83 mile per hour pitch it was incredibly resistant to vertical drop. To only drop 21 inches at 83 miles an hour is really weird.

And in terms of horizontal movement, it was a nine inches of horizontal break. So it was like right halfway in between a normal cutter and change up for Zach Gallen. So it was weird. It was a complete anomaly. It did not at all fit in the cutter bucket or the change up bucket or any other bucket of any pitch that he normally throws. And the physical,

like the physics of it, the physics of it, is just incredible to me. Like it has to, I mean, the spin rate, is that like anything to do with anything of what we saw there or no? It was pretty identical to his normal change up spin rate.

Generally change ups don't spin very much at all. So it was about 1,400 RPM, which is pretty much average for Zach Allen change up. So I don't, I don't really know what exactly. I know some pitchers do you have like a cut change up pitch. That is a thing that some pitchers have. Zach Allen has not been one of those pictures.

Michael McDermott called it a chutter, which maybe we can get behind that. He has both the slutter and the chutter. Yeah, let's go. But yeah, hooray for defying physics and whatever Zach Gallen did on that pitch. I love Satchel Page's name for his pitches. So Zach Gallen, just like calling us finks, can call his pitches whatever he wants to. But Zach Gallen hasn't been the only thing that's been working so well for this team,

at least his arm and his pitches and his chutter, haven't been the only thing that's been leading the Diamondback. to success. The Diamondbacks have had some things working for them pretty well offensively. A lot of it seems to still revolve around the speed of this young team. But there's some things here that I find to be pretty fascinating. The D-backs right now lead all of Major League Baseball and doubles with 55. And they also are tied for the lead for triples with the Phillies and the Pirates, which are also teams that are hitting very well as well. But the speed there, I think the Diamondbacks, what they've been able to do on the base path and extend those singles and and the doubles and doubles and the triples,

has been impressive and as is showing by after the first month of the season, that they are leading the league in those categories. Though other thing I find to be very fascinating is that right now, they are fourth in all a major league baseball for hits behind the Phillies, Rays, and Cardinals with 226. That's something, you know, because, again, we've said often that the Diamondbacks are finding a way to win, and while they might not be getting a lot of home runs,

they are absolutely hitting the ball. And they are hitting the ball a lot. They're getting on base. And as we've said, when they can get on base, they can make things happen. They are not good in walks right now, which is something that could definitely help them be even better. They got better. I think they're out of the basement. They are.

They are no longer last. That's right. That's correct. They are second to last in walks. They're also 24th in Major League Baseball in home runs. But they do have the fifth lowest strikeout total. And they are sixth in stolen bases, third in the National League. So they're doing a lot of things well.

And I think those, the small ball, you know, like we've heard Tori LaValle for, I feel like his entire time here, talk about doing the fundamentals well, doing the small things well. And that that's going to be the key to the success for a team like this, especially a team where you kind of have a different guy leading the way offensively each and every night if his name. Well, I say that. But we all know our risk king is for Aldo Pardomo. But the rest of these guys, they're doing their job of contributing at key moments. Yeah, I mean, this is what the debacks are going to have to be good at. It's offense. I mean, is the debacks bitching staff going to be top 10 in baseball?

I don't know. I just, I don't know if I see it, right? Could they be top 13, 40, like, could they be right in the middle? Yeah, I think so. Could their bullpen be right in the middle? Yeah, I think if enough things go right, you know, maybe you could get to that point. But if the debacks are going to be, you know, a well above average team, it's going to be because they have a really good offense. And you can see kind of the makings of that already, right?

You can see with the number of hits that you just talked about. They are seventh in the league right now in batting average. That's a big change from last year. Last year, the Diamondbacks had a team batting average of 230 compared to 260 this season. That ranked 26th in baseball. So just like the raw number of base hits was not a strength of this team last year. They took their walks. They had, you know, a few guys with some power.

but just going out there and trying to single other teams to death was not really in their arsenal. And this year, I think it is. And a lot of that has to do with trading Dalton Varsho for Lordus Guriel and Gabby Moreno, right? You're trading a guy who, you know, hit around 230 last year, but obviously did a whole lot of other things very well. And in exchange, you got a guy in Lordus Guriel who hit 290 last year and a guy in Gabby Moreno who hit over 300 in his first taste of the big leagues. Both of those guys are still getting going. We haven't seen their best yet. But this year, I mean, they have considerably outperformed Dalton Varsho in terms of batting average. And I think there are some other guys on this team who have taken steps forward in that

way as well, right? Heraldo Perdomo, Josh Rojas, you know, you've seen some of these things come together. Obviously, Corbyn Carroll is sitting 311 at this point. That's going to be, you know, hopefully a strength of this team. Well, we thank you guys for being here right now on the PHNX sports YouTube channel. If you haven't already done so, please subscribe to the channel. Sign up for notifications that way you don't miss when any of our shows go live. Leave us a thumbs up for our own self-esteem. And if you're listening right now on your favorite audio podcasting app, please subscribe to us there as well. Leave us a review.

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Get members-only invites to events, members-only merch, and so much more. So sign up today. You also get access to Jesse's newsletter of the full count, as well as our members-only Discord lounge, which, let's be honest, you guys help us plan the show there. And you also help us decide which days we're going to do this show. So keep your eyes peeled there as well if you're a die-hard member for more on our new schedule. I'll say this.

Show up tomorrow night. Jesse's going to be in Colorado. We're going to have a special show tomorrow. We're going to be doing a, what, seventh episode of the week? Well, not tomorrow, right? I'm sorry. It's tomorrow. Saturday.

Sorry. No show. No show Friday. Friday's the only day with no show. But we will be back Saturday night for our post game and then Sunday for our post series. And make sure to join us as well for that. If you haven't signed up for Bet MGM yet, grab your, bet MGM app now sign up today use our promo code of P HNX you'll get yourself some goodies

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notes for full details. And now listen to Shane, talk about the disclaimer. Disclamer 21 plus to wager. Visit betmGM.com for terms and conditions. U.S. promotional offers not available in Washington, D.C., New York, and Ontario. Gambling problem, call 1,800 gambler. Colorado, D.C., Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Wyoming. Call 8778-N-Y or text Hope and Y, 467-369, New York. Call 1-800-5-2-2-2-7-0-Cet Kansas, Nevada, 1-800, 327-50-Masachusetts, 1-800-Bets off Iowa, 1-800-2707-1-1-7 for confidential help, Michigan. Well, MLB opened Pandora's box by changing all of their rules and implementing a pitch clock.

So now, fuck it, we're just changing everything now. We're going to get crazy. with the rules. Yeah, a lot of people don't like the pitch clock, but Jesse and I, at least one of the two of us is big fans of how fast games are going. Oh, I'm totally a big fan. Don't try to put that on. He still wants a three hour

game every once in a while, not in this camp. I just, I'm not like, yeah, if your games average two and a half hours, you're still going to get a three hour game every now and then. I'm not going to protest the occasional three hour game. Sub two hours. Oh, my. You're a monster. I'm a absolute

But anyway, I'm not as big of a monster as Major League Baseball who continues to try in the Atlantic League. They're experimenting with new rules in the Atlantic League, which is an independent baseball league. And some of them are kind of wild, I think. The new rules that they're experimenting with include a designated pinch runner, which means that each team will be allowed to designate a player who is otherwise not in the starting lineup as a designated pinch runner. that player may in turn be substituted at any point into the game as a base runner and the player who is substituted for as well as the pinch runner may then return to the game without penalty. Yeah.

So it's like, yeah, it's like you can pinch run for, you know, Aaron Judge or someone that you would normally never want to take out of the game and you're not actually taking them out of the game. You're just, it's a temporary, it's a temporary thing. Aaron Judge just comes right back afterwards. What's the thought on this? What's the thought? Like what are they trying to do?

What do you think? Like what? Because okay. Are they just making stuff up? Well, okay. Like, okay, we've seen the rules that have been implemented this year. We knew that when they were being tested that they made a certain amount of success because you had an end goal in mind, right?

The end goal was making baseball games shorter. They figured we could do this with the pitch clock. They wanted to increase offense and baseball. They figured they could increase the size of the bases. They also figured the pitch clock thing with the disengagements would impact stolen bases and offense. as well as the banning of the ships. Right? So there was an end goal to these things.

What is the end goal for a designated pinch runner rule? Is that just to save, let's say, like an Aaron judge from the mileage that he's putting on his body by having to run around bases? Is it just to generate more runs? Is it just to have a speedier, more exciting player on the base path than somebody that says going to trot from first to second and get out easily? I think it's mostly that last one. It's that Major League Baseball. has done extensive polling among fans at this point. They want to know what plays do fans enjoy the most.

And stolen bases have been identified as one of the, I think it's like a top three thing that fans enjoy most about baseball games. And stolen bases have gone nearly extinct in recent years, right? Not entirely. There are still guys who do it. But as the analytics movement is kind of taken center stage in this sport, teams are recognizing that stolen bases are not worthwhile, right? If you steal 70 bases but you get caught 25 times,

it's unclear if you actually helped your team. You actually might have done a disservice to your team. And teams have recognized that over the years as some of these numbers have gotten better and better at explaining the game in front of us. So yeah, Major League Baseball wants more stolen bases. And they know that if they have a designated runner who specializes in that,

it would add kind of a fun element to the game. But where does the madness stop? Do we just have a guy lined up like a sprint runner next to the batter while he's hitting and so that he never has to actually run himself? He can just hit the ball and that guy goes.

That shit would be electric and I would be on board with that if we're just going to just say fuck it at this point. So you're saying it's like trying to think, like who's one of the slower guys on the devax? Like, all right, Carson Kelly comes back from injury. He hits it into the gap.

Yeah. But they wouldn't use Corbyn Carroll in this role. He would be starting. It's a player who starts the game on the bench. So I don't know. Let's just say Jake McCarthy was called it. Let's say Jake McCarthy. So Carson Kelly hits it into the gap.

But Jake McCarthy is lined up right there at home plate. Just right next to him. Yeah. Tied at the hip. And the moment the ball is in play, Jake McCarthy runs the first base. And Carson Kelly just stands there and watches. It just watches with the bat on their shoulder probably. Does a little flip.

and then walks back to the dugout. Yeah, that is not what this is. Carson Kelly would still be running for himself. But the debacks would have the option to use a player like Jake. They would have to start on the bench. They would have the option to insert Jake McCarthy into the game at any point in the game in order to act as a designated pinch runner. But it wouldn't, Carson Kelly would still be in the game.

So you're not like losing your catcher or something by doing that. They're also testing a single disengagement. rule per at bat, which means that they could only throw over one time. And if they don't get them on that toss over, then any subsequent tossover where they weren't successfully getting the runner out, it would then be a bach and they would move forward. So again, obviously that one makes sense. It doesn't make sense. I don't really like the disengagement rule much in the first place, let alone dwindling it down. Pretty soon it's going to be you just can't throw over. You can't throw over. They're no more throwing over to the base to keep them in check.

Only the catcher can do that, right? That would be wild. The leads that teams would start to take off first base. I mean, I'm not thrilled with that one, but I also don't really care. Like, that doesn't bother me. I don't think that'll happen, but I understand them testing it to see if maybe less disengagement makes it even better. But this one, this one, buckle up. This one's the roller coaster, known as the double hook rule or the DH rule.

This one is just wild. It allows clubs to use a designated hitter throughout the game provided that the club's starting pitcher has completed at least five innings. If the starter fails to make it through the fifth, the club then loses the DH for the remainder of the game, thus the pitcher, whether it is the starting, well, it wouldn't be the starting pitcher because you would have left the game. So thus, relief pitchers would have to pitch. Could you still use a pitch hit? would have. Or hit, they'd have to hit or you could use pinch hitters, right? You could still use pinch hitters, but it would be the way that it was not long ago for

the National League where you just cycle through all your bench players pretty quickly. Right. You know, just using them as pinch hitters. So, yeah, this one is weird. I think there's a lot of, there's a lot of nuance to this one. Like, I kind of wonder if it would sort of devalue the DH spot a little bit because, you know, even if you feel really good about your starting rotation, you're still every once in a while going to have a starter who doesn't complete five innings.

And maybe on days where you have your less steady starters going, right? Like if you have your fourth or fifth starter going, maybe you want to move your DH down in the lineup. You know, like you probably don't want your best hitter to be DHing, you know, in the middle of the lineup because you might lose them if something goes wrong. And then you'd also have teams like, you know, if a guy's in the fifth inning, right, third time through the order, struggling, giving up, you know, giving up hits, giving up runs, but you really want to keep your DH. You might just have to let that guy eat it for a little bit and see if they can just complete the inning

so that you keep your DH through the remainder of the game. That's incredible. It's weird. I mean, there's just so much there. And I, that's one that I don't like the pinch, the designated pinch runner, you can identify, all right, they want more stolen bases. They want more action on the base size.

That's clear. This one, I guess they want pitchers. They want to incentivize pitchers going deeper into games, which is something that obviously has been cut back in recent years. But how many times would the Diamondbacks have lost their designated here with the way they're starting. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's, I mean, it's maybe like 50-50, something like that. Yeah, I'd have to go back and look at the numbers, but the debacks would have lost their DH a number of times. And you'd have to protect for that.

Like, you'd have to know that that can happen. You'd have to probably move your DH down in the lineup. You'd maybe want, you know, you'd want to prioritize your best hitters being in the field rather than being in the DH spot because then they're sort of protected from that. Yeah. So there's all sorts of weird things that would happen with that rule. They're also testing hitting a ball into a small hole in right field that would then initiate multi-ball where multiple baseballs would shoot out of cannons on the field. I believe it at this point. I don't know.

I'm just throwing stuff. out there. But I guess the idea here is that what is what's the potential for them actually implementing this stuff? Do you think these are just like crazy variations kind of of what they're already implementing just to see how like actual experimentation to see how this impacts a baseball game? Or do you think these are actual like things to come down the road for the for major league baseball? I mean the Atlantic League I want to take a shot at the Atlantic League. But like there's sort of a hierarchy with how with how far these. these experiments make it, right?

If something gets to AAA, then it's, all right, we're serious about this. If something's at the Atlantic League is the very initial, you know. One step above Savannah bananas, basically. Yeah, essentially. Yeah, I mean, you're still just kind of like making stuff up and seeing what happens. I know they're also experimenting. I don't know if it was the Atlantic League or somewhere else. They were experimenting with a pre-tapped baseball that would, you know, help with all of the

weird sticky stuff. Interesting. Restrictions, you know, all the issues that have happened with Max Scherzer and whatnot. They also are making that ball brighter. So it would simultaneously sort of help pitchers and that the baseball is tacked. But we don't have to deal with all of these issues. But yeah, it would also theoretically make it easier for hitters to see the ball and do more damage. So there's all sorts of things that are that are being tested.

I'm not taking anything too seriously until we get up to, you know, double A, AAA, AAA. then it's time to really consider what these things would do to the big leagues. Something you are taking seriously, though, is a new stat called Catcher Cot Stealing Above Average. You know Jesse loves new stats. Thank you to Baseball Savant MLB for giving us more stats. And of course, we love it when the stats make one of the Arizona Diamondbacks players the best in the category. Gabriel Moreno is tied for the league lead in this new category of catcher caught stealing above average. And we know that because you don't run on Gabby.

You just don't run on Gabby, and that's a rule that everybody should know. And that's why stolen bases should definitely go down when you're playing the Arizona Diamondbacks. It's just a fact. Yeah, so basically what this does, and it's really smart, is it tries to take away some of the other variables when it comes to a catcher throwing out base dealers. Because let's face it, whether or not Gabby Moreno catches so-and-so going down to second base is not entirely dependent on Gabby Moreno.

There's a whole bunch of other variables in there, namely how fast is the runner? I mean, that's a pretty big one, right? That Gabby Moreno doesn't have any control over that. There's also, you know, the pitcher. A lot of times you see guys steal bases on the pitcher. It doesn't matter what kind of cannon you have. You're not going to get that guy at second base, no matter what you do. So this stat basically tries to control for those things.

And it basically establishes an average. Like this is the average number of base dealers that we think you should have caught based on all of those factors. And then it measures relative to that. So above average or below average, depending on all of those factors. So Gabby Moreno is already at three. Catchers caught stealings above average,

which is impressive because there's only been a handful of attempts against him. So that is a very, very high number at this point in the season. I believe it only takes into account runners attempting to steal second. So there's no third base data in here. Might be even have four with that one. Yeah, yeah. If we factored in third base, he did catch someone over at third earlier. I think it was Joey, Joey Weiner, I want to say. Yes, he was trying to, got second and then he got third.

Yeah. Well, tried to get third. Tried to get third. But yeah, it's just a smart stat because, I mean, like, caught stealing percentage has always been kind of broken. There's just so many other variables in there. And if we don't control for them, it's really hard to compare one player's caught stealing percentage to another. I think it's going to be a little bit easier, though, with the disengagement and things. I think that there are going to be, like, I just think factors are going to be a little bit more equal for catching players stealing just because things are going faster. But you're right. And I think that's the reason why. Anytime we can address a statistic where they can actually give us kind of an idea about how guys are doing versus, you know, the average in the league that I feel gives a great amount of insight.

Last year, we talked a lot about the Diamondbacks in their out above average and some of their defensive metrics, defensive runs saved and such. And these are just better statistics than a lot of other things of telling you how good a team really is doing what they're doing or what's working well for them. Yeah. Just to add some more specifics to this real quick. So I believe there have been five attempts, the only second base in particular, against Moreno. And this, according to those external factors, it estimates that Gabby Moreno quote unquote should have caught one.

And he has caught four. So his estimated percentage is 20%, but his actual percentage is 80%, which is a pretty, I mean, four out of five is opposed to one out of five. That's an enormous difference. So that is, yeah, I mean, it's incredible and it'll be fun to track this as the season goes along. Well, happy NFL draft day to all Arizona Cardinals fans out there. The rest of you, I got nothing for you. I'm sorry.

But if you are looking for the best place to take in the NFL draft today, get down to Four Peaks 8th Street Pub, it's where our crew, our PHA 10x Cardinals crew is down there right now, go hang out with them. It's the best place to take in the NFL draft today. For those of you have registered, we look forward to seeing you guys there. Regardless of where you're watching it,

make sure you're enjoying a delicious redbird logger in honor of our Cardinals. Must be 21 years or older to enjoy and enjoy responsibly. Down at the 8th Street Pub, they will be having $3 redbird logger pints, $5 redbird logger pitchers, and of course, our usual PHNX specials of $3 Kilt Lifters and Wow Pints. Follow them on social at Four Peaks Brew. Everywhere you go on social.

And speaking of social, also follow our friends at OG's brands because they are all about making our lives better. Things have been kooky in this office. I think everybody got into the OGs earlier, and there's death threats if I got too loud, and those came from Craig Morgan, of all people. So anyway, make sure that if you're looking to have a fun time with your coworkers or whatever. Grab yourself some OGs edibles.

They are all about flavoring life. They have a wide variety of doses and strains. They also have a wide variety of sleep additions, happy balanced edition gummies, so much more. You can find them at your local dispenser at OGsbrands.com. Must be 21 or over to enjoy and enjoy responsibly. Before we get out of here, we've got to talk about the Arizona Diamondbacks farm system.

There's been some interesting things kind of on the horizon with the farm system. And honestly, Jordan Lawler continues to be incredible for the Emeril of Saad Poodles, and they have done some incredible things over the last two games. But Jordan Lawler with a walk-off hit last night for the Sod Poodles that made our friends the Kerry Twins absolutely lose their mind in the broadcast booth. And then the sod-pudels come back in that game. Yesterday's game, they were down 11 to 1,

and they win that game 12 to 11. The previous game, they were down 7 to 1 in the 7th inning on Tuesday and they won that game 9 to 7 are the sod poodles now the answerbacks do they get that title versus the calf fries or whatever would they want to call themselves the debacks have had you know their fair share

of comeback wins I think it's like 8s or something on the season which I believe is at or near the top of the league but they haven't had any comebacks like that I mean 7 to 1 in the 7th inning like are you kidding I mean we know that anything can happen in Hodgetown right and we talked

about that in in Reno and an Amarillo, but my God, 11 to 1, 11 to 1? They were down 11 to 1, Jesse. They were down by six plus runs in two different games, and they came back to win both of them. So that's very exciting. And Jordan Lawler, of course, was a big part of that comeback in the 11 to 1 comeback, the 12 to 11 win. He also had a home run as well as the walkoff hit for the Saund Poodles. Yeah, it really was. It really was a nice game for him. He has had a little bit of a rough go recently. he had a stretch of one for 15 at the plate from like April 19 to the 23rd. But yeah, a nice game for him yesterday with the three run home run.

And then, you know, the big walkoff opposite field hit. It really would have been a double if it wasn't, if it wasn't a walkoff. He only gets credit for a single. But yeah, good to see Jordan Lawler, you know, kind of picking things up a little bit offensively. His numbers for the year don't jump off the page. 232, 353, 482, you know, taking into account the hitter front. friendly environment. Those numbers are not quite where you'd want them to be, but it's still very early and, you know, he had an OPS well over a thousand like a week ago. So yeah. Let's talk about

his counterpart down in Amarillo, a name we haven't talked about much, but Ryan Bliss, other infielder, shortstop second baseman for the Saad Poodles. The 23-year-old has been fairly incredible through his last 14 games with the Saad Poodles. Currently hitting 391, 400, 578 with eight extra base hits. And honestly, his defense has been much better, too. So there's a lot of fun going on down there in Amarillo. And of course, Ryan's success kind of impacts Jordan Lawler. It's not to say they're going to play Lawler less or whatever.

But when you have someone like Bliss playing as well as he is, it kind of puts a bit of pressure on Lawler to step his game up. Bliss was a second round pick out of Auburn back in 2021. So a pretty high draft pick for the debacks, not that long. ago. He's just really struggled offensively up to this point in his career. Last year with Hillsborough, he had a 641 OPS. Yeah, 21 OPS. Yeah, not great. But this year, the offense has looked a lot better. 386 average. He honestly would fit right in with the diamond backs at this point. His batting average is extremely high, but he's also drawn one walk in 71 played appearances.

He's also very fast and very young. Yeah, he's also quick and he's an excellent defense. He's a vendor. So yeah, he checks all the boxes of what this front office is looking for. But he really, he's five foot six. He's five foot six. He's a little dude. He is a small man. But he plays an incredible second base from what I've heard like a gold glove caliber second base. If you can get Ryan Bliss to hit at the big league level, he could be a really exciting player. Man, and get him next to Miguel Castro. Yeah, there you go. Right. Yeah. Let's see. Let's get that picture. Speaking of pitching, Jesse, any any updates on Brandon. Fott or any new ideas in your brain as to when we might be able to see him wearing an

Arizona Diamondback's uniform again. Not much has changed since we last spoke yesterday, but Brandon Fott did pitch yesterday. I think I gave his line, five innings, three runs, seven hits, two walks, five strikeouts. Just when, Jesse, just tell us when. He was all right. I don't need his line. I didn't know when he's going to be here. Yeah, I don't know.

I mean, the reality is that I think all of us have sort of given up on trying to project out when Brandon Fott will be here because the D-backs have, you know, sort of contradicted themselves at times and walked back certain comments and whatnot. So it's pretty hard to, uh, to really project out when and this is going to happen exactly. But I will, I will stick with what I've been saying, which is that I think it will happen. I think it will happen soon. And if it, if Brandon Fought is not the fifth starter that the diamondbacks ultimately bring up, which at the very latest could happen on May 9th, theoretically unless they mix things up somehow, I would be surprised. I think I think that fifth

starter that they will eventually need is going to be Brandon fought and and I think it's just a matter of when rather than rather than if. The biggest story right now in baseball is the Pittsburgh Pirates and their call up of a minor league journeyman and Drew Maggie. Yeah. And this has just been an incredible story. It's been fun for a fun young pirates team that is able to give this guy his first major league start. But the fans lost their minds when he got his first at bat. And then he proceeded to get hit with a pitch clock violation, which hilarious, hilarious. Welcome to the big leagues. But again, he was talking about how overwhelmed he was and everything. And the pirates, you know, help us out by beating up on the Dodgers in their series against

against LA so just great stuff great stuff for baseball I mean I don't know what else to say other than I just absolutely love stories like this pirates are 18 and 8 man I mean they're just there's some kind of on fire just as we all expected right pirates best team in the national league there you but they extended Brian Reynolds I mean they're doing all the things that they extended their manager they're just yeah they're rewarding people for performance they continue to perform well I I mean, it might be a fluke, but it might not be. I mean, honestly, this is as exciting of a young team, I think, or we are if you take Andrew McCutcheon out of the DH role.

And I mean, it's just, it's great to see them, again, beating the Dodgers. That's the part I like right now. We still have to play them. I might not like him so much when we play them, but I like them beating up on the Dodgers. The story with Maggie really is crazy. I was looking at his minor league stats yesterday. He played his first professional game in 2010, so well over a decade ago at this point. And this year, he was actually in AA.

He didn't get called up from AAA. He got called up from AA. And his numbers in AA, Derek, were not good. He was sitting 194 with a 468 OPS. I don't know how long Drew Maggie will remain in the big leagues with the Pirates. If we're being honest, I wouldn't be totally shocked if they leave him up. enough for him to get his first hit and then you know maybe he doesn't wind up in the big leagues much longer than that you don't you don't do this for his contributions to the team like now you do

this for his contributions to the organization over the last decade you do this for uh honestly i feel like you do this to appease the baseball gods if you're if things are going well for your team and you have things rolling in the right direction i think you want all that good karma you want all that that all that good energy surrounding your team as you can get. They already got it with bringing back Andrew McCutcheon. Like so many of us thought that that was delightful that they brought him back. So just a lot of good things going on for the pirates right now. The pirates, they're a Cinderella story, man.

And they just want all of the Cinderella story narratives. I know. They want. They want all of them. Can't have all of them. Come on. But anyway, what you can have is all of the collectibles that you need to make your office or your

home space look like this behind us. You can't have my luchador mask, though. That's a rare one. But what you can do is get a lot of great stuff over at Foco. They're a leading manufacturer of sports, entertainment, merchandise with product lines that include apparel, accessories, toys, collectibles, novelty items, and so much more. So, of course, we thank them.

Let's get Minnie Catelle out there. We thank them for these little works of art that they leave us, but you can get these same works of art over at Foco.com. Foco always has our back for Arizona sports, and they have yours too. Get the best gear around by visiting Foco.com and use our promo code of P-HNX. For all non-prosale items, use the promo code P-HNX for 10% off. And if you want more than that, go over to Moore Furniture, get yourself a table like this, get yourself some nice chase lounges that Jesse doesn't have and then send him pictures on Twitter, just taunting him and

showing him what he could have if he had more space in his condo. But you can grab yourself the best furniture in the valley over at morefurniture.com. They have their white glove delivery service. They'll bring it in, set it up for you, take care of it while you sit back, maybe sip some lemonade and try not to spill on the new sofa, but you can save big once again on the best furniture in the valley when you head to more furniture.com. Big thank you to you guys. Hope you all enjoy your off day. Arizona Diamondbacks take on the Rockies tomorrow. Make sure to follow this guy on Twitter. He'll be in Colorado covering that game. He is at Jesse N. Friedman. I'll be at my house covering my couch. I am at cap underscore caveman with a K. Actually, no, I take that back. I'm

taking my first road trip to Tucson in my Tucson. The first road trip in my Tucson is to Tucson, much to Damon's delight. I'm doing that for Damon. Have a great time, Derek. I'm just going to go visit all of his favorite places to eat, maybe check out where he used to live and stuff like that down there. Send you my parents' address. Please do. Please do. I want to go say hi to them. But you can follow me. I'm at Cap underscore

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internet connectivity issues today. We tried our best to get this show going smoothly, but we still look a little bit robotish, but we thank you guys again so much. On behalf of the entire crew, we appreciate you stopping by. And remember, kids, baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun when you throw a chutter.