PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Torey Lovullo's Series of Unfortunate Events

Episode Date: September 10, 2021

In their first episode, Derek and Jesse discuss the D-backs catastrophic season so far and whether or not we will see Torey Lovullo return. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

welcome to the inaugural edition of the PHNX D-BACs podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Montia, occasionally known as the mayor of PHNX. And this show is brought to you by the one and only Drafking Sportsbook, America's top-rated sportsbook. Be sure to download the app today. I did it. I've been having fun with it. Use code PHNX and you will get $200 in free bets after making your first NFL bet of just $1.

Go do it now. Arizona sports gambling is here. I'm excited to have you guys joining us today and I am joined by my friend, my co-host, the one and only, Jesse the Brain Friedman. That's right.

You're getting a nickname on day one, Jesse. Let's go, Brain. How you doing, man? I didn't approve that, Derek. We have to have that conversation before you like to throw that at me. This is live. This is live, so I figured you can't,

you know, tell me no this way. But you were coming to us from Seattle where the Arizona Diamond have a three-game series coming up with the Mariners. So, yeah, I hope your year has been going better than theirs has. Yeah, don't we all, Derek, don't we all? It has been a fun one, Diamondbacks fans. You know, Derek, I was thinking about it earlier today.

I was like, for as fun as today has been with the launch and just everything that has happened today with PH and X and how fun today has been and taking over Twitter and all of these things, I have to admit there was a moment today where I lamented. Wouldn't it be so freaking cool if the Diamondbacks were like in a pennant race right now? Oh, oh, man. Yeah, don't even stretch. Absolutely. Maybe I shouldn't have said anything, Derek, but I'm over here sort of, sort of lamenting that.

But also, it is great to be here. This is going to be a whole lot of fun. And to all of you out there, thanks for hopping on with us. We're excited to have you. Let's say this much. All the other sports at least have hope at this point. Their seasons are starting. Things are fresh.

The sons are already talking about going back and repeating in the championship. We have the end of what has become arguably the worst season in Diamondbacks history. Interestingly enough, a season that has gone really bad at a lot of times and then really good in small spurts, right? You know, if you want to count the Madison Bumgarner no hitter, two of the teams for no hitters in franchise history, have happened during the season. But they also set the MLB record for the worst road, most consecutive road losses in modern baseball history. That's dating back to 1900 at 23 games.

So there's some dubious records in there as well. Also, we have the possibility that this could be the worst record for a season in franchise history. Yeah, well, the Diamondbacks do have the worst record in baseball overall right now. the Orioles had a little two-game wind surge over the last few days. So that's a recent development. But yeah, this season has been very difficult to watch, Derek. And I know you've spent, I've sort of kept my healthy distance away, you know,

covering the team out here from Seattle. But I know you spend a whole lot of time in the clubhouse these last few months. And in some ways, you know, being around the clubhouse and around the players, obviously the whole Zoom thing this year, things are a little different for you. Yeah, but you're talking to the players day and day. out and and I can't decide whether I'm whether I'm jealous or not that you're more local to the team right now because this is this has been one to forget there and I know you know we have to do our jobs here and break down what has happened this year and you know trudged through all of the

ugly gory details of what has gone on this year but it has been it has been absolutely rough there are 50 games below 500 as 50 right now 5.0 not 15 not 15 not 5.5. 550 games below 500. That's just below 500. Not to mention how many they actually are out of the division or any kind of wild card hunt. That's a whole other thing. I think that you and I have been covering this team for a long time.

I'm not sure if everybody knows our history, but I know that you've been covering this team since 2013. We talked about it in our introduction, but you definitely are our stats guy. You are a person I have used as a resource in the past, even working for a different organization for my stat. So I wanted to ask you, baseball-wise, let's kick it off with, what's your favorite misunderstood stat about baseball?

Favorite misunderstood stat. What stat doesn't get enough respect because it's too complicated or people just don't know what the hell it is? Sure. Well, there's too many, Derek. So it's impossible to answer that question, but I'll just pick one. The one that comes to my mind first, and I have to, to hat tip my previous co-host Jeff Weiser on this because he's the one who sort of got me

hooked. Shout out to Jeff Weiser. There's this stat called DRA, which is essentially sort of an ERA-esque statistic. You've probably heard of FIP or X-FIP or some of those other measures of pitchers performances. And DRA is one that you don't. Yeah, yeah. I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't talk about this stuff for more than like 30 seconds. So you're going to have to interrupt me here soon. But before we get there, give me 10 more seconds. DRA is probably the most effective stat at at gauging how good a pitcher is. And I don't think that many people know about it.

And you'll find it at baseball prospectus. So that is my advice. If there's a pitcher who you're trying to figure out, you know, what is the long term future for this guy? maybe it's a short sample, maybe they're, you know, they've been around for a little while. I would look at their DRA and it's, it's sort of similar to ERA. It's on a similar scale to that. So lower is obviously better, higher is worse.

That's the stat I would go to. And Derek, there are very few people who have probably even heard of the stat, at least as far as I'm aware. I think it deserves a whole lot more consideration. Yeah, it deserves that respect. All right. All right. Very good. Yes.

And I don't even know what goes. into DRA and you're right, I being the host of this podcast, don't even know what you're talking about. But yeah, I think that there are, there are a lot of stats in baseball that seem to tell much more than what the traditional, you know, statistics are that most people are aware of, I would say. Yeah, absolutely. Well, hey, I'm going to give you a question right back to Eric. All right.

You're ready? Ready for this? Yeah, you've got your, you've got your lofty clubhouse experience. I've only found myself in there a few times. over the years. But I know you've been there, you know, day and day out doing your thing for quite a long time now. My question to you, give me your most favorite and your least favorite moments in the clubhouse over the years.

What has gone down? Oh, that's easy. Both are related. 2017 favorite moment getting champagne and beer dumped on my head by Andrew Chafin after they won the 2017 wildcard game. That was a joy. I'm not surprised it was Andrew Chafin. Not surprised at all.

Least favorite moment, getting sprayed in the face by the Dodgers in 2013 without protective gear right before they went out and jumped in our pool. Yeah, I was present for the day that they clinched a vision here and went for a swim in the pool and right field. And I was none too happy about that. I also had the opportunity to get what would have been

like some of the only clean footage of that assault on our pool. And I decided that my, my fandom literally like my soul wretched. And I thought I can't do that. I have a press pass. I'm fully allowed to go out to that pool right now and take footage, which the only footage they had besides the guys like personal Instagram footage was like some footage from the,

you know, the cam covering the game like on the opposite side of the field, like zoomed in. And so, yeah, I might have had some good usable footage on that day. But, yeah, I was too busy getting the champagne out of my face and deciding how was it going to explain to a potential police officer why I was covered head to toe in champagne. So, yeah, both are champagne-related incidents favor. Honorable mention, though, goes to Adam Jones, loving these shirts. I'm not sure if he even remembered that I was the same guy.

He complimented all the time. But every time he saw me wearing these, he complimented me. So that's why you're going to see me wearing these a lot on this particular show. I'm just giving you that disclaimer now. But I think we've both had a better time doing stuff than the debacks have for sure. I think the people, Derek, are really just disappointed. They don't get to see your knees today. I believe you put something out on social media about that.

I think there's some. We're going to be heckled for quite a while about that, Derek. You're right. We made some adjustments so that the knees wouldn't be shown. And I personally think it was for the best. that's my feelings on it. I don't know. I could be wrong.

But seeing your own knees on video is very jarring sometimes, and I wasn't a fan of it. But yeah. So I know we have a lot of things to discuss. I guess we could just kind of at this point talk about how the Diamondbacks got to got to where they're at, right? One and nine right now over their last 10 games. Tide, basically, if you want to call it that,

or at least a game behind the Orioles for the absolute worst. record in baseball. And, and, you know, it seems kind of hopeless at this point. For me personally, it's plugging along with losses and trying to get that number one draft pick, even though the MLB draft obviously is much different than any other draft or any other sport. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's different in a lot of ways in that, you know, very few of the guys who are drafted actually make it. But another thing to, I mean, to your point with the whole tanking argument, there's also the reality that there are no ping pong balls in baseball. And if you get the worst record, you have a money back guarantee that you will get the first overall pick.

And I don't know where you stand on this, Derek. I am still of the opinion. I would like to see the Diamondbacks try to win games. I'm not maybe quite as into the tanking mode as some of our listeners may be. Tank season is here, Jesse. Get on your helmet. Get in your tank. It's tank season.

At this point, they have, you know, what are we talking about? Less than 20 games left in the season. I don't even see if they won all 20 games, how they could look back and find pride in it. I guess maybe they finish strong. There is always that in sports. There is always just that personal pride, right, of not wanting to be the worst team in baseball,

no matter how much it benefits your team, right? But this is a team, as we've discussed outside of this show, that spent a whole $8.5 million on upgrading this team in comparison to what the Dodgers already were and the Padres had become. Not to mention, we had no idea that the Giants were going to be this good. But the three players that they acquired during the offseason are, you know, were. Big names, big names, big name veterans on big deals. No, no, it was not.

I mean, and I kind of get what they were doing. But for me personally, the acquisition of these three guys was a white flag before the season started. I didn't think that this was going to end up being one of those situations where these guys were really going to move the needle for this team. I liked the, I like the fact that they were bringing in veterans on short-term deals and not committing a lot of money to it. I like that these guys were meant to come in and help the younger players, you know, just kind of evolve and become better, you know, hopefully that experience of being got around guys that have one world series or have the pedigree that someone like Tyler Clippard, has could rub off on them unfortunately clipper got injured early on in the season we lost soria for a considerable amount of time and honestly we i mean we lost cabrera at one point too we lost everybody we lost everybody jesse we lost the entire team uh and i think there's a lot of things that you could

say were are the reasons why the debacks are on pace right now to beat that worst record in franchise history of 51 and 111 losses. Just don't tell that to Tori LeVolo. There's a good chance he might curse at you, as we saw yesterday when he said he doesn't give a bleep about projections. I understand where he's coming from, but what were your thoughts on that? And what are your thoughts now going forward on just Tori Lavello this season

and the odds that he's going to stick around? Yeah, I mean, it's totally a fair question that was asked to Tori Lavello. you know, reporters doing their jobs. But also, I can't say I'm totally shocked. He responded that way. I mean,

this is a guy. I mean, this is a guy whose contract is not extended as of yet past this season. And the Diamondbacks are going to have a decision to make. And you see on your screen right now, this is Tori Lavello's body of work. Since coming to this organization,

Diamondbacks, obviously 2017. We have enormously fond memories of that year, 93 and 69. It was a whole lot of fun. Just Dingers, J.D. Martinez, the whole thing. It was great. 2018, they came back. They did not have the same level of success. 2019. Of course, Paul Goldschmidt. That's when they moved on from him. And it's really been just sort of downhill since then. Last year, obviously, there were big expectations for the team. That didn't pan out. And the team decided to sell at the trade deadline. And since then, as you mentioned, Derek,

the diamondbacks have not really made any investment whatsoever in the on-field product other than just sort of the things you have to do right you have to have your you know your 34-year-old closer to kind of hold down the fort with all the young guys uh they had some other holes to fill that they did you know cheaply as you mentioned um but yeah i mean tori lavello's future Derek i i don't know it's it's hard to say history of this organization and sort of the timeline of how long they've stuck with managers and, you know, have they been willing to stick with guys through seasons like this? Generally,

the answer is no if you look at the history of this organization. The Diamondbacks have generally, if a manager has a real clunker, usually that's when the team moves on from them. And I think both of us from seeing Tori, sorry, I'll get to you in a second. No,

no, real quick. Both of us love Tori Lavello as a person. I feel like I can say that with confidence. He is a person that you, you just can't not like him as a person. And I don't just say that as a journalist who is, you know, talk to him face to face before. But he's just a great guy.

And I think players like him. And he's a very difficult guy to let go. So we'll see what the, what the team decides with that. Absolutely. And I don't know if his odds are good. But speaking of odds, I would like to say that your odds might be good. if you get into the Draft King's sports book, an official sports betting partner of the NFL, which is live now here in Arizona with mobile sports betting just in time for football season.

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And again, thank you guys for being here. Thank you for checking out PHNX. We're excited to be a part of this. And Jesse and I are both thrilled that the Diamondbacks continue to be such a big part of our lives. We have really enjoyed watching this team. And going back to what Jesse said, I especially have a hard time with the discussion of whether or not

Lavolo should be let go. You're absolutely right, because when you look at the statistics, when you look at what the Diamondbacks have done, when they were in that catastrophic season in 2004, which is the worst record-wise of franchise history, they let go of Bob Brenley mid-season. Bob Brenley, who won us a World Series, mind you.

This is a team that wouldn't have even existed if the Seattle pilots wouldn't have made such a debacle by moving to Milwaukee and becoming the Brewers. That's how far this goes back and how much Phoenix is affected by how bad transactions have been in the past, right? But this city wasn't supposed to do what it did. We weren't supposed to win a World Series that fast. It was crazy. It inspired us.

It was during a really hard time. You know, in this country's history, you know, in this country's history. history and I just remember how exciting it was. I never thought in a million years that Bob Brenley was going to lose his job. I thought Bob Brenley was going to be manager of this team until until he didn't want to do it and walked away, probably with a cane and some real gray hair, you know, but instead what we have is LaVolo now being the longest, second longest tenure, D-BACs, right? Or is he the longest? I think he's just trailing Kurt Gibson by a few games. Yeah, So he's trailing Kurt Gibson right now by about 30, 38 games.

We have the rest of this season. He obviously won't surpass him by the end of the season. So if he does come back on at least a one-year deal, he would become the longest tenured manager. And I just don't, I don't know. I think when you look at the progression, things haven't gotten better. They've gotten worse.

I think that there's a lot of, there's a lot of things that you could look at and, you know, say that Tori Lovolo's fault, you know. I know after a certain point, you feel like there's no choice but to fire the manager. I just don't know if that's the move for this team, considering how much the players love him. You know, Eduardo Escobar once said during a meeting, he would die for Tori Lovolo. You don't get a player saying he would die for you, right? I just, the metaphor I've used is that, you know, Tori Lovolo was asked to do this beautiful mural on the side of a building,

and they handed him a pack of eight Crayola Cranes and said, here you go. That's what this season has been. They spent $8.5 million in the offseason. They did nothing to improve this team. And it seemed like they weren't really actively trying to compete with the rest of the NL West before the season even started. Yeah.

Yeah. I think that's a great point. The one counter argument here is, you know, I think a lot of what people look at when you're evaluating a manager is, you know, does it look like the team is well-co? right? Do they do they make you know the the right read on cutoffs? Do they do all of the fundamental baseball things that you expect? And honestly, Derek, you could make a long blooper, a long blooper reel of this 2021 diamond backs defense. They have gone from being one of the best

defensive teams over the last several years, even when the team hasn't been great. They've still been excellent defensively. So this year where I've seen, it feels like almost every time the Diamondbacks are playing on the road. I see the road broadcast, like lamenting how bad the Diamondbacks defense is at times. Just how they don't look professional. There's guys bumping into each other. It's been hard to watch at times. Jesse, they had to take fly ball training during the middle part of this season because

there were so many gaffs in the outfield. Now, I will say this in their defense, it is a nightmare to play center field at Chase Field. That awning that hangs over, like, it's so weird because on TV or in any other way, it does not look like it hangs over as much as it does. But when balls go in that direction, you have no idea where they're going to go, where they're going to land, what they're going to bounce off of. You look foolish all the time because if you guess wrong, you know, you're turning what probably could have been either a catchable ball or a single, maybe into a triple. You know, there's just been a lot of bad choices there.

You're absolutely right. A lot of bad fielding, a lot of bad defense. With me, I think the thing that I still have to question is why are the Diamondbacks pitchers leaving and becoming superstars? Why is Robbie Ray the best picture? You had to go there. Why? Why is Wade Miley so good? I mean, there's hits and misses. But when you look at recent guys that have left and have found success, you just have to question what exactly is going on. And I think when you do, that's falling on the coaching. Yeah, yeah, it's hard to argue with that.

Obviously, there's a lot of coaches at play there. You know, maybe is the pitching coach more to blame for, you know, the Robbie Ray situation. Speaking of Robbie Ray, I feel like we have to go there. Let's do it. I tweeted about Robbie Ray like two days ago. And I think I tweeted about both Robbie Ray and Max Scherzer. And I was straight with Diamondbacks fans. And I said, the ugly truth, right now, Robbie Ray, as of late, has been the best pitcher in the American League.

and Max Scherzer has been the best pitcher of late in the National League. And that is the world that we live in. And I simply tweeted how we do in Diamondbacks fans, given the reality of those two things. And Derek, I do not have a fifth of the Twitter following that you do. But I think I got like 70 comments. I got like 450 likes all within a few hours. Because Diamondbacks fans have sort of adopted this practice of looking back on guys

often pitchers who once played for this baseball team. The team let go of them, what eventually turned out to be too early. And then we see things like this happen. And I can't blame Diamondbacks fans for doing that. I feel like I sit around and do that all the time because it's frustrating. And at the same time,

was the Robbie Ray that you saw last year? Was that someone you really wanted to keep? Were any of us questioning if you wanted to keep that Robbie Ray? Not to pay him what he was going to get. And also he had all sorts of issues with his delivery and changing his delivery. He seemed lost at one point. And again, does that fall on on coaching? You know, all I know, and I'll end it on this, is that Tyler Gilbert made his start where he pitched a no hitter.

And he did it sitting not next to Hurgis, but next to Mike Fedders. And after the game, he credited Fedders a lot for just the way that he handled him, you know, being there. This is a guy making his first professional career start. He is a guy that's throwing his first no hitter in the situation, well over the pitch count that they felt comfortable that he was going to get. But Fedders was in LaVallo's ear to leave him in because this kind of thing only happens once and you don't want to spoil something magical happening, especially in a season like this that needs these moments, right? I think baseball is made up of moments. And baseball, like, even bad teams can have really great moments that their fans can celebrate, that they can enjoy.

And the Diamondbacks have had those, even in this catastrophic season. So it just still makes me wonder, would he have thrown the no hitter if Herges was sitting on the bench next to him? There's no way for us to know that question, but it does seem interesting to me to think about the possibility that maybe some coaching changes really could lead this team in a different direction. And I will say that I do love Toy Lovela. I think he's a great guy. He's always been nicer to me than I think most people in media and players have. Like he just seems like somebody when you meet him in person, like that you've, that you've known your whole life.

It's a cool uncle or something like that. Like he treats the players like that. And that's the reason why he's always, he always has his players buying in on what he's doing. I just don't know if he's effective. anymore. My big concern, though, is that he goes off and does what one of these pitchers does, and the minute he leaves, he goes, manages another team, and we see Tori LeBolo in the World Series next year and the next few years with his new team. I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised. Yeah. It only took, it only took a few years for AJ Hinge to get there,

former Diamondbacks manager, of course, was in the World Series not long after. You had to do it again. You had to do it again. It's happened before, Derek. These are the ugly realities we have to talk about on the PHNX D-BACs podcast. That's right, sir. Well, it's been a pleasure having you as a co-host. I'm looking forward to doing this with you all season long. For the rest of the season, through the off-season, we're going to be here all the time.

That's what we're here for. We are going to be your daily D-BACs fix. So come here, hang out with us. I downloaded the Draft King Sportsbook app, and I'm going to hop on there, and I'm going to make some more bets because I can't wait to do that. I love it. But anyway, go on there, do that.

come back, we'll be back here tomorrow for another show. And then starting next week, we're going to have kind of a new schedule where our live shows are going to be on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And we'll be doing some audio podcast on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. So we hope you and join us for all of that. And we can't thank you enough for hanging out with us and watching. Appreciate you being a part of the PHNX family. And remember, kids, baseball is fun, but it's more fun when you bet on it.