PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - We're Locked Out!

Episode Date: December 3, 2021

On this episode, Jesse and Derek are discussing day 1 of the MLB Lockout, how the Mets got our free agency dream team, and what the proposed 14-team playoff expansion would look like. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome to the PHNX DBAX podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Montia, officially known as your mayor of PHNX. And I, of course, am joined by my vice mayor, the one and only Jesse Friedman. After you got rid of the mustache, Derek, I was prepared to be like happy about it. Like, yes, this is like I would rather look at this face than the face before it. But I don't know, I don't know how to feel today, Derek. I don't know who I'm looking at. It's not a good look.

It's not a good look. And let's be honest, I knew better than to, you know, basically shave it off. But they had to go. The mustache was bad. I was spending a lot of time in the hot tub inexplicably, Jesse. I was just, I'd take a nap on the couch, wake up in the hot tub. I'd blame it all on the mustache. But this show, of course, is brought to you by the fine folks at the Draft King Sportsbook app.

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shape, or form. Jesse, it's official. It's everything. Everything else is over. There's no more tank season. There's no more free agency season. It's just,

it's lockout season now, Jesse. It's lockout season. Grab your pillows. Grab your, uh, grab your, your 90s, you know, grab your pajamas and take a nap for the time being, no work is getting done. And it doesn't look like it's going to happen in the foreseeable future. So let's talk about this, first of all, the start of the lockout and how long we think these negotiations are actually going to go for.

Well, first of all, I have to say that last night was kind of hilarious when all of this went down because have you been on MLB.com lately? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. On DBACs.com lately or any major league baseball teams website. Yeah. There is no current news about any players. Everything about current players, all of the recent free agent signings, the trades,

all of that has been removed. Even their pictures, Derek, are no longer there. And players are having, are getting a kick out of this today. There's an entire movement of players on social. media changing their avatars to just like this blank face that baseball is using for them now on their website. I don't know exactly the circumstances here if Major League Baseball isn't legally allowed to use their picture or whatnot during this time or they're just making a statement. I don't know. Maybe you know something I don't hear. I don't either. No, the only thing I can think is that when you

see a lot of the fine print in things like baseball cards or in, you know, for for instance, MLB the show, there are lines about the likenesses and such being owned by the Players Association, right? So I think because those, that website isn't owned by the teams, it's not owned by the Players Association, it's owned by MLB. And all the websites related for the teams are owned by MLB. So it might, it might just be a precautionary measure. It might be them going too far. Or it might be this modern day, you know, kind of thing. right like you can't use a song in the background of a birthday party video without facebook sending you a warning that you don't know music in the background music right so i mean we're getting

to this point where media is strictly controlled by those who own it and that i imagine carries over to the players like this is right they can still have the information about them on there but it's kind of like the restrictions that websites that aren't associated with MLB are held to without and you know you can't use their logo in your advertising and can't do certain things because you don't own that you don't have permission from either the MLB or from the players association to do so I just think it's funny that the Diamondback signed Mark freaking Melanson yesterday and you go on their website and there's nothing there you will find nothing about Mark Malanson on their website right now and on MLB.com like MLB.com is just this hilarious collage.

of articles about like like the best player in the 60s just like all of these super random things. Yeah. That's all that they have to talk about. And that's all they're going to have to talk about for a pretty long time. Because as you said, Derek, we might be stuck here for a while. And I mean, I know it just started, Jesse. I know it just started. But I wanted to give our predictions on when we think it might end.

Yes. The most arbitrary and impossible game ever. Yeah. It makes no sense at all. No sense at all. Jesse, I will give you, I will give you the floor for you to make your case for your date and what your date is. All right. Well, I think it's obvious, Derek. I think everyone knows this. Everybody understands what's. Super, super clear. January 28th, mark it down on your calendars, ladies and gentlemen.

January 28th, I'm sure of it. The January 28th will be the day that this all ends. I don't really know, Derek. But my case is just that I think that gives them a decent buffer before pitchers and catchers report. And I really do think that both sides are heavily motivated to get this done. Nobody wants to see us miss out on regular season games. Nobody wants us to see or nobody wants us to miss out on any spring training games or any part of that experience. I know like you said yesterday, that would be a big hit to the local economy. Oh, they're already up in arms about it, Jesse.

Yeah, yeah. Furious, they're furious. They want you to know that this lockout is going to affect the Arizona economy. And it's not, they're not wrong, right? Yeah. I've always referred to spring training as the trap. It's the trap because people come here to see spring training and they somehow get the impression that the weather is like that all season long or all year long,

like the summer, like we're already in summer. how hot it did. This is nice. Yeah, it's nice in March and part of April. And then that's it. Then you're in the hell times. But by that point, some people have made the Aaron decision to come live here from wherever their nice climate possibly was. So I don't know. It's definitely, I think, the attraction time of the year. It's the best time to at least bring people out and have so much to do. I know there's a lot to do in the valley besides, you know, besides spring training at that point too there's usually a whole lot of events and such but uh i i i don't know i i get what you're saying i i hear what you're saying january 28th sounds like a good date it's still a little far away

but if they got it done by that day there wouldn't be any drama there wouldn't be any panic jesse that's true i'm definitely i'm that's a pretty optimistic day there is no way they get it done that early there can't there can't be that lack of drama there can't be that lack of of of nail biting. So I am going with February 14th, Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day, wow. You know, here's the thing. It's Valentine's Day. So of course, because we all need to love each other. So maybe that'll be the day that they learn to get past their differences and just get this deal done. More importantly, pitchers and catchers would report either that Wednesday or the following Wednesday. And I know that they don't want to

impact spring training, but I think that that is going to be the 11th hour for them. I think that is going to be when they truly will need pressure-wise to get the deal done because that is the point when no matter how you want to cut it, the season, the 22 season is now being impacted. Once we get past that midweek of February or the next week of 20, you know, the 21st through the 25th, we're going to be into a period of time where the, you know, every year, you know, every everything's going to have to be pushbacked, condensed. They're going to lose games in spring training. They're going to lose time for these guys to get ready. Baseball is a fickle sport. You can't just all of a sudden pick up and say, all right, the season starts next week now.

It's not, it doesn't work out that way. The minute that they start to, you know, allow teams to get back to getting together, it's going to take a while for things to get ramped up. So I, I'm hoping that they, they feel the pressure by that point and get it done so that it doesn't impact this season at all in any way, shape, or form. If not, I will come back and blame Jesse 100% for getting my hopes up so high and telling me how the season wasn't going to be impacted by the lockout.

So that would be about 10 weeks from now, is what you're saying. Oh, gosh. That's like, that's a long time. Yeah, yeah. I don't know, man. I don't know if it's going to happen, but I'll tell you this much. You'll have a lot of time to go on the draft.

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I'm upset though, Jesse. Yeah. The free agency season has come and gone. It was fun while it lasted, though. It was. I'm not, look, I'm not mad about what the Diamondbacks did. I tried to look on the positive side. I was very positive about it.

You were very positive. You kept saying yesterday, you were like, yeah, I'm glad they stuck to their plan and didn't do anything. Derek, from yesterday is an idiot. He's an idiot. He's a positive dummy. And I don't know what's wrong with that guy. But let me tell you this, when I really sat down and took in that the New York Mets essentially put together yours and mine, essentially dream team of free agents. Pretty much.

You know, they got Scherzer, they got Eduardo Escobar, they got Starling Marte, they got Mark Kana. And they also might have my allegiance. I don't know. I don't ever want to root for a New York team. But as far as I'm concerned, it's like they created my team on their team. Well, you see, the Mets, they're not, like, I don't really view the Mets as a New York team, even though they are a New York team, because they're just kind of a different breed. Like, have you ever met a Mets fan, Derek?

Yes, I, yes, I have. Yes, I have. I actually have a Mets fan friend, my friend Dhab. Yes. Okay, okay. One, though, not many. So I don't get what you're saying. I was on, so this was several years ago.

I got invited onto a Mets podcast once. I still am not really sure why this happened. But there was some guy who, hosted a Mets podcast and he was like, hey, are you not sure why you got invited or why a Mets podcast existed? That's, that's fair. That's fair. Yeah.

People could be questioning us. Really, really. Let's not pull threads. Let's not pull threads. Okay. Right, right. But yeah, it was just like this guy was just, um, I don't know, Mets fans just have such a like such a sad like they kind of have a sarcastic like

way about them. like the kind of this like whoa is me I have no idea what you're talking about in comparison to debacks fans at all Jesse we didn't just tweet out an announcement about them getting a closer and have 50 people reply with why would you need a closer when you're never going to be in a closed situation

we get a lot of those we get it they don't score a lot of runs so we understand where you're coming from we covered that on the show too but you know one be more original and two do we have to do we have to do this already? Do we have to already? Like when they do acquire someone, pick on the fact that they acquired someone. I mean, you could have done that with anybody that they picked up, to be honest, unless they went out and did what the Rangers did, which even then, I'm sure there

would be a half a dozen people. Even then, even then, Derek, people would be like, why you need a middle infield when your bullpen sucks, right? Like, no, like, why are you spending over half a billion dollars when you have six thousand people in your stadium? Yeah, all those jokes. We got it. I know. Yes. But it's still, it's probably the one team that makes me sad. It's probably the one team I'm a little envious of, mostly because it's guys that I'm very familiar with and I like very much and I think are going to do big things. You know, all of those guys, former debacks with the exception of Kana. And that's somebody that you were very high on as far as an option potentially for the debacks to be looking at. They're all great players. I mean, honestly, I'm excited. for Mets fans, they need this. I mean, it's, it's been, it's been a long time since the, since the Mets have really been able to, uh, do much that was notable, right?

I mean, they've been in the playoffs somewhere recently, but yeah, but they, I mean, they need this. And, um, and I'm just excited to see Max Scherzer pitch for the Mets. I mean, after pitching for the Dodgers, like seeing him come over and, and, you know, be himself on a team like that that really needs him. Whereas when he was on the Dodgers, it's like, you know, I mean, the Dodgers are just an unbelievable team with or without him. It's like a ship full of captains. You know what I mean?

Like it's a ship full of guys with playoff experience. And especially someone like Scher who actually has more experience than most of the guys on the team or all of the guys. In fact, still coming over on a team like that that's so well established. So many of them have been on that team for a while. It's got to be a weird feeling. Like you said, there's going to be a different feeling for him to come over to to the Mets. The Mets are going to look at him as a leader. I think the, you know, the starting rotation is going to be thrilled to be a part of a rotation that includes him and they're going to,

you know, utilize him for his experience and other things. I'm big on that because I know how big, you know, these things can be for young guys. You know, Zach Gallen talked about changing the side of the plate that he pitched from making just this huge improvement in his game. You never know when one single piece of advice from a veteran or a coach is going to improve your game substantially like that. But yeah, no, I'm jealous and that's really all I wanted to cover involving the Mets is just talking about how jealous. Jacob de Grom and Max Scherzer.

My God. And then Taiwan Walker, former B-back, Taiwan Walker over there. I mean, I think he still, he came back down to Earth, but he was an all-star and he had a great, you know, first half. So I think that they have a lot of positive things going. and be interesting to see what they can do. That division at times is wide open, but it also has the World Series champions in it.

So, you know, World Series champions that might be decimated by free agency whenever free agency starts again, because a lot of people are licking their chops about Freddie Freeman, and it's going to be interesting to see how that shakes out. But one other thing I wanted to get to, I know we're on the lockout season. Can we put lockout season back up there, please?

Because I just, it's a great graphic. And we need to, every time we switch over to lockout season. So now we're talking that some of the proposals that we'll have during this whole negotiation, some of the things we've heard about, the first one actually could impact the deback substantially. And that is the fact that there's a proposal in the CBA that the MLB has offered to the Players Association to change their draft with an NBA-style lottery system for just the first three draft picks, right? thus preventing tank season a little bit, which makes me sad.

You know, I still like tank season, but you're going to get into tank season regardless. It's 162 games. Well, you know, let's throw it up there with time, just for old times. It's tank. I love tank season. Preventing that, we'll put a big like X over that one of these days or whatever, right? But basically the top three teams would be entered into a lottery system. And if that comes through, from my understanding, that could impact next year's draft.

they could still have that lottery for the 2002 draft, which could result in the debacks either moving back one draft position, which would be a total debacks thing to have happen, or it could result in them getting the number one draft date. Wouldn't it be funny if they got Elijah Green after? No, that's all I want. That's all I want to happen.

I don't care if they get three, two, or one, just get Elijah Green is all I really want. But it's interesting because I think that there are a lot of things that they've put into this potential CBA that is going to improve competitive balance is going to make baseball better, right? I know we talk a lot about this being about money and sides looking greedy, but I really feel like this season was the best example of why competitive balance is important. You know, so many of the teams that didn't really end up being competitive We're out of it from, you know, March from April.

You know, they didn't even, they didn't even try to make any moves. The Cubs wave the white flag and not the one with the W on it a long time ago, you know. And it's like, it's situations like that. It's like understandable, again, what the Diamondbacks have gone through in this division is understandable. Now with the Dodgers potentially not falling apart, but the Dodgers maybe coming back down a little bit and not being able to afford all of these great players that they had, and maybe the competition level being a little bit closer, you know, maybe next year, not this year,

but maybe the following year, is that perfect time to strike for the debacks, where their young talent has had some time in the majors and, you know, some guys have emerged as, you know, top talent, and they can add some free agents next year. Right now what I'm hearing from a lot of debacks fans is still that lament that the debacks aren't spending a whole bunch of money this off season. I can understand it because what you're looking at right now,

competitive balance-wise, is a bunch of teams spending a bunch of money, a bunch of the less competitive teams that were out of it last season from the beginning, right? And I mean, in some cases, some of them have made it very clear that they want to spend money, but they haven't been able to get those big players, right? So a team like the Tigers most definitely are in the hunt for Carlos Correa because they've struck out on a couple of their big free agent names they were going after. So I could see them having a lot of money to throw his way, right? But teams like the Rangers and the Tigers and the Marlins are all teams now that are trying to,

you know, bump up that competitive level. And, you know, again, it's a transition period. So it's cool to see that. It's just not the right time for the debacks right now. I don't feel like. It's interesting what this, what this will do. I don't personally think that Major League Baseball has as big of an issue with tanking as some other sports do, particularly NBA, where I think it's abundantly clear. I mean, the Suns were clearly tanking for several years there.

I mean, just holding out players from playing and whatnot for no real apparent reason for a while there. So I don't think Major League Baseball has as big of an issue with that. Because it's harder to actually tank. Yeah, it's harder. It's harder to tank and it also doesn't, the reward is less significant, right? Like Mike Hazen said himself, we've talked about it a million times. The Diamondbacks didn't even want the number one overall pick, right? So I don't think they would view this as a very different situation.

And I highly doubt it would really impact the way that teams perform down the stretch. I don't see a lot of Major League Baseball teams holding out their best players toward the end of the season so that they can lose more games. the Orioles played Cedric Mullins at the end of last year through the entire season, who's an incredible player. And they weren't going to hold them out because they were trying to tank, right? That wasn't what they did. Now, you know, granted, the Orioles didn't spend much money.

And there are other things on that roster you could point maybe they were tanking in the larger picture. But I don't see, I don't see this having the kind of impact that would really change how teams, you know, create their rosters and how they use them down the stretch. well i'll remind you and i'm not accusing the debacks of tanking a single game but i will remind you that in the final game of the year yeah when they were almost the worst team in baseball lavello did sit catel marty for rest i still i still think that's a lavello cork i still think that that that sounds like a tori lavello you say you say what you want to say jesse you say whatever you want to say i will say it's the last game of the season and he he wasn't trying to tank wink so anyway but it didn't work out and they end up winning that

game anyway and that's what that's what that's what of course would happen to us but uh you know just as a reminder even though you're not going to find any information about it apparently at mlb.com or at least with any pictures uh you can go to go p hnx.com and there'll be pictures on our website i promise you uh jessie has a piece coming up uh on on our uh acquisition of our new reliever slash closer that you can get over on go p hnx.com sign up to become a member you can get an annual membership which will get you a free t-shirt over at the p hnx locker dot com or you can sign up for the month-to-month option and you'll get your first month for just 50 cents remember it's a great holiday gift to yourself to your loved one for you guys to share enjoy become a member become a member

of the family join our members only discord get discounts on the merch all the time there's always discounts I'm not going to tell you about the Black Friday deal that already passed because I already did that and Jesse scolded me for being mean about it. You're literally doing it right now. Yeah, I know. Oh, baseball. Yeah, well, I mean, if a tree falls in the forest and no one's around to hear it, did it make a noise? I don't know. But I will say I definitely appreciate you guys checking out the show and definitely go over to go phtnx.com and become a member today.

Jesse, the other proposal that's part of this whole CBA lockout deal that we've talked about and we wanted to discuss here is expanding the playoffs to 14 teams. Again, something that could impact the debacks in the next coming years if they do decide to go this route. But it is a complicated route. It's definitely not a straightforward situation as far as, their idea goes. So let's talk about this because it's a little weird. It's a little weird. It's a little weird. Part of me would be concerned if the league went with this because I think playoffs would come and everyone would just be super confused and not understand what was happening because there's a lot of layers to this. But here's the proposal that was laid out. So it's 14 teams total. Correct. So seven national league, seven American

league. And, you know, currently it's five and five. So we're changing that to seven and seven, which basically just means they're adding two additional wild cards for each league. And so you've got your... But they won't be one game wild cards. They'll be wild cards that they actually participate in a three game series, right? Right, right. So it's a three game series. And so you have your three division winners.

And then you basically have one of the wild card teams that gets thrown in there as well. Because the leading team in each league gets a buy. for the first round. So there's a buy in the first round for each league, and then you've got six teams left over, and the home teams are the top wild card plus the other two division leaders. And then based on the order of record, Derek,

they get to choose which of the wild card teams they want to play, which is a bizarre situation. That's really where things went off the rails a bit. When they started to say that the, division winners that don't get the buy get to choose their wild card opponent with the one with the better record of the two

getting the first choice and then the other one so like for instance in this season so there would be four wild cards total and then the three division winners so this year in the national league it would have been the giants and the Tampa Bay raise were the first round by The Brewers would have been the first division winner with the wild card of their choosing with the first choice.

And then the Braves would have taken their wild card of their choosing. The wild cardinald, the Reds, and the Phillies. But the Dodgers would have also gotten to host a game. Host a game. Correct. So they wouldn't, and they wouldn't have gotten to choose their opponent, though. They would have gotten whichever wild card team was left. after the Brewers and the Braves made their selection.

No one was going to choose the Dodgers anyway, so the Dodgers weren't going to be picked by another team. Then in the American League, like I said, it's the raise with the by, Astros and the White Sox are your division winners with the Astros getting the first choice as far as who they would want to pick. Then the wild card is pretty much the AL East, Red Sox Yankees, Blue Jays,

with the Mariners being the seventh and final wild card spot or fourth. They're just the optics of a team, choosing who they want to play in the playoffs part of me feels like they would just go with the team with the worst record and try not to put too much into it but part of me is also like well i mean if one team you know if you've got two teams to choose from they have practically the same record you know but one of them has this super dominant ace and the other one doesn't you might be willing to fit to choose the team that has the you know the better record overall just because in a shorter term you know, you feel like you might have a better chance against them.

Let's take a look at this too, because I think this would apply. Like, let's say the Brewers matched up well against the Reds instead of the Phillies, which would be the final seed, right? So let's say the Brewers would their choosing go for the Reds for any reason, right? Maybe they're, like you said, maybe they do have a dominant starting pitcher, but he's injured and he's not playing or something like that, right? For whatever variable that might come into play. And then maybe the Braves don't match up well.

maybe they've lost the season series to the Phillies, considering they're both in the NLEs. So instead of going after them, they decide to play the Cardinals, you know, that these are all things that could happen. And if they do happen, I want it to happen with some pageantry.

Like, I want, like, the manager to have to come on stage. You want, like, a televised event? Yes. With an envelope that he opens and announces. on stage who they're going to play. That would be amazing.

Can you imagine the ratings for that? Oh my God. Like they want more TV revenue, Derek. That event would sell on ESVAN. I mean, do it, do it, do it on the baseball field on the pitching mound, you know, come out to like a microphone set up out there and be like, you know, the Milwaukee, the Milwaukee Brewers Select. the Cincinnati Reds and then people lose their mind.

Yeah! Come on, I'm with it. Baseball's boring. Let's make it more exciting. Whatever we can do. Confetti shoots out. Banners drop with like the matchup, you know, Bruins versus Reds.

Why is there confetti? I don't know. Because confetti makes everything better, Jesse. Are you kidding me? Why is they're confetti? Why is they're bunting and why is there all this other stuff around a ballpark. I don't know, because it would be great. Fireworks. Can we get fireworks at least? Would that be okay? Firework better than confetti. You're right. Confetti is celebratory. Fireworks at least are

an announcement level. Yeah, just a big event. Just a big event, right. What are your thoughts on these playoffs? Do you hate it? Because I know you don't like the idea of more teams in the playoffs. Well, so yeah, we've talked about this a little bit before. I don't like the idea of a 16 team expansion, which is another idea that's been floated around. This is what we saw last year with the pandemic. The league was able to convince the players to go to 16 teams in the playoffs. And I don't like that. I think it I think it cheapens the playoffs just a little bit too much.

I mean, it's like where do we set the, where do we set the bar? I mean, if you're going to take 16, why not take 20 teams, right? Like I just think 16 teams is more than 16 teams is more than half of the league. We have everybody in here. somebody comes in, or we're going to do final four, let's add 64 teams. We can have 64 teams in the playoffs. I just think if a team is like 77 and 85, like we don't need to see them in the playoffs, right? It's just not a compelling product.

Baseball is like a fickle sport too, right? So the thing about that is that a team could catch fire at the end of the season, right? Yeah, the 77 and 85 team could totally just blow out the 107 win team in one series. The one thing I like about this particular setup is as weird as it is. I like that it's unconventional. I like that they're doing their own thing instead of copying a typical bracketed system that other sports do. It would be interesting. I mean, it would be fascinating.

And the other part that I really like about it is that the team with the most wins in both divisions gets a buy in this whole thing. And that's the only team that gets out of it. Right. So that that awards a team for playing hard all 162 games and having the best record in their league. Right. So I think like you said, it's such a ridiculously long season that the reward used to be making the playoffs. The reward used to be that such a limited amount of teams went to the playoffs, that that was what you played for during the season.

That's why the season was so long because it was kind of like a playoff. You know, it was especially when there were less teams because the teams were constantly playing teams first only in their league, only in the NL and the AL. They weren't doing this, you know, cross-contamination thing. And then they also, you know, were mostly playing of the 162 games like a hundred plus of them against their division, right? So it was truly proving who the best team in their division was. Now with the scheduling and everything else, it's not so much. I mean, you do play your division opponents more than anybody else. but it's still not that same thing of being, you know,

constant competition against those teams in your league and your division and then playing eventually against another team in the American League or National League in the World Series. So I don't know. I think it's interesting and I do like the fact that it rewards certain things. It's kind of weird to look at the way this would line up with the Dodgers being a wildcard team, you know, and again, with almost the entire A, L. East making it in on the American League side with the exception of the Orioles.

So yeah. Yeah. I mean, you could have you could feasibly have all five teams from one division, right? I mean, you could have division winner plus four wild cards coming from one division. With how much they pay, play each other, that's got to be impossible. There's always got to be one team like the Baltimore Royals that were the wicket boy in the division. Highly unlikely. Highly unlikely. But I do, I do think it's important to mention the same. CBA aspect of this. Like what are the, you know, what are the league? What are the players think of this?

And this is totally a proposal by the league. They're the ones who are pushing for this. They want the additional gate revenue. They want the additional TV revenue that comes with expanding the playoffs. And I think they're also, you know, trying to back that up with, with a competitive balance element to this. Just that it gets more teams in there. And from a diamond backs perspective, that's a good thing.

I mean, the diamond backs would benefit from, from, from this sort of setup, there would be seasons where they would make the playoffs under this setup that, you know, under the current situation, they have not made the playoffs in. So there's a benefit there. From the player's side, they view this Derek as, you know, we feel that teams might not be willing to push their chips in quite as much. If more teams make the playoffs, it kind of cheapens it a little bit. Maybe you're not going to go quite as hard at the trade deadline, you know, trying to acquire

guys and I guess more so from the players perspective in free agency, maybe you're not going to pay that extra few bucks to get, you know, that extra reliever or whatever. If you feel that there's kind of a lot of teams that make the playoffs, we'll probably make it. And at the end of the day, we're just hoping to catch fire at the right time anyway. So why would I bother to shell over the extra few million dollars for whoever it is, right? So that's the concern from, you know, for this on the on the player's side of things. I think that to be honest, there's a lot of overthinking of that when it comes to the players. And I mean, I guess there's probably data to back it up, right? Yeah.

Really what it comes to for me is that they, you know, they need to make sure that they think about ways to keep these teams interested in having players on their team with the way that teams all sudden start you know it's not just the trading guys off right because that's still the top percent that's still the better guys what about the number of guys that are like dfayed or sent back down to the miners or whatever you know when when teams are you know not really doing well or whatever the amount of guys that are cut i understand that there's still a lot of movement and there's a lot of you know uh there's a lot of fire sales right where where players on good teams or on bad teams get moved to good teams during this time.

And with that hope, those players are going to be left on those bad teams because those teams might have a chance at making the playoffs. But it's good for competitive balance, really at the end of the day. And that's what's good for baseball. Like baseball needs all the help they can get. Our comments are basically filled with a bunch of people saying baseball doesn't exist and all sorts of other things. Bore ball and the pitch and the four.

See, this is what I'm talking about. This is how people feel. And I don't blame anybody for that. to see this is why I've been talking about how important this lockout is because they can do whatever they think they're doing for the purpose of, you know, getting one side paid or whatever. They need to realize that a lot of people are losing interest in their game and just keep that, you know, at the front of their mind, especially with other options. There's other baseball options that we can watch now. You know what I mean? like KBO, ESPN will pick up a contract with KBO and Eric.

That was a time. Yeah, that was the time. And they'll bring it back too. They'll bring it back really fast if baseball does it start. And people will jump on with the NC Dinos and we'll get the merch rolling here at foot lockers and whatnot. And, you know, that'll be it. That will be what we watch now. We watch English Premier League.

Like, why wouldn't we watch other overseas sports? You know, we already know that MLS is great, but we know Premier League is way better. and a lot of people are fans of Premier League teams, right? We're not above watching sports overseas. And if baseball doesn't come back or it takes an extended leave of absence and shortens its season this year, eh, you know, it's going to have a hard time winning people back, I think, because that's two work stoppages and two big disagreements

that kept them from getting back on the field in two years. You know, so good luck if they decide to make this take longer than our dates. I mean, your date, I hope your date. date is the date because we need to get back to content. We're about to be snake drafting winter clothing here in a week or so. But just reminder, you guys can go to the drafting sportsbook app. Use our code of PHNX and you'll get that $100 in free bets for betting $1 or more on any team to score, any points. And also go over to go phnx.com and become a member, either an annual member or become a month to month member. Annual member, you'll get that free t-shirt, gift that t-shirt

to one of your friends, your loved ones. They'll love it. They'll become a member. member, maybe they'll gift their shirt back to you. It's all of. But I hope you guys check that out. Also, if you're watching us right now on YouTube, please on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, wherever you listen to your podcast, please subscribe there, download, leave us a five-star review. Again, I know I am not a five-star man, but this guy over here is a five-star man. So leave us a five-star review. And if you're listening to us on your favorite audio podcasting app, jump over to YouTube, subscribe over there, and hit that notifications button so you don't miss out on any of the original content coming out from us here at PHNX and all the other sports.

If you're an Arizona sports fan, it's just a nonstop buffet of sports goodness. But we thank you guys so much for joining us. Of course, you can follow us on Twitter. I'm at cap underscore K-man with a K. Jesse is at Jesse and Friedman. Our show is at PHNX underscore D-BACs. But of course, all roads lead to at PHNX underscore sports. and that is on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

All right, Derek, before we go real quick, you ready for this? This is the headline on MLB.com, or at least a list of them. So right now on MLB.com, there's like this great reads bar on the side of the web page. And this is the incredible content that's available. All right, you ready for this? Baseball road trip locations in all 50 states. they had one career AB and one career hit. So like players who had one hit and they're only at bat.

The remarkable story of Robin Yount's brother. Let's see. We have the remark. Ted Simmons, a Hall of Fame Renaissance man. Rigley banned from the World Series almost happened. These are the kinds of things that are on MLV.com right now. They've been waiting for this day,

haven't they, Jesse? They've been prepared. They've been waiting for a long time. It's like they lie to your face and they tell you, well, I think negotiations are going well, but then they're stockpiling articles like that. It's just like our pal, Tori Lovolo being in France. He's like, yeah, I hope they get something done. I won't know, though, because I'm overseas in Europe enjoying my family and an absolutely great time, right? You knew this day was coming.

We knew this day was coming. Hopefully we also predict this date correctly so that we don't have too long of a delay without baseball. maybe we brag too much about the baseball never stopping here in Arizona, Jesse. It's about to stop. I blame myself for everything. I can't even go to sporting events anymore without feeling like I'm 100% the reason for the loss. But, you know, we hope you guys. January 28th, Derek.

January 28th. I don't know. That's too optimistic. But we're cautiously optimistic over here. We thank you for checking out the show. On behalf of Jesse and myself, we appreciate you guys so much. And remember, kids, baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun when you play baseball.