PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - We have reached an impasse

Episode Date: February 24, 2022

On this episode, Derek and Jesse are discussing having only five days left to get a new CBA deal done while threats are being thrown around by both sides, Alek Thomas' life in baseball, and the Mount Rushmore of Arizona Diamondbacks legends. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome to another edition of the P. HNX D-Bax podcast right here on PHMX. My name is Derek Montia. Of course, I am your mayor of PHNX and I am joined at my side by my vice mayor, the one and only thunderstake Jesse Fried. More baseball today, Derek. More jealousy for me as you are out there in the freezing cold rain. It was very cold, Jesse. I did not dress properly.

And I think, you know, when you live here in Arizona, these days can be very deceiving. We start getting down this March towards the end of February and into March. And the days start warming up. You start seeing 80s across the forecast for the week. And you just forget that a day like this could sneak up on you after a while. I was like, hey, I'll grab a pair of jeans and a lightweight hoodie and I'll be okay. Guess what? I was not.

shout out to Steve Gilbert, Zach Buchanan, and Nick Bacoro, who all dressed properly in like the warmest looking winter jackets. And I think, I know Steve had on multiple layers of long sleeves. Nick had gloves.

I was once again ill-prepared. And that's nothing new for me. It was in the 40s, I think, right? It was very cold. It actually snowed in northern Scottsdale. Yeah. Yeah.

Crazy. It was a very cold day. And not much to report from camp, but a little bit that we'll get to later. Of course, this show is brought to you by the fine folks at the Drafking Sportsbook app. Go download the Drafking Sportsbook app now, an official sports betting partner of the NBA. Of course, the NFL, but that's gone. NBA, it's NBA time. We're talking new customers can bet just $1 on any team use our code of PHNX and get $150 in free bets should your team win.

That's code PHNX over at the Drafking Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of the NBA. And Jesse also, just reminder to everybody, please, if you're listening to us right now on your favorite audio podcasting app, please subscribe to us there. Leave us a five-star review if you feel we earned it after this episode.

And also jump over to YouTube, subscribe to our channel at PHNX Sports over there, and sign up for notifications. That way you don't miss any of the amazing content coming to you from the PHNX sports. HMX team. Not much to talk about another round of negotiations today, Jesse, and things are coming to an impasse. Things are getting a little nasty.

Obviously, both sides of this, both the MLBPA and MLB have kind of dragged their feet on this process. They wasted a lot of time. Just this week is the first time where they've met for consecutive days. Today was their third consecutive day of meeting. And again, not much traction, not much movement on issues. Now what we're seeing, though, is kind of some threats being thrown around. First by MLB, who clarified their position on this February 28th deadline, which kind of just was out there, right?

Like, there was nothing actually being said about it, But when they moved the official spring training start date out to March 5th as a delay, they set this deadline of February 28th, essentially to say like this is the last day before we have to, you know, readdress the start of spring training. If we don't have a deal by the 28th, we'll have to delay more games or cancel spring training altogether. MLB today stated after their meeting through their spokesperson, after their meeting with the MLBPA, that there are only five days remaining to salvage the March 31st season opener and a full season, which essentially was a thinly veiled threat to the PA to say,

we have five days to rectify this and get this figured out. And if we don't, we are going to shorten the season, essentially, right? As you and I have discussed, we still need some sort of spring training, some sort of ramp up to the season. And once this new CBA is in place. So obviously, once we get passed into March, we're in danger of canceling spring training and needing to figure out what teams are going to do in order to get their players ready. It's a mess, Derek.

It's an absolute mess. You're totally right that threats are being issued on both sides. The owners are out here saying that, you know, we're not going to. we're not going to pay players for any games that we miss, right? We're going, if we miss these games, we're not going to reschedule them. That's where it's getting to. And players offered to, if they do miss games, like, hey, we can reschedule them. We can do double headers.

We can do stuff like that. And MLB flat out said, no, we will not. Because that's, I mean, that's the reason that this is leverage for them. It's the upper hand. The upper hand is missing games and telling the players, that now it's going to affect your pay. Obviously missing early season games is more detrimental to the players than it is to the owners.

And the owners are willing right now to just do this, to just sacrifice their own potential profits, you know, as well as the players pay in order to maintain this leverage. I think it's also important to point out that like April baseball, is not really like the pinnacle of the product that Major League Baseball offers, right? The weather in a lot of cities is kind of crappy in April, which is funny because, of course, in Arizona, you know, April is like the only month of the year where we actually have the roof open. Yeah, so we love it in Arizona. But for most of the rest of the league, April is the month where it's like, okay, you know,

it snowed, it snowed yesterday and we're supposed to have a game today or, you know, it's snowing right now. These are realities for a lot of cities throughout the league. And so, and kids are still in school, right? So it's, it's not an ideal time for baseball. So I think from the owner's standpoint, they have a little bit less to lose by missing out on the, on the first month of the season, just by virtue of the fact that, you know, teams don't draw quite as well right at the beginning of the season. And whenever you start the season, it's going to be opening day, whether it's May, whether it's whenever. Yeah, you're always going to have that initial spike no matter when the season starts.

Absolutely. So, yeah, and the players, of course, have countered, right? The players have come back and said, all right, if you're, you know, if you're not going to pay us for any of those missed games, we're going to come out and we are not going to accept playoff expansion. Correct. As part of the deal. If the players lose any portion.

Right, right. If they lose any portion of their salaries due to game cancellations, they refuse to agree to the expansion of playoffs in 2022, which has been one of the biggest, you know, things that the owners have wanted, right? I don't know if the players even care. I think that's what's funny about this. Like, I doubt the players really care that much about expanding the playoffs, but it's a valuable negotiation ship for them because it makes a lot more money for the game, right? the owners have a lot to gain from expanding playoffs. So even though the players might not really be like opposed to to adding more teams in the playoffs in the first place,

they're like, hey, this is a, you know, a chip that we can leverage here against the owners. And I mean, you can't fault them for doing that, right? I mean, that's sort of how this process works. I've often said, and it started with pro wrestling, right, that fans care more about players being champions, I think than the players themselves. And I say it started with pro wrestling because obviously pro wrestling is just funny that way, right? It's a scripted sport and they could make whoever they want champion whenever.

And fans get so angry about this. And again, it's like such a thing of like it, you know that someone decides this, right? Like this isn't an actual honor or anything. I mean, in some cases in pro wrestling, it is given to someone because of their hard work and popularity and stuff that, right? But it's, you know, at the end of the day, it's, it's a scripted thing. And people get very bent out of shape about it. And I know personally how little many of the wrestlers give a shit about that stuff. And it's mostly for them about the pay. Now, in a company like WWE, that your pay is tied to being a champion. So if you maintain, if you get to that championship level,

you're going to get paid more money than you were. I think that's, at times, the only reason why players care in professional sports about being champions is a lot of times it allows them to get paid more. If they're one of the better athletes in the sport, they're still going to get paid well. They're still going to get paid a lot of money. But a lot of times when you're like a role player or a sixth man or something like that on a team, sometimes the only way you're going to get that big payday is by being part of a championship team. But I often wonder how much players really care about that. Like you said, I don't know if the players really care about expanding playoffs so that

maybe, you know, they can get a chance to win a championship. I'm sure some do, but I'm sure a lot of times it actually for, for them is, is more about the security. And I mean, I don't know. Playing on a losing team is pretty miserable. I imagine a lot of people don't want to do that. But at the same time, money is, I think a lot of people's main motivation. I just, do you think that you think that players, like I'm really trying to figure this out

from a player's perspective, like would you want the playoffs to be more? accessible or do you want the you know exclusiveness of the playoffs the the playoffs in baseball are more exclusive than pretty much any other pro sport right the NBA is over here taking 16 teams to the playoffs every year the NFL takes uh 14 I want to say um between the division winners and then they have three they have three wild cards in the NFC in the NFC yeah so they take so they take 14 teams. So baseball is kind of alone, even after adding the second wild card, they're only taking 10 teams to the playoffs. So I don't know. I'm trying to think of this from a player's perspective. Like if I'm a player, do I want it to be more exclusive or do I want teams that fall in the standings to kind of be in the mix a little bit longer? That's a great question. It kind of comes down to like, I don't know if you're in a lottery or a drawing. Do you want it to be five people in that drawing?

do you want to be eight people in that drawing? Like you'd probably prefer for it just to be five so that your odds are improved. I think that if you get to the playoffs, you'd like your odds to be improved of making, you know, making it to the championship versus having so many other teams get in. You know, maybe teams that lost, you know, up to 20 more games than you did. And now they have an equal opportunity at, you know, the World Series that you do. Baseball is a more volatile sport than the other ones, right? Like in the NFL, the playoffs, they're all, they're all just one game, right?

Like in one freak game, you know, it's possible, I guess it's possible that a really good team or could lose to a really bad team. Oh, yeah. Anybody can lose on any given Sunday, especially in football because of, you know, you go down something as minor as a single player, but it's a significant enough player on your roster that that's going to completely impact everything. I mean, baseball, it depends on who it is. So just like other sports, it depends on who you would lose, right? But it's still a multiple game series versus that one game. That one game can happen. Right.

So I guess maybe the NFL and the MLB are kind of, I guess I should say and MLB, not the MLB. Some people are, are you one of those people, Derek? Are you super picky about that? Some people really freak out when they hear the MLB, which technically it is wrong. Anyway, I just go with MLB, but I try, I get, I get more bent out of shape about RBIs. Oh, yes. RBIs upsets me more than the MLB. I think we change that.

I think our official pH and X style guide is corrected and says we use RBI instead of RBIs. I made sure to argue for that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we can stick it to the. Remember kids, it's not runs, run. batted ins. It runs batted in. So for anything, it's going to be R.SBI or something like that. I don't know. Stupid. Just let's just call them RBI and let's just be adult about it and know that it means multiple. But yeah, I don't know what's going on with this. I don't, I'm again not optimistic. I talked on the live show about being sad. And I was even at times just at a loss for words,

because I can't believe that we experienced in a day moving farther apart. I can't believe now we're at a point where once again after, you know, and that's another thing that really bothered me. Some of the reports that were coming out was how the tone of the negotiation had changed from being very accusatory and being very immature at times even, which like, yeah, that doesn't surprise me at all that even during the negotiations they're being immature to it being more of a problem-solving nature over the last two days. But here after the third day in a row of negotiation, it seems like, much like when I had a friend

stay over at my house as a kid and he stayed past 12 o'clock the next day, they're sick of each other's shit. That's the way that it's going to go. And I think that they are no longer being amicable about this process, considering that they both came out after the meeting and had vague threats. to make towards the other side. Hold up. Hold up here, Derek. You had a friend stay over past noon the following day of a sleepover.

Oh, you were sick of them after. Oh, yeah, no. As a kid, you'd be my best friend until you hung out at my house for too long. And then I was just done with you. That's how I knew my wife was the love of my life, because I could tolerate her for longer than a 28 to 30 hour period of time. So that meant she was the one, right? but yeah no no i i wasn't not not even a little bit because like i had friends that would always try to like weasel their way into staying a second night if they stayed on like friday night they wanted to like stay saturday night too and i knew why i had parents that were not very strict we

had video games with all the games like i would i'd get it i wanted to stay at my house too that's why i didn't leave very much as a kid but you know you got to go it's time to go you know Call your parents, get them to pick you up. But of course, we don't want you guys to get picked up by your parents. We want you to stick around, watch the show. Hop on the Draf King's Sportsbook app, especially if you're a new customer. New customers can get in on the NBA action with our deal of using our code of PHNX, betting just $1 on any team.

And should that team win, you will get $150 in free bets. It's that simple. The sons are back, I think, this Thursday. today. They have a game tonight, I believe. So that might be a good team to maybe bet your money on. I don't know. I don't know. I know CP3 is hurt, but I still believe in this team and their ability to win without him. So let's keep, let's maybe let's wait one game. Let's see how they do and then decide on continuing to bet on the suns for the time being. But customers that are not new customers can get in on the actual same game parlayes. That's what I'm all about. I am, I'm stealing it, Jesse.

I'm stealing it. I'm big pop a parlay. That's what I'm calling myself from now on. Sorry, sorry, but Patrick, but it's happening. Combine multiple bets from the same game for a bigger payout. The more legs you add, the more money you win. And don't forget, the draft kings is safe, secure, and reliable. Best of all, you can deposit and withdraw your cash whenever you want.

I just love their withdrawal review system, Jesse. I literally put in the request to withdraw my money, and by the time I go out of the app, it's already been reviewed and approved, and it's like it's magic. It's like fairies did it, but anyway, go download the Draft King Sportsbook app now. Use promo code of PHNX,

bet just $1 on any team and get $150 in free bets if they win. That's promo code PHNX over at the Draft King Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of the NBA, 21 and over only Arizona only gambling problem dial 1 800 next step new customers only minimum $5 deposit eligibility restrictions apply apply CdraftKings.com slash sportsbook for details and Jesse yes I talked a little bit about it earlier but I was out at the D-BACs minor league mini camp again today it was rained out it was very cold I was underdressed let's see what else. I saw some batting practice in the cages. That was cool. That's pretty much all that was going on.

I mean, for the most part, they, you know, they're out there doing drills and defensive drills and a couple of other things, but there, there's nothing really major going on it, you know, during this time. I feel like it's just guys getting some time in with the coaches, getting some time in at the nice facility and just like working on specific things that they might be working on as an individual. I don't even think this camp is, you know, an opportunity for like spring training is, where it's an opportunity to be seen by the coaches, to be seen by people that might, you know, might not get a chance to see us. So it might be a good chance to impress.

Toy LaVallo and Mike Haysen were out there on Monday. I know I talked about that. they were just kind of wandering around, not talking to the media, but still talking to us. They were still very nice. They waved from a distance. And then when we came towards them, they ran. But as any good executive would during this time of the MLB. Right, right.

But Alec Thomas came and spoke to us today. And it was really great to hear from him. He had some great things to say just about his connection with baseball. he dropped a lot of names Jesse a lot of really famous really good baseball players from the Chicago White Sox organization that he had a chance to be around as a young man and it's just very cool to see everything kind of hear everything that he's gone through in his life as far as baseball is concerned and you know just to see him have such a love for the game. yeah it is um well i'm glad you had fun derrick i'm glad you had a good time i you know hey i make

the best out of it it wasn't really a fun time we got we did uh the debacks were nice enough to let us uh take shelter in like their they have an external tent outside of their like main facility and it's where they were doing team meetings during the pandemic because they couldn't have that many people all inside of the building at one time i guess so they needed to have it like in an outdoor thing. It's almost like the restaurants that put the outdoor seating, you know, like in the curb area on front of their restaurants, right? But like, that was nice. I don't know what I would have done standing out there for that period of time in the rain, just getting wet without them allowing us to go inside of there. We did hear something that I will throw out there is that

Corbyn Carroll has made a full recovery from shoulder surgery. Yes, he had. And, and that is, that is very exciting. But I think I cut you off, Eric, what were you going to say? No, no, no, no, that's fine. I kind of knew that based on, like, without the official word, based on him. Yeah. the cuts against live BP. Like it wasn't against the machine or something. He was, you know, he was batting against other, you know,

pictures. And it's been like almost a full calendar year since that surgery happened. So we, we'd be a little concerned if he hadn't made a full recovery. But that's still good news, nonetheless. Very much so.

But no, it was just, like I said, Ali Thomas was, it was great to hear from him. It was great once again to see him. I don't know. There's just something special about him.

And I think he, he has all the makings right now to be a great player eventually, you know. But yeah, like he's just, he had a very interesting story that he was talking about that I actually have in my article up on go phnx.com. If you haven't signed up to become a member, do so now. That way you can go read the piece. You can get an annual membership and you'll get the free t-shirt over at the draft, not drafting sports book, you don't get free t-shirts over there.

that's at the phnx locker.com. But if you're not interested in the annual membership, get yourself to month to month membership and you'll get your first month for just 50 cents. Also, you'll get access to our members-only Discord where we could talk about articles like this and prospects like Alec Thomas, because it's always great to talk about the future of this team

right now during their current state. But definitely, like I said, if you haven't signed up, go sign up to become a member now. but Jesse he kind of got challenged by by Josh Barfield who Josh Barfield

is the farm director for the Arizona Diamondbacks and the challenge was for him to take the first strike in every at bat before swinging not the first pitch the first strike

interesting yeah so not swing basically leave the bat on your shoulders until you saw your first strike and you know you kind of talked a bit about how hard it was to get over it you know how there was those like 2O accounts where you had to let a heater yeah i'm not really sure like

like is that smart like on a 2 o count you're hitting you're sitting dead red heater right like well that's a little that's kind of a strange strategy it actually said like 2021 it actually has about the same percentage of getting the same pitches on the next day. I can see that. I can see that. Right. But the point, I guess, was that he was pretty good at hitting the fastball. So it was a chance for him and his development to just see other pitches. And that it just expanded the pitches that he would see in his abets. So from a development standpoint, it definitely sucked for him for a period of time. But he got much better at learning how to hit other pitches. And so,

So again, when you're actually trying to get yourself prepared to see major league pitching and the variety that you could see, it's only helping you get better by doing that. And I mean, again, it's an interesting exercise, but I feel like not only isn't it an exercise in patience, but it's also an exercise that's going to teach you to not panic so much in early counts potentially. in your future if you just get used to doing that. I mean, it's not something that he needs to do like forever once he's in the major leagues, but if it continues to help him, maybe it is. Maybe it's not a terrible, not a terrible tactic.

So again, lots of stuff like that, including all the mentors he had in his life from the Chicago White Sox due to his father, Alan, and some other good stuff in there. If you check out that article over at go phtnx.com. Also, Jesse has a, tremendous piece on what went wrong for Zach Gallen this season. So head over to that website that we work for,

that we love, that you're a family member of and check those out. But also, Jesse, we have to give credit where credit is due. Leacher Report had a feature on every team's Mount Rushmore of players going back to 1990. Obviously,

this would encompass the Arizona Diamondbacks entire existence. And to be honest, I went into this with just a bit of skepticism waiting to see what their picks were. Once I saw them, I can't help but say they nailed it on the debacks. Their Mount Rushmore for the Arizona Diamondbacks were Luis Gonzalez, Randy Johnson, Kurt Schilling, and Paul Edward Goldschman. That's pretty good. That's pretty good. I will say that like there's not really like, like, I mean, I don't

think they were about to put David Peralta in there or or like like Dan here like there's not that you can't really make many mistakes that are viable like it's not a very hard decision I feel like yeah everyone knows oldies in there Randy Johnson's in there gonzo's got to be in there I think the only controversy might be between Brandon Webb or Kurt Schilling just because Kurt Schilling wasn't a diamond back for very long and and neither was Brandon Webb really I mean it was kind of a relatively short stint for both of those guys. Technically, Brandon Webb had more career wins above replacement, at least according to baseball reference, than Kurt Schilling did.

So that would be the one possible change I could see them making. But Kurt Schilling is Kurt Schilling, and he was a huge part of the World Series run, and he just kind of has to be in there, right? So, I don't know. Kurt Schilling, I know we don't want to admit it, but Kurt Schilling was more valuable during the Diamondbacks World Series run than Randy Johnson was. Would you say like throughout the entire playoffs?

Are you thinking more just the World Series? I mean, I know specifically during the World Series Kurt Schilling was, but during the playoffs, Randy just, he had a weird, like when you go back and look at some of the lines and stuff, he had a weird string of luck. He went, you know, he had a couple of losses where he didn't do anything wrong, but the team lost.

So I don't know. I mean, I guess the thought process there more is Kurt Schilling was surprisingly more valuable, at least in that World Series against the New York Yankees than Randy Johnson. I mean, Randy Johnson, so these are Randy Johnson's numbers throughout three games in the World Series, two starts, and then, of course, the legendary relief appearance. 17 in the third innings, nine hits, two runs, three walks, 19 strikeouts. that's a 1.04 ERA. How many wins, though?

How many wins? Yeah. Three. Three and no. Randy Johnson was in the World Series? Randy Johnson in the World Series was three and no. What? Yes.

I don't remember. Okay. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm awful on that. Kurt Schilling was insanity throughout the entire playoffs. So I think of it is more of like maybe a little bit more of a toss up. The only gripe you can have against Randy Johnson, though, is that when he pitched against the Cardinals and the NLDS,

he gave up three runs in eight innings. That was like the worst. Trash. Trash. Trash. Throw his whole career in the bin. I stand on what I think. Good on Bleacher report, though.

I mean, they, I think they got it right. And it's not very hard either. You said Brandon Webb and you and I both said Brandon Webb when we talked about this beforehand. And I think they actually had Brandon Webb listed as their honorable mention. So it's kind of weird because the Arizona Diamondbacks really don't have much to argue about when it comes to that. Like you said, maybe, I mean, Paul Goldschmidt belongs there no matter what.

I can't, you can't replace mild care. Even if you start getting into the stats, if you start saying he doesn't belong up there, it means that you really don't know about his time with the team and you're just going based on stats. you know. He was, well, he was there for so, he was a diamond back for so long, right? He came up in 2011 and then, you know, it was almost a decade by the time he left, whereas Kurt Schilling was a diamond back for four years. So I think that's why, like, even though Paul Goldschman is maybe not quite as elite of a player,

he was here for so much longer than Kurt Schilling was. That's the, but that's the difference between Schilling and Webb, because Schilling was only a diamond back for four years. Webb was a diamond back for seven. So there is an argument to be made that you know, maybe that would sway things in Brandon Webb's favor. But Kurt Schilling was, I mean, he was just unreal over those four years. Six, six, six. I'm not letting you count the one start he made in that's that's fair. Okay. Fair enough. Six, six years. But, but nonetheless, I mean, Brandon Webb was a diamond back for a longer period of time and he also won a Cy Young Award. So I would still give it to shilling, though.

I would still give it to feeling. It's just wild to me how many games Brandon Webb started per season every year until his career just ended. It is weird. Usually if a guy's career like ends early because of a serious injury problem, you, you kind of saw it coming almost. Yeah. But you're so right. Yeah.

He came up 29 games in his first in his rookie season. 180.2 innings. And then he was over 200 innings and never made fewer than 33 starts every season after that. Up until 2009 when, of course, the shoulder thing happened. And that's all she wrote for Brandon Webb. And like it's wild because, you know, again, like you said, 2008, he won 22 games. 22 games was an all-star second and Cy Young voting, 17th in MVP voting. Like, holy cow, man.

What a tragic loss for this team, Brandon Webb truly was, especially considering the trajectory that his career was on before that injury derailed everything. So again, I mean, there definitely could be an argument made for Brandon Webb, but it's hard not to have those two guys on there that Randy Johnson and Kurt Schilling. I imagine them being on the Mount Rushmore exactly like they are on that dual bubble. head that they have together where they're sharing the they were sharing what was it the MVP award was that what they shared and they both had their their hands on it yeah right that's adorable that's how i would put them on the mountain like not just their heads the other two would just be heads those two would be

popping out they might even be giant bobbleheads they might just bobble back and forth a little bit i don't know can you can you carve a mountain into like into a bobblehead watch me yes i mean in this my in my Modern era, absolutely. Absolutely. Get up some giant springs. And we'll figure this thing out. But yeah, I mean, I'll be out there on Friday. We'll have some reports back on Mailbag Monday, of course, and on Tuesday about what I saw on Friday.

And hopefully, by the time we reach March 1st, which I believe is Monday or Tuesday, hopefully we don't have more threats being thrown around. We don't have talk of removing games from the schedule. We don't have talk of players refusing to play in expanded playoffs. I don't want less baseball. And that's what they want to do. I want more baseball, Jesse. I want a full season.

I want expanded playoffs. I want it all. I want my cake and I want to eat it too because, God damn it, what's the use of getting cake if I can't eat it? Fair point. It's hard to argue. All right. Well, we thank you guys so much for checking out the show.

you can follow us on Twitter. I'm at cap underscore K-Band with a K. Jesse is at Jesse N. Friedman. Our show is at PHNX underscore D-Backs, but of course all roads lead to at PHNX underscore sports. And that is on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Again, we thank you guys so much for checking out the show. Please sign up to become a member over at go phnx.com

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