PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - What’s next for the Diamondbacks after Shohei Ohtani signs with Dodgers?

Episode Date: December 11, 2023

The Diamondbacks cannot counter the Dodgers’ signing of Shohei Ohtani, but they can make more moves to position themselves for contention in 2024. In this Mailbag Monday edition, we react to Ohtani���s mammoth contract and investigate what the Diamondbacks could do next, whether via trade or free agency. Is JD Martinez headed back to Arizona? Are the Diamondbacks still looking for a starting pitcher?An ALLCITY Network ProductionSUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports PHNX Events: Get your tickets to D-backs Takeovers, Knockout Nights & Suns Watch Parties at BetMGM, and MORE here: https://www.eventbrite.com/o/phnx-56002330273 Desert Financial Credit Union: Open a free checking account online with Desert Financial Credit Union and get $200 in bonuses https://www.desertfinancial.com/200Get 10% off your first order of Hero Bread at https://www.hero.co/ by using code PHNXSchedule a free in-home estimate with Empire Today! All listeners can receive a $350 OFF discount when they use the promo code PHNX. Restrictions apply. See EmpireToday.com/PHNX for details.Sign up for Gila River Resorts & Casinos $1,000,000 Big Red’s Showdown! Stay in the game and get rewards; it’s that easy! https://www.gilamilliondollarshowdown.com/Gametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase.Circle K:  Join Inner Circle for free by downloading the Circle K app today! Head to https://www.circlek.com/store-locator to find Circle Ks near you!OGeez!: OGeez! is not your average cannabis-infused gummy. Head on over to https://www.ogeezbrands.com to find out where you can purchase. Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. Four Peaks: Follow them on social @fourpeaksbrew & @fourpeakspub! Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. WYNK Seltzer + THC: Go to https://drinkwynk.com/ and use promo code “PHNX” for 50% off. Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. When you shop through links in the description, we may earn affiliate commissions. Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome in to the PHNX Keyback Show. My name is Jesse Friedman, not joined today by Derek Montia. In fact, joined by a very special guest here on the show. We have Jack Summers joining us from Inside the Diamondbacks. Jack does an outstanding job covering the Diamondbacks over at Sports Illustrated Inside the Diamondbacks. Jack, thanks for popping in today. Thanks for having me on, man. I'm looking forward doing us.

This is not the first time that Jack has been on the show. I believe it was sometime last year. you joined Derek at Four Peaks, right? Yes, we did. One of our remote broadcast there. And then some of you might have caught me and Jack did, or at least Jack was on for a portion of an audio-only world series preview show that we did right before the World Series started out in Texas.

Some of you might have been able to hear him there as well. But yeah, we're going to go ahead and jump into what was a pretty unfortunate weekend for Diamondbacks fans, Jack, in a number of different ways. This guy named Shohei Otani now plays for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Yeah, D-BACs take a bit of a hit here when it comes to competitiveness. But I don't think it's totally a shock, right? I mean, it was a bit of a gut punch, though, seeing that pop up on my Twitter. I got a bit.

It was especially interesting the way that Otani made this known. It was not, I guess Jeff Passon sort of broke the news, but he, like, didn't break the news in the way that he normally does. And that Shohei Otani actually posted this out on his Instagram story. or not his Instagram story. It was just like a regular Instagram post. Yeah, it looked like this. Although I guess what he posted was literally just the Dodgers logo. It sort of looked like he was announcing that he was committing to like a certain university or something.

It's kind of like at least what it made me think of. But he wrote a whole lot of words. He said to all the fans and everyone involved in the baseball world, I apologize for taking so long to come to a decision. I have decided to choose the Dodgers as my next team. He said a whole lot of other things. well. But yeah, I thought it was interesting that he felt the need to apologize for coming to a decision on, what was it, December 9th. It's like it wasn't early, but in my mind, it wasn't all that,

it wasn't all that late either, right? I think he was probably a little apologetic because he was catching some heat from some of the national media. Sure. Who were maybe a little too butt hurt over, you know, not having enough news to report during the winter meetings. Sure. So I think he was maybe giving a little deference to that and trying to, you know, repair some of those bridges. Yeah. Everyone had strong opinions over the weekend for sure about a number of different things. But yeah, the deal here, 10 years, $700 million. It's a pretty decent chunk of change.

It kind of seemed going into this that $500 million was a guarantee. It seemed like we all knew that it was going to be at least that. I personally, though, Jack, didn't see it going quite this high. Yeah, the number was shocking. I mean, of course, as usual, whenever I'm out and about and not available, that's when any big news breaks. That's kind of like an unwritten rule that Jesse's well aware. I am well aware. And I was off to see him, going to see my mom, and I pulled into the driveway, and all of a sudden my phone lights up. And I didn't have time to react right away.

And when I saw the number, I was in shock. You know, everyone expected $500, $600 million, whatever, but $700 was deferred or not deferred. It's a big, big, huge number that caught everybody by surprise. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm glad you mentioned deferred because we, I don't think any specific details have come out about this just yet. But we do know that a sizable portion of this contract is deferred. I believe it was reported that the majority of it is deferred, which, you know, the Dodgers are still going to pay show a Otani $700 million, which is a lot of money.

But what the deferrals allow them to do is it, you know, it significantly lessens their competitive. balanced tax hit, meaning that that number is not going to be as high as it otherwise would have been. And it allows the Dodgers to more easily make other additions to the team, which, of course, if you're a Diamondbacks fan, is not the greatest development. The not only do the Dodgers have Otani, but the hit that they're taking as a result of that contract isn't as big as you might have expected it to be. I think, you know, I had a friend asked me about this. And I threw over the inflation calculator to him.

Yeah, there you go. took, you know, $1 in 2008 buys you what, now you need a buck 43. Wow. 43% difference between just 15 years. So even if his deferments run out, you know, to 2040 or 45 or whatever it is, you know, it's going to be 50% less money actually in present day terms. Right. Although to me, like deferrals are, I mean deferrals, yes, that absolutely does affect the total

dollar value of the deal. But at the same time, I mean, doesn't a deal just extending out for a number of years also mean that they're getting less money in a sense? Like in a 10-year deal, you're feeling the effects of inflation more than you are in a five-year deal, for example. So in some ways, and we don't talk about it in the, like if someone signs a 12-year deal, we don't talk about it as, oh, think about all the inflationary hit they're taking. But yeah, that's just sort of me picking at small details.

It is a heck of a lot of money. and the Dodgers, you know, are very much going to take advantage of the fact, or at least we expect them to take advantage of the fact that the hit toward baseball doesn't have a cap, but the hit toward the competitive balance tax threshold is significantly less than it otherwise would have been. Per our friend Patrick Lyons over at DNVR Rockies, this is something he tweeted out that stood out to me. Showy Otani hasn't made that much money up to this point in his career, given the way that

he came over to the U.S. And he wasn't, it wasn't, you know, a Yamamoto situation where he's, It's the posting system and he can sign for $300 million. He came over as essentially an international free agent, which made that there were just significant limitations in terms of what he could actually get paid at the time. So according to Patrick, Shohei Otani will have doubled his career earnings by July 9th of the 2024 season, which is, it's not bad, Jack. He's going to do pretty well for himself.

Yeah, I think, you know, I mean, who knows what he already made in endorsements? I thought I saw a number like $40 million or something like that. that he's already made. So I mean, you know, at this point in time, it's not about the money for him because he's already guaranteed, you know, generational money. The guys, by the time he retires with all his endorsements, he's going to be a multi-billionaire. I mean, you know, that's the track he was on. So I don't think that that really makes a big difference to him. I think it was more about being in the setup and the environment that he wanted that he felt was best to himself. So the Dodgers with Shohei Otani are a pretty good baseball team. They're not bad. Having Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman and Shohei Otani in there to, you know, being able to pencil those three guys in your lineup every day is a pretty good place to be. But yeah, when you think about how this affects the Dodgers going into 2024,

at least my initial reaction is that they might not necessarily be worlds better than they were in 20203 just because of this move. I mean, I think, I think J.D. Martinez in the DH slot for the Dodgers last year at a really good season, hit 33, runs, 103 RBI, even though he didn't play for the entire year. And you look at Shohei Otani's career numbers offensively compared to what J.D. Martinez did last year for the Dodgers and the DH slot. There's not necessarily a huge difference there unless Otani comes out and has a similar year to what he did in 2023, where he had like a 181 OPS plus or something ridiculous like that.

If that happens, even though Otani won't pitch next year, that would be a pretty significant step forward for them offensively. You know, one thing that's been kind of going through my mind is whether or not, I mean, I know he can't pitch, but does the elbow injury have any impact on his swing whatsoever? I mean, the assumption is not, but who knows, right? Yeah. What if he has a problem with that? And he gears it up and starts swinging a bat like crazy and going full bore. And next thing you know, something snaps in there again.

Right. It could happen just from swinging a bat. You don't know. Yeah, I mean, we saw Bryce Harper come back pretty. early from, I guess we don't know exactly what surgery Shohei Otani got, which is still dumbfounding to me. Now, do you know what a brace surgery is? I have no idea.

Yeah, well, the internal brace procedure is supposed to, it's supposed to expedite the process. That's about, that's about all I know. But, yeah, I mean, have we ever gotten real clarity on what surgery show Aotani had? Right. I don't think anybody knows for sure which one. Yeah. So we don't know exactly how it would compare to the surgery that some other top hitters have had. But we saw Bryce Harper come back from Tommy John's surgery this past year and he looked

he looked pretty good. He didn't look so great at the beginning though. It seemed like it took him a little while to figure things out. But yeah, maybe there is some level of impact there given that Otani is going to be coming back from that surgery. And theoretically it shouldn't affect him much offensively. But I agree that it theoretically could. On the on the pitching side of things, this doesn't help the Dodgers for 2024. Right. We don't. Don't expect Joey Otani to be able to pitch for them in 2024. And their starting rotation on paper right now is not particularly impressive. If we look at what that looks like, at least right now for 2024, it's not a, it's not a crazy list, right?

You've got Walker Bueller, you've got Bobby Miller, Ryan Pepio, Ryan Yarbrough, and Emmett Sheehan. You know, there's some potential here. Like I thought Pepio at the end of the season looked pretty good for the Dodgers. Emmett Sheen's an interesting prospect, Ryan Yarbrough, someone they picked up. last year at the trade deadline. But am I crazy, Jack, and saying that the diamondbacks, as of right now, have a better starting rotation,

maybe by a wide margin than what the Dodgers have? Operative word as of right now. Correct. Otani himself is only adding two, three, or whatever a DH, as great as he is, can add. But everybody on that list from Ryan Pepio on down, you can slide down two slots.

The Dodgers are going to add at least two starting pitchers. and they very well may add two starting pitchers that are among the top tier of pitchers available in free agency and trade. You know, they could trade for a top tier pitcher, for example, CIS or Glass Now and sign a top tier pitcher, maybe even Yamamoto, maybe Snell. So, I mean, I'll be shocked. And again, it's back to the deferments. I mean, the word is, is that the deferments in Otani's contract are really significant, right? like could be $10, $20, $30 million or more.

Jeff Passon said most. Right. So you assume half, assuming that's a credible report, which I think we'll come back to. You know, but assuming that you have that much deferment, then the Dodgers are still pretty, got a lot of room there for the avoiding the competitive balance tax. I think they came in $157 million, however much of it, Otanis you're adding. Up to $2.37, $80 million. So even if Otani is getting $40 or $50, they still have another $30, $40 million worth of room to stay under the tax and still add two pictures.

Right. So that rotation is going to look a lot better before it's all said and done. Yeah. And I mean, guys like Pepio and Shee and I think are, you know, if that's your depth, if those are your guys who are coming in to step in, you know, in case of injuries, I think that's pretty formidable. So, yeah, we'll have to wait and see right now, I guess, the moral of the story is the Dodgers are a very, very good team offensively. Maybe not as good as the Braves.

You know, I still think there's a, there's a conversation to be had there, but the Braves were also a historically good offensive team in 2023. So the Dodgers being a step below that doesn't necessarily mean that the Dodgers could still be pretty good and be a step below the Braves, I guess is what I'm saying. But on the pitching side, you know, there are certainly some questions still to be answered there for the Dodgers. But as you said, we do expect them to make some pretty significant moves. in that regard moving forward.

I do want to come back to the comment you made about reports and credibility, which is something that has been a major topic of conversation over the last few days in the baseball world. There was a report on Friday that Shohei Otani had made his decision and was joining the Toronto Blue Jays. There was also on Saturday before Shohei made the announcement himself. There was quite a bit of flight tracking going on, a flight that was going that apparently went from Anaheim to Toronto, which admittedly was a very random flight, not like a normal, you know, a thing you'd normally see. It wound up being Robert Herzvec, the guy on Shark Tank, which I think is the best part of the story. But yeah, it seems like, you know, a lot of people

reported a lot of things over the course of this process. There are reports relating to that flight as well, that it was, in fact, Otani going from Anaheim to Toronto, not necessarily on that flight that people were tracking, but that that was a flight he was actually taking when he was in reality just back in, back in Southern California. Just, yeah, a lot of reports floating around and kind of a lack of clarity throughout this process. Yeah, I think, you know, for me personally, and I think for you as well, I'm not into chasing being the latest, greatest newsbreaker. There's enough people out there doing that.

Yeah. And the process to get there, I mean, all of this information, like Bob Nightingale wrote, And I've already knew basically the gist of that. It's all coming from agents, right? So it's all being manipulated. And the agents dole out, oh, well, this one gets to break that the move happened. This one gets to break what the contract terms were and so forth. And they divvied up.

At the end of the day, you know, you're depending on what, a spy in an airport, a spy in an office, an agent utilizing you as his tool. I'm not for ready. I'm totally on board with Bob Nightingale's article. If anybody had a chance to read that, I strongly suggest it. I know a lot of people like to give Bob kind of a lot of crap on Twitter, but I'm going to give him a plug too because he's a great guy and, you know, what he wrote about it. And it was a bit of Mayacopa in there too, right? Yeah.

Because he didn't exclude himself. He said, hey, I do this too. We've got to stop this. So, you know, hopefully this will be somewhat of a, I don't know, impetus to, for the industry to clean itself up a little bit. I would like to see that. Yeah. I mean, even when the Diamondbacks signed in Wardo Rodriguez, there were reports that the

Cincinnati Reds were also involved, that it was two, you know, down to two teams. And then very quickly, those reports were retracted. And it was like, okay, no, it's just the Diamondbacks, I guess. And shortly thereafter, the deal was finalized and the Diamondback signed him. So, yeah, it's interesting. Especially as it pertained to Otani, there was such a need for information. Like people just couldn't live without knowing, you know, what conversations were being had and these kinds of things. And there was a lot of criticism of Nesbolello, Otani's agent, as well as Otani, for the secrecy that they took throughout this process and wanting to kind of not share as much of that information as would normally have been shared.

What's your perspective on that? Do you feel like, do you feel like a guy like Otani in this situation does owe it to the media and to the larger Major League Baseball Audit? to be kind of open about how this process was unfolding. Nope. Okay. I do not. I think that, you know, look, MLB's issues with how entertaining the winter meetings are and all of that, that's a completely separate issue.

And I do think that Otani's ability to basically close off from the media during the season, not make himself available for weeks and months at a time, not cool. That needs to be addressed. Yeah. But as far as this process, I mean, you're talking about $700 million, right? You know, are we privy to boardroom discussions for other major corporations making deals that big? No, that's private. It should remain private.

And we can find out about it later once it happened. Yeah, I get what you're saying. I know Ken Rosenthal came out and spoke pretty vocally about this, that he feels that O'Tani being O'Tani sort of. sort of owed it to the media and to just the baseball world at large to be a little bit more open about how things were unfolding here. I can see that side of things just because I don't know, it is a personal decision at the end of the day for Shohei Otani, right? And we don't necessarily want to be like interfering with people's private lives excessively. But also this is, you know, this is a very high profile free agent. And I think when you're in Otani's shit,

dues, in my opinion, I think you have to, you have to recognize that, yes, you have a right to privacy and, you know, to a reasonable extent, while at the same time, I don't know, when you're a professional athlete, in my opinion, you're kind of signing up for that. So let me ask you. Sure. What exactly did you want him to reveal that he didn't? I mean, we knew what teams were in on it, right? I mean, we heard early on that the Yankees weren't in on it.

We knew the Dodgers, the Blue Jays, you know, the Giants, the Angels, were teams that were in on it. What were we missing from Otani in his camp? Like what did we need to know and what should he have been revealing specifically? Yeah, that's a fair question. I guess we don't know. I mean, we don't know what we're missing out on because we didn't, we never really found it out throughout the process, right?

What did we know about Eduardo Rodriguez? Yeah, that's fair. Eduardo Rodriguez was, was, yeah, I mean, there was very little information that came out about Eduardo Rodriguez throughout his whole process. But there's also just such a huge difference between Eduardo Rodriguez and Shohei Otani in terms of like the demand for information and whatnot. Well, I'm with peace of Yoshi. You're with piece of Yoshi?

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Well, it is Monday. We're not just going to sit here and pontificate about show Hey Otani and how much information we think should have been revealed throughout this entire process. It is Monday and everyone on the show knows what we do on Monday. Damon, let's go to the mailback. Can I just say you didn't do the right intro? Yeah, I know. But when I host the show, I feel like it has to be different, Damon. I can't just step in here. Every month is Pride Month. Every month is Indigenous people. the whole thing. Yeah, shark week. Every day is Damon's Day. Every day is Damon's day, whatever.

Damon, put up the video. Let's do it. Let's go to the mail box. All right, here we go. It is Mailbag Monday, and we are here to answer a whole bunch of questions. We have a lot to get to today. And Jack is here to help us get through all of these. So let's go ahead and see what the first question is.

This comes from Aaron Hughes. Aaron is a big fan of yours, Jack. He says, excited to see Jack. the show, a great guy. Aaron's question, given we get a DH, who would you like to see as a right-handed hitting outfield acquisition? I will start by saying that I don't know, I don't know that this is a given that the Diamondbacks get a DH and also have the ability to get a right-handed hitting outfielder.

It might be a one or the other situation. But Jack, when you think about right-handed hitting outfielders, who comes to mind for you? Well, I mean, if they spend a lot of money for a DH, then they're not going to have much left over for a right-handed hitting outfielder. So it's going to be a utility-type player. I mean, it could be, I'd say it, but a desperate Tommy fam coming back because he can't get a full-time job. You know, I wouldn't hate to see that. Yeah. You know, it could be somebody like Whitmerfield not getting the market that he hopes for.

It could be a Randall Gritchick on a rebound contract that would probably be. be pretty cheap. You know, so if you're talking about they've already gone and gotten a DH and now who else can you get for right field, could be somebody along those lines. Sure. I guess if the Diamondbacks don't get a DH and they really focus on getting just an outfielder, some options that have come up, Randy or Rosarena, of course, there have been some rumors there still seems a little bit farfetched to me that the Diamondbacks are able to pull that

off. We've talked at length about him and how much money he's. going to make and the assets it would probably cost to get him already on the show. Lane Thomas is another guy, another name that we've thrown around a lot. Someone who has a cannon of an arm and would fit in pretty nicely in that regard, moving Corbyn Carroll over to left field, give the Diamondbacks an arm in the outfield that they don't have also being a pretty good hitter. There's two more years of control there.

Anthony Santander, Austin Hayes over with the Orioles. Bringing back Lord of Scuriel, I guess, would be maybe a consistent. consideration here, what out of all those options or any others? I'm going to throw one more at you. Sure. I always liked Adam Deval. Okay. I think that if you look at his numbers, like if anyone's bothering looking up as RDRS and all that, most of those negative numbers come from time spent in center field.

Sure. He's at least still, even at this age, a league average defender, maybe even a little better. He's got pop, you know, he can play right field. Yeah. I see him as actually a pretty good fit. Yeah, that makes sense. He's a free agent, yes? Yes.

So. Raster resource projects him to get one year, $8 million. You know, I mean, his projection isn't great. Point three war, but, you know, at this point with these guys, anyone that's not projected to get two war, you just ignore it. Right. Like, do you think he's going to age out on you or not? He hit okay last year.

Yeah, 247, 21 homers, 58 RBI, played 92 games with the Boston Red Sox. Yeah, I think that also could make some sense. But yeah, it does sort of, we're going to talk more about this later. It does kind of seem like DH is the more likely option, at least as far as a, you know, someone who's not just a utility type, like you talked about. And maybe they're focusing on pushing the chips in there. But yeah, we'll see how things pan out. I think you've touched on it already in your previous shows. But, you know, Mike Hazen saying that he's more likely to add via free agency.

Yeah. And either at DH slash right-hand spot or his primary right-hand bat, however he acquires it. You know, he indicated that a couple times. And the reason that that's particularly interesting is because he emphasized also that, hey, there's no free agency during the season. Sure. And so you can turn back around and use your prospect capital to trade for a guy at the trade deadline at that point. So, you know, I think that I'm thinking that he's going to end up filling these spots via free agency. And I think it's going to be one of those guys. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, even like Lane Thomas, like on paper, that makes sense.

But are the nationals really interested in trading Lane Thomas right now? Yeah, there's, you know, it takes two to tango, obviously, in all those situations. So free agency definitely seems like the more likely outcome can understand why Mike said that. Let's go to, let's go to the next question. What else we got? Gabriel says, can we compete against the Los Angeles Dodgers for the division? I don't know if people are going to like what we have to say about this, Jack. I'll let you start.

What do you think? Define can. Yeah. Define compete. I mean, look, it is what it is. I hate to use that phrase. It's so tired. But they've won the Division 10 the last 11 years.

The one year that didn't, they won 106 games. I mean, you know, they were already, even without Otani, projected to be, you know, a little better than the Diamondbacks on paper. They've added Otani. They're going to add more pitching. The Diamondbacks have added Eduardo Rodriguez and Suarez. I have the Diamondbacks projected between 82 and 84 wins right now. Sure. You know, Dodgers are probably over 87, 88, and they're going to be adding pitching.

So anybody that does odds, the odds makers in. Vegas, fan graphs, after they run projections, all of that. I mean, they're all still going to favor the Dodgers. Can the debacks compete for it? Sure, anything can happen. Yeah. Dodgers could have a whole slew of injuries and everybody on the Diamondback stays healthy and outperforms their projections.

You can't predict baseball. Right. But your starting point is six to eight games behind them. Yeah. A quote from Mike Hazen stood out to me. This is from his exit interview. So way back at the beginning of the offseason. in the beginning of November.

He was talking about, you know, just off-season plans, and this was before any of that stuff had happened, any of the Suarez deal, the Rodriguez deal. He said, you know, where we're going to stack out on paper versus the Dodgers going into the season, I don't know. My guess is we're still going to be on paper pinned well behind from a projection standpoint, no matter what we do. And, yeah, that was just kind of always the reality.

I mean, no matter how aggressive the Diamondbacks are this off-season, it's just hard to see how they would possibly close that gap on paper. But like you said, this is baseball. We see crazy things happen. People didn't have the Diamondbacks in the World Series either. And yet that is a thing that happened just about a month ago. So anything can happen, but on paper, yeah, you know, even with the improvements that the debacks could still make this off season, there's just no way that that gap could possibly be closed on paper.

I mean, I feel pretty good about their ability to compete for the wild card again. Yeah. Yeah. Fortunately, not what the question was, but... Hey, positivity. Yeah, there you go. There you go. Yeah, absolutely.

They're right in the thick of that race. I don't think there's any question about their ability to compete for the playoffs. Competing with the Dodgers in the division is a whole other matter. Damon, what do we got next? Cesar says, does the Otani signing by the Dodgers start an arms race in the NL. Do the debacks become more aggressive and try and pick up Jorge Soler or Randall? India Rosarena. We also got another question about this from Ryan Page about whether the debacks would sort of rip open the checkbook now that Otani is signed with the Dodgers and, you know,

try to react and counter as best they can, as best as you can counter a move like that. What is your, what is your feeling on this? Well, I'm hearing Mike Hazen's voice in my head. And you know, if we asked him this question, he would just say, that's not an impact. We have our plan. Yeah. We're going to do what we're going to do. We're have to be true to our plan, our budget, and everything else that they have to do themselves. I don't think that that has one iota of influence. I think they're most likely anticipated the Dodgers making significant moves like this. Right.

You know, Ken has come through with a payroll budget. I mean, they're already on the verge of setting a record, depending on where you have them. I have them at $128 million. Nick Procorer had them at $133 million. and their prior franchise payroll record was 131. And so there looks like they're heading to 140 million, maybe even getting to 150 million. Yeah. So they're blowing by their previous franchise payroll record.

They're already doing everything that they possibly can. Yeah. I mean, granted, there's, you know, there's been substantial inflation in recent years. So, you know, you can't, it's not necessarily an apples to apples comparison like payroll this year versus payroll several years ago. But sure. Obviously, you know, with COVID and everything, there was, you know, there was, there were some shortfalls there for a time and teams, if a lot of teams around the league have, you know, kind of slowly come out of that.

So that's certainly a, certainly a factor there as well. But yeah, I think I really just agree on this one. I don't think there's any reactionary, you know, the Diamondbacks are, the D-backs are not that shocked by this, frankly. Like the Dodgers signing show, Hey, Otani was not something that Diamondbacks hadn't accounted for or hadn't thought about entering this offseason. Like you said, I just don't think teams really do that. It seems like, you know, if you're in a front office, you've got your plan, you know, you've got your idea of what's going to make your team the best it can be the next year.

And you're going to follow through with that plan no matter what other teams around you do. Let's go to the, let's go to the next one. Bill says, will the debacks bring back Just Stingers? Of course, just Stingers is J.D. Martinez. We've talked about J.D. Martinez a good amount on this show at this point. We've kind of, you know, already gone through the fit and how it makes some sense. And certainly from J.D. Martinez's perspective. He's not going to be going back to L.A.

The Dodgers don't need a D.H. anymore. So he's on the market and by all accounts would make sense for the diamondbacks. And this has been reported that there's interest there. I think Bob Nightingale wrote that the diamondbacks are hopeful about getting J.D. Martinez with Justin Turner also in the mix as well. We've heard other names. We've heard Reese Hoskins' name, Jorge, so Laird's name thrown around as well.

What's your sense of the J.D. Martinez fit? I mean, obviously he's a fit, right? He's a good hitter. His batted ball metrics were fantastic last year. I mean, there's virtually no difference between 2023 and 2017 in the underlying battered ball metrics. Derek said he looks at JD's baseball savant page before he goes to bed every night. He's dreaming of having J.D. on the Diamondbacks.

Yeah, I mean, it's pretty exciting. You know, it's funny, I was pretty confident or I guess optimistic that he could be a legit possibility. Yeah. But some of the buzz that I'm reading and just sensing from this morning, his price tag is going up. And I think that the teams that lost out on Otani, there's two or three of them that are going to bid up the top two or three DH prospects, including JD. So that could get a little tough. I mean, what if he needs two years, $36 million to sign? And then that's, that Diamondbacks aren't going to do that.

Yeah, I mean, Amelby trade rumors as two years, 40 million, which to me feels a little on the high end. I think that might be a little over the top. But yeah, two in 36 is pretty realistic. And, you know, other guys might be in a similar range, like Reese Hoskins. I don't know if you're getting Reese Hoskins for, you know, two years and 20 million or something like that. There's probably going to be a decent price tag there.

So the cost is certainly prohibitive to some extent. But given the interest that the Diamondbacks have, I wouldn't be shocked if that was the mood they made. And yeah, it absolutely makes a ton of sense. JD is one of those guys. I will say that it feels like at some point he's just not going to really be able to hit anymore. And it could just kind of happen whenever. He struck out, I believe, 31.4% of the time last year, which is a big number. I mean, you can still be a productive hitter with that high of a strikeout rate, but not that many guys can do it.

And it's very much dependent on you just destroying the baseball, which is what J.D. Martinez did this last year. But as he continues stage, I don't know, like, how long can J.D. Martinez do that for? There's Wobacom. Yeah, there you go. Wobah bacon. I love that. There's bacon and metrics. Yeah.

For all of you think that we statenards so not fun. We're just talking about bacon all the time, right? No, you know, you mentioned a 31% K rate. Yeah. It was 24% last year, which is shocking that it went up that much. in one season. Somebody on Twitter had been talking to me and said, well, you know, I'm a little concerned about Salar's strikeout rate. And I went and double checked. It's like 25, I think. It was 24 last year. Yeah. 24. Something. I mean, he actually had a 7% better K rate than

Martinez, which, right, it was surprised me. So, you know, where is the cliff's edge, right? You always worry about that with guys in your late 30s. You know, one of the other candidates is three years older, Justin Turner. Yeah. It's 39. So, I mean, the thing about Saler is he's younger, right? He's got a better projection, actually. I think his projection for WRC Plus is 119.

You have JD, shockingly, is only projected 106, which I don't understand. That is interesting. But that's why Saler's booked to get a three or four-year deal. Yeah. I mean, giving JD Martinez one. year I think you know even if it's a higher dollar value that that's something you could talk yourself into giving jd two years and counting on this level of production i mean it wouldn't be this level of production counting on you know him to be a productive dh for two more seasons is a bit

of a gamble i mean he's 36 years old i want to say that's there's there's definitely some risk there so our our good friend nick picoro yeah at a z central he thinks that the diamondbacks only have there's $7 million left they can spend. Whereas, you know, other people have reported it's as high as $15 to $20 million more to go. Sure. So that's the $64 question, right? You know, how much left do they have in the budget? If it's $7 million, it's not.

That's not going to get you. No. No, I mean, at that point, you could maybe bring back Tommy Fam, I guess. Let me give you a name. Sure. That was given to me on Twitter that by another good friend, James Atwood. Yeah. Sorry to plug all my buddies.

Yeah. Hey, they're my buddies, too. I got to give credit where credits do, right? I don't want to be like some reporters out there. They always forget to give credit. Yeah, yeah. Well. But he mentioned Tom Murphy as a DH kind of emergency catcher type guy.

Sure. If they only have $7 million left to spend, bringing in a guy like that, who's a lefty killer, he doesn't play a lot. But the last couple years, I mean, like 140, you know, 128, whatever it is, OPS Plus, WRC Plus. I mean, the guy's been 30, 40 percent above, league average hitter each the last two years in a part-time role for the Mariners. And he can play catcher, although he's not very good at it.

He doesn't throw anybody out at all. It gives me, it gives me Mitch Garver vibes a little bit, you know, a guy who can really hit, but, you know, not really bringing you much defensively. I can see the fit there. I mean, he's only been, like, his career hitting stats are not all that great, but over the last two seasons, I mean, it's about 200 plate appearances, but he has been, I mean, it's a 146 OPS plus over 200 plate appearances, which is compelling. Yeah.

And I think it's a pretty big split, too. I think lefties, he's hit lefties really well. Again, I'm talking about kind of a lower, lower and lower tier fill for a right-handed bat that you can put in a DH. Of course, that probably means a lot of Pavin Smith on the other side of it. Sure. Let's go to the next one. What else we got, Damon? Sean says, do you think the debacks consider swapping defense for offense by trading Alec Thomas for a right-handed outfielder with pop?

It would be a big move for the debacks trade Alec Thomas no matter what they yet. I don't know if I see them trading Alec Thomas, period, this offseason. But Jack, I'll let you go first year. What do you think? Well, I mean, are you talking about trading Alec Thomas plus something for Randy or Rosarina? Sure. I mean, I could see something like that. At least you have an impact player coming back.

But again, Mike Hazen's words to your question when we were in Nashville echo in my ears. He's very, what you had asked, I think, what's the threshold for a hitter in centerfield? He's so enamored with Thomas's defense, as he should be, that he doesn't need to hit a lot for Mike to hold a very. very high valuation for him. Right. It's got to hit a little bit more, and he did the last couple of regular seasons. They're looking at that postseason maybe as a turning point for him.

So it's hard to say. I mean, I don't think that they're going to bring in a mediocre fielder that strikes out a lot, but hits home runs for Alec Thomas. No. Sure. They wouldn't do that.

Yeah, it does seem like the Diamondbacks highly value defense, especially in center field, which is kind of a tricky position to play at Chase Field. The debacks could, you know, I mean, Corbyn Carroll is okay in center field. Not great but okay. Jake McCarthy can play center field. Not great, but okay.

I have a hard time seeing them move on from Thomas unless it gets them someone else who can play center field, frankly. I think they would want to have that assurance defensively. And I don't know who you could trade out of Thomas for, who is, you know, a notable upgrade offensively who also, you know, can play. Some people are saying Luis Robert in the chat, which you can pull that off. then, you know, sure, but I don't think the one-five war player hit 38 home runs last year. Go for it. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, Alec Thomas for Luis Straberts straight out. Clearly, that's a, clearly that's a fair trade. Yeah, I don't think I see it. To your point, the diamondbacks clearly have a value on center field defense. You can understand why. And Alec Thomas is still a very young player. He's the kind of player where, you know, if you trade him away, there's a, there's a chance that Alec Thomas figures things out, not only against righties to a greater extent,

but kind of figures out how to hit lefties and it can be a really valuable player if he's able to do that at some point. So, you know, I guess it's possible, but certainly, certainly doesn't seem likely. Damon, what do we got next? I believe next is your other question. Next is our other question, yes.

This one, this one we couldn't make a graphic for, but we do have one more question for this segment. What is your, this is from Matt on Twitter, what is your level of concern with the amount of pitching talent in the prospect pipeline with a couple years left until Gallin and Kelly reach free agency. I'm hoping we have some reinforcements on the way. Yeah, level of concern, Jack.

Where would you put that? I would say medium to medium high. Okay. If I can plug my partner over inside the diamondbacks. So Michael McDermott, who publishes our top 30 prospects list. I channeled him for this question and talked to him about this morning. You know, on his list of pitching prospects, he doesn't have any prospects or guys with rookie eligibility, which for a New York minute still includes Slate Soconi and Bryce Jarvis. They'll lose their rookie eligibility like a couple weeks into the season if they both make the opening day roster.

Sure. But nobody's got a future value rating over 45, which on the 2080 scout scale, I mean, you really need a guy that's like a 50 or 55. to say, okay, we got a guy coming. Right. And they don't really have that. I mean, you know, Walsden, Yumen Lin, I would say Grayson hit has got the potential, but he's coming off Tommy John surgery. Yeah.

He's only a 45 because of that. If he comes back from Tommy John surgery mid-year and he's throwing 94, 95, 96, then he could be a guy. But right now, you know, you got to hope that Brandon fought translates what he just did over the last month or two of the season and the postseason. Right. And keeps moving forward, develops this change up. There really isn't a top starting pitching prospect coming along in the system.

Yeah. That's a concern. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, even Brandon Fought, even though I think, you know, very much like promising in the postseason, do you project Brandon Fott as a number one starter who could, you know, take the role of a guy like Zach Gowan or even Merrill Kelly? Probably not, right? Probably more of a mid-rotation profile there. maybe a little bit above that, depending on how things work out. One guy that I will say I'm intrigued by is Dylan Ray,

a righty that the Diamondbacks took early on in the 2022 draft. His numbers aren't necessarily going to blow you away, but he has a fastball, a slider and a changeup that all are pretty decent pitches. The curveball seems to be a little bit, maybe a little bit on the, on the fringe of your side. And at times his V-Lo has flashed a little bit higher than it's, than it's, you know, normally been. I think he was averaging around 92, but he's reached 98.

You know, if you could get Dylan Ray up into the mid-90s, I know his slider has also played up at times in the low 90s, you know, kind of a tight breaker. I could see his profile kind of elevating and being more of a, maybe more of a frontline starter if a lot of things go right. It's certainly not sort of the baseline projection for him. But, you know, you, Min Lin, there's certainly some, there's an intriguing package there, but you talk about a guy being 5-11 and being 160 pounds. You're just not really used to seeing those guys turn into front-line starters.

You know, Dylan Ray doesn't necessarily have any one glaring challenge to me that makes it seem like, oh, you know, you could never be a frontline starter. I would say, you know, with Ray, he's also, Michael's also got him at a 45. Yeah. I asked him about that. I said, you know, all this stuff ratings are pretty good. Right. But there are command issues there.

Sure. Yeah. I mean, that's, you know, how many times do we say, oh, if this guy ever, you know, figures out how to control or figures that out, he's going to be really good and most of them don't. Right. But that's, he, Michael's got him inside his top 10. So definitely got to keep an eye on. You know, with Lynn, I mean, Lynn has a 60 change up, you know, he's got a really, probably the best change up in the system.

He's got a 50, 55 slider, right? You know, but the main thing with him is his fastball's a 40. It's a 90 mile, 89, 90 mile an hour fastball. Yeah. And, you know, he's only 19 just turned 20, I think, right? Yeah, I believe so. If he was an inch or two taller and 20 pounds heavier and there was a little bit more upside projection to achieve some higher velocity, perhaps. But it's hard to, like you said, it's hard to project him to be, you know, a frontline starter.

If he can hang in there as a four or five, great. whether he might end up as a, you know, a reliever. So right now I would say you probably identify the guy with the closest to it is Dylan Ray. Yeah. And I kind of got my eye on hit. Yeah. It's interesting. I mean, we were talking about Shoda Eimanaga and his potential fit with the Diamondbacks

recently. And kind of similar conversations is with Umin Lin. Imanaga is listed at 510-176 also as a left-handed starter. So, yeah, it's like, you know, how much are team? is willing to bet on these guys. It's always always a fascinating question. The results for you and Lynn have been outstanding. But in the long term, yeah, it's hard to project someone like that as a really good starting

pitcher. Over the, just real quick, over the years, whenever I see a guy racking up strikeouts with the change up at AA and below, I always raise a question mark. Put them up in AAA and see if that change up plays because AAA hitters are older. They know what a change up looks like. that's where you start to see a separation there. If the change-ups really that great, that it makes up for everything else, fine.

But, you know, young hitters are fooled by change-ups. So always keep an alert out when you see a change-up guy racking up strikeouts and a low-miners. Yeah, it's a good call. Well, hey, speaking of predicting the future, as we're trying to do with some of these pitching prospects, you also download the BetMGM Sportsbook app where you can place some bets. you know, stick your claim on what you think is going to happen in Monday night football or whatnot. Damon is actually going to step in here and stick his claim of what he thinks is going to happen

in Monday night football. Damon, you have a little parlay action set up for us here? Yeah, what's up, guys? So make sure you watch the PH&X Betts show, which we do Monday through Thursday, Friday, and then a Saturday show typically. And I'll be giving out this pick on the PH&X Bet Show. We give out three bets every day. and I'll give you guys a little taste my parlay, bet MGM parlay of the day,

parlay of the week, whatever. It is going to be dolphins minus six and a half and Packers Money Line. Combine those guys together. Get it at minus 116. I'll be betting that on the BetmGM sportsbook app. I just really need Aaron Jones and Derek Henry to come through for me tonight, Damon, for my fantasy team.

Yes, Jesse is safe from Waffle House, it seems. It does appear that way. do, I mean, I think Saul is going to lose pretty much no matter what, so I'm, I'm pretty safe. But I do need about two more points. I need two points between Aaron Jones and Derek Henry in order to win today. So I feel, I feel pretty good about my chances. But yeah, you can, you can place that very wise parlay that Damon just just gave you over at the BetMGM Sportsbook app. Sign up for BETMGM, use bonus code PHNX. Place your first BetMGM sportsbook wager through the BETMGM Sportsbook mobile application of at least $10. That bet loses your bonus

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Download game time today. Last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. And with that, we'll jump back into the mailbag here, Damon. What else we got? Justin at Justin AZTrader 7 on Twitter says, Are the Diamondbacks considering a lower tier starter like Jack Flaherty? What are the chances that they bring Lordus Gurriel Jr. back? Kind of two separate questions here. Jack will start at the top.

Are the Diamondbacks considering a lower tier starter like Jack Flaherty? It kind of seems to me that Eduardo Rodriguez was kind of the big get from a starting pitching standpoint. I think I would be surprised, frankly, if the Diamondbacks did anything else. I know Nick Picoro wrote about how, you know, that fifth starter is, at least according to my case, in that fifth starter spot right now comes down to those young starters. And it kind of seems like that's how it's going to play out. So I would be pretty surprised if Jack Flaherty was on the table. But I guess never say never.

I guess that might still be possible. I do see to remember at one point Mike had said that it's he didn't rule out bringing in two pitchers. Yeah. But I think that that was more revolving around if he wasn't able to land one of the upper tier guys. Right. He did end up landing. So by bringing in Rodriguez, I think it rules out them signing another free agent starter that would, you know, be expensive enough to force them to slot them in as number five. Yeah, I agree. I would be pretty shocked if there was another starting pitching move.

It's probably going to be Tommy Henry, Ryan Nelson, Slade Cicconi, you know, Bryce Jarvis, one of those guys getting that number five spot. And that's how we'll roll into the season. Maybe they look at adding someone at the trade deadline certainly would never would never rule that out. But it does feel like that's that's kind of their last move there. We could also revive our debate over Ryan Nelson versus Mitch Keller. Yeah. There you go. We had an offline debate about, you know, I was like, well, don't give up on Ryan Nelson too quickly.

You know, he throws pretty hard. He's got velocity. If he gets command of his off-speed stuff and finds a, you know, way to maintain his velocity, there's no reason. Mitch Keller threw his first 39 career starts, had to six ERA. Yeah. And so there's, you know, guys like that, you know, whether it's him or Tommy Henry, you know, Bryce Jarvis, any of these guys. Of course, Slaves Cicone develops a third pitch. He's got a good fastball slider.

Right. You know, they got four guys that any one of them could possibly step forward. And when you have that many that are on the cusp of being a fifth starter, why would you at this point devote any more resources to signing another pitcher? Right. I don't get it. Yeah. I mean, Mike did say that like, you know, in an ideal world, the D-EVACs would get multiple starters. And I still think that would be ideal just because, you know, just because Ryan Nelson or Tommy Henry or.

any of those guys wouldn't be in the rotation on day one, they're still going to pitch eventually, right? Like you're still going to need six, seven, eight, nine starters in order to make it through a season. So I still understand why adding another starter, I think still probably still a pretty good idea. I don't really expect it to happen. The second part of this question, though,

bringing back Lordus Gurriel Jr., what do you think about that part of things here, Jack? I was almost taken aback during his pregame interview before game five of the World Series. Yeah. It felt like a goodbye tour. Sure. I mean, it sounded like he had already made up his mind.

Like, you know, this was wonderful. Everyone here has been like family. He was already saying his thank you Diamondbacks fan speech before the World Series was over. That's what it felt like sitting there listening to it. It doesn't exactly bode well for a reunion. Yeah, that's fair. His family's all in Miami. You know, the teams he's been linked to or all East Coast teams, that's spring train in Miami.

And from the Diamondback side, I mean, he was good, but he was also very streaky. And, you know, when you add it all up, is it worth it for them to invest in him for a three-year deal or four-year deal? Yeah. Which is probably what it's going to take if he can get it. I mean, he's looking for a multi-year deal. Right. Yeah, four years for Lourdes really wouldn't, really wouldn't shock me. Maybe three years is more likely.

But yeah, it's going to be a decent investment. I mean, this isn't Lourdes for one year in $5 million, which is, you know, the situation for 2023. The debacks didn't have to pay him very much. Bringing back for, you know, 14, 15 million, whatever that looks like is a much more substantial investment. So the odds don't seem to be in the debacks favor to make that happen. Damon, what do we got next year?

Carson says, do the debacks start to trade? prospects for big names now knowing that they have three top picks next year it is true um they have three top picks next year they're not exactly uh high first round picks but they do pick at number 29 that's their regular first round pick they had the 31st pick because of corbin carroll and then they also have the 35th pick as well uh in the competitive balance round so it's a nice hall of draft picks i don't know if i see that making a huge difference for them in terms of being more comfortable trading prospects. This farm system doesn't quite grate out the way

that it used to when Corvin Carroll and Alec Thomas and all those guys were still in it. But what is your feeling on this? I go back again to what Mike said about holding on to his prospects until the trade deadline. I don't think it's impossible that he'll trade a top level

guy, of course. I mean, you know, the erosurina. I don't want to sit here and say, no, he's not going to trade any of them. And then 24 hours later, you know, know, I got mud on my face because that's exactly what it did. It wouldn't be the first time. But the odds are that he's going to continue to try to do his fee of free agency for now and keep his prospects until he really has a better chance during the season to evaluate

whether or not moving one will push them over the goal line. Sure. Yeah, I think that's fair. You know, maybe by all accounts, the Diamondbacks are willing to talk about anyone at this point. I think Mike Hazen made it clear when we were at the winter meetings. that yeah like they're open to anything but at the same time there's there's a tremendous amount of value in some of those young players he talked about how a lot of those top prospects could be in the majors pretty soon now they view them not as just prospects but as young major leaguers a guy like

jordan lawler would would certainly fit in that category so yeah i don't think them having the three picks next year really changes the equation much uh you know there's clearly some willingness to to deal from that top of the farm system if the opportunity presents itself, but it doesn't necessarily seem like that's going to happen. It's probably fairly unlikely at this point. The one thing which I'm sure you guys have already talked about was Mike's comments about Drew Jones essentially being untouchable. Yeah, yeah, we did touch on that the other day. And so, you know, I started thinking like if he if he breaks out and Christian Robinson really takes a step forward, sure, that might at some point circling back to the whole

Alec Thomas thing, give Mike a better opportunity to consider trading Alec if he can plug the holes quickly enough. Yeah. Damon, let's go to the next one. What else we got? Can the debacks trade for Pete Crow Armstrong? Interesting. It's a very, very specific question.

Jack, how do we feel about Pete Crow Armstrong? My question is, with the Chicago Cubs. Why? Yeah. Well, I mean, he's not a bad prospect at all, but he's left-handed. Yeah. Right. And the Diamondbacks need another left-handed out feel like to need a hole in the head.

You know, interesting. I mean, he showed actually more power than he was projected to have coming out of school. But a higher strikeout rate. Like the whole thing about him was, you know, he had a flat level swing and he was going to hit line drives. He was going to hit for average. And instead, what he's done is he struck out a lot and hit for 230 ISO. So it's kind of interesting that that's the type of player. he's developed into.

I just don't see it. I don't see why they would do that. Yeah. They don't need another left-handed bat. And I don't really think the Cubs are especially interested in trading Peker Armstrong at this point. I'm not really sure how that would make sense from their perspective. He's an intriguing prospect for sure.

But, yeah, I mean, you'd have to give up a lot in order to pry him away from the Cubs. And it doesn't seem like the juice is worth the squeeze for the D-Backs there. Agreed. Damon, what do we got next? Michael Rokickey, this is a fascinating one. You can only choose one outcome for the 2024 season. Number one, a 300, 400, 500 slash line for Corbyn Carroll. Number two, a 2020 season for Alec Thomas or number three, Zach Gallen, finally winning a Sy Young Award.

Jack, what do you got here? Well, if I can choose only one, I'm going to choose number three because I don't think that the Diamondbacks are going to be, you know, strong contenders without a Cy Young caliber season from Zach Gallen. Sure. They can get there with an 850 OPS instead of a 900 OPS from Carol. They can get there with a 10 and 10 season from Alec Thomas. But they're not going to get there if Zach Gallen doesn't pitch like a Cy Young candidate. Sure.

Yeah, that's fair. Zach Gallen is obviously really important to this team and he didn't pitch especially well down the stretch and even in the playoffs. So getting him back on track and more like the pitcher that we saw in 2022 is certainly going to be an important factor for the debacks. My answer here, I could go honestly either the gallon direction or I think I would go with Alec Thomas here, a 2020 season from Alec Thomas. Granted, there is some world where Alec Thomas has a 2020 season and maybe like he doesn't

improve that much. Like he got to 20 homers, but he only hit 230 or whatever. But in my mind, if Alex Thomas is a 2020 season, it probably means that he took some pretty big steps forward, that maybe he's in there against lefties every day because he's found a way to hit lefties a little bit better. If Alex Thomas breaks out in some way in 2024, that would be an enormous development for the Diamondbacks. In my mind, yes, Zach Allen would be great if he won a Cy Young Award. But, you know, he finished, what was it, fifth in Cy Young voting this year. and the debacks were okay with Zach on finishing fifth right

and Corbyn Carroll getting up to 300 400 500 my baseline expectation for him is not even that much lower than that it's a little bit lower than that but that's not necessarily a huge difference so I don't see like a huge needle mover there if Alex Thomas breaks out that's a huge needle mover for the debacks in 2024

so that would be my choice there I had the same thought when I looked at the 2020 What's the OVP that goes with that? Right. Yeah, there are some unanswered questions there. That's fair. Even the 20, honestly, 20 stolen bases might be less likely than 20 homers. Agreed.

Because, yeah, he really doesn't steal. He was efficient in 2020. He was 9 for 10. But even if you go back through his minor league numbers, he never stole more than 15 bases in a season, which is maybe surprising given how fast he is. But yeah, I think. him getting to 20 steals would be a, that would be a sight to behold for sure. Well, I agree with you on the upside.

Like, you know, number two would certainly, it would be an indication he's playing every day. Yeah. And so that would be an indication that he's hitting lefties enough to play every day. Right. And so, you know, that certainly would be the biggest surprise out of these three possibilities. To answer a piece of Yoshi's question, I voted for rookie of the year. I did not vote for, I did not vote for Sy Young this year. Who'd you vote for?

I voted for, you know, outman. Yeah, Outman. That was my number one selection for Ricky. No, my ballot has already been revealed on this show. The people know what my ballot looked like. Let's go to our next question, Damon. What else we got? I finish off here with a couple of fun ones.

Cog says this one is for all of you. What is your favorite Christmas gift that you have ever gotten? I'll go first here, Jack. This goes back to, this is a bit of an odd answer. This goes back to like 2005, 2006. It was Christmas Eve. And my family is out at a movie. We're like watching some Christmas movie the night before Christmas.

And we get home and there's this big SUV parked in our driveway. And there are presents stacked from under our tree. There are presents stacked in our backyard. And there is a man actively robbing our house as we are pulling up. It's one of the scariest moments of my childhood. But the humorous part of this is that this man came away with like all of the least valuable presence under our tree. So I got a karaoke machine that year. This is when I was like seven or eight years old.

I was really excited about this karaoke machine. That's what you wanted when you were seven years. That's apparently. At least one of the things. I wasn't exactly on my list. My parents got me a karaoke machine. And this guy who robbed our house got away with like the dogs toys and like all. the crappiest things, but my karaoke machine I still got. So for me, that's one of my,

the most memorable gift that I've, that I've probably ever gotten. For me, I was probably about eight years old. And, uh, well, so my house was being robbed to. No, my stepdad was really into Christmas. I mean, he was like total like Christmas vacation, Chevy Chase. I mean, sure. The whole house, the whole neighborhood was lit up like crazy, um, you know, just because of his lights. And he would, over-decorate the house and he bought tons of presents. He was great. It was wonderful.

But the most fun gift was it came downstairs and he had a slot car set up for me. And there were Formula One slots. I don't know the size now. I think it was like 124. They weren't the ones that were this big that you took to the outside. Wow. Slot car places. But they were probably about, you know, at least six inches long.

And that was fun because he had the whole living room and hallway all dominated by the track. Eventually we moved it down to our rather sizable basement. And all my friends came over, like, for the next six months before our attention spans went elsewhere. You know, they all came where we had races and we kept track. We had like a racing league and all of that stuff. Of course, we had a geek out while we did it. Yeah. But that was fun.

That was one of the most fun gifts that I ever got. There you go. Very cool. Well, Karen has a bit of a follow-up to this question as well. our final mailback question for this show. To counter cogs, what is the favorite gift that you have ever given to someone else? Mine, of course, Jack, is merch from the PHNX Locker because it just never, people, I just absolutely love it. And for me, it's especially, it's like the easiest way to, like, knock out, you know, a whole bunch of people on my list because I just, you know, I know there's going to be something from the PHNX locker that will satisfy them.

What comes to mind for you here? Well, it's not one particular gift, and this is really sappy. Sorry, guys, but I have to do it. I've been married for 40 years. Ah, here we go. And my wife's a bit of like, you know, she's from Taiwan, and she didn't grow up celebrating Christmas. Sure. And so, like, she'll act like Scrooge or The Grinch, you know, during the lead up to Christmas.

But when we're actually opening presents, she gets really excited. So we always tease her about it. And it just some years, she's so happy with the game. gift that she gets and seeing her face light up. And last year, I gave her a new iPad. And she had no idea it was coming. Wow. So, you know, she opens up this apple by, oh, my God, you know, just seeing the expression on her face and the happiness on her face. Year after year, no matter what I give her, she reacts like that. So it's so funny that Scrooge is always the happiest, whatever she gets. Well, if she was that happy for an iPad, Jack, imagine how she would react to merch from

the H&X Locker. I can't even imagine what that would look like. I'll make sure I hook up. Yeah, there we go. Absolutely. Yeah, well, that finishes up our mailbag here for this Mailbag Monday edition. I want to tell you all about our friends over at Shady Ray's, which, speaking of Christmas gifts, this would make a very, a very, very fine one for someone special in your life. Shady Raids makes gear built to last with premium polarized shades. These are the sunglasses that we all wear, um, both outside the office and inside the office, uh, on occasion, which still confuses me whenever I see that. Um, but, uh, yeah, we absolutely love our friends over at Shady Raids. They of course are well known, uh, for their loss and

broken replacements policy, uh, where if you lose or break your pair, even on day one, uh, they tell us that they will send you a brand new pair. No questions asked. They have your back long after you purchase. Derek, of course, has taken advantage of this. Uh, he took advantage of this very shortly after he purchased his Shady Rays and lost them somehow because that's what Derek does. Exclusively for our listeners, Shady Rays is giving out their best deal of the season. Go to ShadyRates.com and use code PHNX for 50% off two or more pairs of polarized sunglasses. Try for yourself the shades rated five stars by over 250,000 people.

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H&X. Restrictions apply. C. Empiretay.com slash pH and X for details. Well, Jack, thanks for, thanks for hopping on today. We appreciate it. Your crew here was making me laugh

with all the comments about your childhood trauma. Yeah, yeah. I don't think I've told Derek that story, and he probably will kind of freak out when he hears it for the first time. That's like my worst nightmare, man. It was an intense moment.

How did it end? Can you like, you came up on him robbing the house. So how did he get out? out of there. Yeah, well, obviously, seven-year-old me stormed into the house and went in there and, you know, checked out the scene and told him to get the heck out of there. No, that did not happen.

I was, I was in our family minivan, utterly terrified. And I want to say, my parents called the cops, like, as you do, of course. And then he left shortly thereafter. He, like, came out the back gate of our house and abandoned whatever gifts he was about to take. And he very quickly zipped out of there in this big SUV. He like backed up and then he like drove away in a way where we couldn't get his license plate, which was, which was unfortunate. So he was a pros pro. He was a he was a pros pro. But yeah, we went my parents very bravely went inside to see what had happened and he had smashed one of the windows in our house. They were like

blood droplets everywhere, which made it very easy to identify him after the fact. But yeah, he he broke into the office actually so he he walks by like our computer and all of the big time tech equipment and goes to our Christmas tree and picks out like like I said earlier like the toy yeah exactly like all the toys for our dog and whatnot so it was a happy ending he might not have been really a pro flesh is a poem alone going through me yeah yeah right exactly was it Marv uh yeah it was it was uh on a honestly one of the crazier moments of my childhood. Fortunately, I think that was the only time I was ever robbed growing up.

I hope you don't have extensive stories that are similar, Jack. No trauma from the moment. No, you're part of Chandler is a little bit. I don't know. My parents live in a very, you know, reasonably nice neighborhood. But I guess this particular Christmas Eve, something was a rye. Anyway, well, thank you all so much for being here with us on this Mailbag Monday edition of the PhNXD Back show.

You can give me a follow on Twitter. I am at Jesse N. Friedman. Give Jack a follow on Twitter as well. He is at Shoe Wizard 59. Correct. Nailed it. Got it. Damon, of course, you can follow on Twitter at Damon Dog.

That's D-A-W-G. We are Damon's dogs. Bark, bark. It's another inside thing, Jack. I apologize. Yeah. Derek would have been utterly mortified if I had gone here and not barked after saying that we're Damon's dog.

as a firm requirement on the show. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter as well at PHNX underscore Dbacks, but of course all roads lead to at PHNX underscore sports. That's on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Well, thank you all again so much for being with us here today. And remember kids, baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun when you don't get robbed on Christmas Eve.