PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Where does the Diamondbacks’ farm system rank entering 2024?

Starting point is 00:00:06 Hello and welcome in to another edition of the PHNX Diamondbacks podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Montia. Of course, I am your mayor of PHNX. And I am thrilled to be here on another Saturday audio edition of this podcast. I am joined by my vice mayor, the one and only thunder stick, Jesse Friedman. Jesse, how are things? Things are all right. You know, people just can't get enough of us, Derek.

Starting point is 00:00:33 Clearly five days a week. Clearly. We were falling short. of the demand that people had. And so now we're doing the Saturday thing. And it's kind of fun. It was carefully planned out that way, Jesse. Sometimes in life, you have to limit the amount of Jesse and Derek that you put out there

Starting point is 00:00:51 on the shelves available as product to people because, you know, then they're not as interested, right? But if you make it a limited time kind of thing, if you make Jesse and Derek available, but hard to find, you know, hard to find, then the people are clamoring. for it, you know, and kind of that's what we were going for. But now, you know, we want to just flood the market with Jesse and Derek. We want to drive the price down very, very much, you know, get, get those stock prices to just plummet on, on Jesse's and Derek's around baseball. And, you know, of course, in that way we can maybe gobble up some of those stock and make, make us the

Starting point is 00:01:27 most powerful ones. But right now, Jesse, the Arizona Diamondbacks are not in the best place as far as the future goes, which is still okay, because right now the Arizona Diamondbacks seemed to be more about now, you would say. I felt when we started doing this podcast just a few years ago, we were kind of focused constantly on the future of this team. We were focused on how good they could be, what their potential could be with some of these young guys that we got a chance to talk about. We started talking about Alec Thomas and Brandon Fott and, of course, Corbyn Carroll. and all of those guys ended up being huge contributors to this team and what they did last year. And the future isn't the future anymore.

Starting point is 00:02:09 The future seems to be now. But the Diamondbacks future, with that being said, it seems to not be as bright as it once was when these guys were all part of the farm system. Baseball, America, and ESPN both released their farm system rankings on Friday. And they're not ranked very high, Jesse. D-backs are 17th. for baseball America, and they are ranked 21st for ESPN with a total surplus value of $168 million, which is how Kylie McDaniel does his prospects list. But going back first to baseball America, ranking them 17th, what was your initial reaction

Starting point is 00:02:48 to that? Did you think that was a fair ranking amongst, you know, in baseball? Yeah, I do think it's fair. And yeah, I mean, I don't know if I would think of this as like the Diamondbacks. future isn't bright as much as the diamondbacks future exists primarily in players that are already on the team and have already exhausted their you know their prospect status and whatnot right I mean the diamond backs will go in in some ways over the next few years the diamondbacks will go as far as the corbin carols alec thomas is haroldo pardomos gabriel morano's you know those guys will

Starting point is 00:03:26 be able to take them so I think it's important to keep that perspective uh you you know, the diamond backs being ranked 17th by baseball America, 21st over the ESPN. It's not as, it's not as cool, you know, a year ago right now. The diamondbacks were second on both of those lists. So that's, you know, it's a considerable drop off. But I think this is something we always knew was coming, right? Corbyn Carroll was going to graduate off of these prospect lists. Brandon Fott was going to graduate off these lists as well.

Starting point is 00:03:55 A baseball America with their system, they were still counting Gabriel Moreno as a prospect. entering 2023, whereas some outlets were not. So, yeah, I think this was kind of always bound to happen. This isn't a shock for me. And yeah, I think at the same time, there is some validity to, you know, the guys that are in the farm system at this point. They don't have more Corbyn Carroll's waiting in the wings necessarily, not to say, you know, certain players like Drew Jones in particular, you know, couldn't come up and really become

Starting point is 00:04:28 impactful players in the future, but no one is as close and as sure as some of the prospects that they had at this time last year. And the thing is, is that the Arizona Diamondbacks also do have an opportunity to replenish their farm system. This ranking right now is based on obviously the current players that are there, the players that have left. You know, like you said, baseball America, I mean, right now they're still holding on very much to Jordan Lawler, and Jordan Lawler might not even be a part of the farm system this year.

Starting point is 00:04:57 So, but looking ahead, like you said, yeah, I mean, as as, I mean, this isn't great, but they could, like I said, they could rebound here. The Diamondbacks have pick number 29 in the first round. And then thanks to Corbyn Carroll, they get that prospect promotion incentive pick, which is pick number 31. So they have picks 29, 31. They then also have a competitive balance round A pick at 35. So they will have picks 29, 31, 35, and then in the second round, they get pick number 66. So that is their picks in rounds one and two of the MLB draft. Now, that might not be great positioning for their first pick,

Starting point is 00:05:39 but that is great positioning for them to pick up some quality players in that range from picks 29 through 35 and even still pick up, you know, still a quality guy with pick number 66. they don't have a competitive balance round B or compenser, I can't speak, it's like the hardest word in the English language. Yeah. Compensatory, right? Compensatory.

Starting point is 00:06:06 Yeah, there you go. Compensatory round. Thank you. And like Elizabeth and Elise like to correct me on this show, so I'm sure they're going to have a field day with that. Luckily, there's no comments on the audio podcast, so I don't have to see them make fun of my inability to speak and read. But yeah, I mean, again, this is one of those things that it feels like the initial reaction is just kind of like, damn, there goes our farm system, you know.

Starting point is 00:06:31 But there are ups and downs, like you said, the future of this team that once was ranking them second in all of Major League Baseball is now part of the main roster. And they are helping this team do all of the wonderful things that they did last year. So it's just a temporary thing with all of these guys being 23, 24 years old for the time. time being, that means that the future isn't in the farm system, but it's on the main roster and it's going to be here for quite a while. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's like, would you rather have the fifth ranked farm system or, you know, and not have just gone to the World Series or I've just gone to the World Series and have like a mid-tier farm system? I don't think it's even a question, right? Everyone would say they would rather have the latter of those two options. So yeah, it's just a, it's just kind of a new era

Starting point is 00:07:21 of Diamondbacks baseball, where we're not as much looking to the farm system for the future. We're looking to the guys who are already on the team and how they're going to be able to improve in the coming years. And that is a very real thing. It's not as if you lose your prospect status and then you immediately are just whatever you are, that you have no ability to improve your game from that point forward. That's not the case at all, right? I mean, a lot of these guys are still in their early 20s, right?

Starting point is 00:07:49 Geraldo Perdomo, Corvon Carroll, these guys that I mentioned earlier, they all can and really should get better over the next few seasons. Well, Kylie McDaniel almost quoted you word for word in the article. I'm sure Arizona would rather have October's playoff series wins than a better place on my list. And that's exactly what it comes down to. Yeah. The playoff went, you know, I had some people in our tweets or our responses to one of our tweet trying to dunk on us for the fact that the Arizona and Diamondbacks didn't win the World Series

Starting point is 00:08:23 and lost 4-1 to the Rangers. I'm just going to make this announcement now. I know those people aren't listening to this podcast. Very much so. I understand that, but I'm still going to make this announcement. I don't give a damn that they lost the World Series. If you are a Diamondbacks fan, and I'm sure everyone listening can attest to this, you are very proud of what this team did last year.

Starting point is 00:08:48 And it's because of the fact that just a year ago, we were ranked second on this list. And our projected arrival date for being a competitive team was like 2025, 2026. You know, that's what some people were saying, you know, as far as when we could expect this team to actually be in that phase to compete for a World Series championship. Some of those early comments that we had at the beginning of last year about going to the World Series sounded insane at the time. But now looking back on it, you know, you have Espo out here looking like a damn,

Starting point is 00:09:22 you know, witch, like he knows the future, right? But you can't dunk on this team for the fact that these young guys that were supposed to be the future that were supposed to learn how to play the game and acclimate to major league and eventually become, you know, potential superstars did all of that over the course of one season, it seemed like. Corby and Carroll exploded into being a superstar. Gabriel Moreno, just due to circumstance, due to the injury to Carson Kelly, due to the way that this everything went down,

Starting point is 00:09:52 ends up being this guy that gets way more playing time than we envisioned him being and quickly becomes a fan favorite and a huge contributor during the postseason run. And these guys are all the guys that were supposed to be like down the road future stars. They are here now. So yes, I would absolutely trade all of that joy that we experienced in October for being ranked, you know, in the top 10 on this list, you know, ESPN's lists, though, again, it does take in the surplus value of prospects and stuff like that. And, you know, again, we've, we talked about where they were ranked on, you know, on MLB pipelines ranking

Starting point is 00:10:31 and how many diamondbacks they had in the top 100. And yes, for the most part, right now, there's not, you know, there's not a lot to be excited about. We, I feel like we've said that on this show a few times, as far as their farm system goes. Yeah, I think it's just kind of a lack of a lack of assurance maybe on some of these guys. Jordan Lawler is obviously about to graduate. I think at some point in 2024, we can pretty safely say that, that he won't be on this list anymore. But behind him, there are some interesting guys.

Starting point is 00:11:04 Like Drew Jones has a ceiling of being, like Drew Jones could conceivably be the number one prospect in the sport at some point if he's able to. to become the player that some people believed he could be, right? I mean, there's no clear weaknesses in Drew Jones's game. He's going to be an elite center fielder no matter what. If he figures out how to overcome some of the offensive challenges that he encountered in his first full season, I mean, he really, like, the sky is the limit for Drew Jones for sure.

Starting point is 00:11:32 And I think Tommy Troy is another guy who could, you know, certainly has some room to move up on some of these lists. And outside of those guys, the rest of the farm system is just a lot. lot of players who are too young to really know too much at this point. Ruben Santana, a third baseman, a third base prospect, the Diamondbacks got him last year. I think in 2022, I want to say, as an international amateur, he's really come on strong, you know, playing over in the Dominican as an amateur.

Starting point is 00:12:03 He could be a great player. He could be, you know, in, you know, actually making waves on a top 100 list at some point, but he's also in rookie ball. hasn't come stateside yet. Like you're not going to put someone like that very high on a prospect list and you're not going to rank the Diamondbacks farm system highly, you know, because you have someone like that. And the same could be said for a lot of other guys, right?

Starting point is 00:12:25 Hans-Lawis is an exciting middle infield prospect who's just a little, a little bit too far away at this point. Christopher Torren, a similar situation there. So I think it's possible that, you know, even as Jordan Lawler comes off this list, there are some guys who could push the debacks, you know, back into the top tier of farm systems around the game. We just have to wait and see how some of those players turn out. Well, and right now, prospects are, the value of prospects are higher than ever. We talked about that a little bit on yesterday's show, but it really does feel like teams are trying to hold on to their prospects

Starting point is 00:13:00 now more than they ever have. They're, like, less willing to give up on prospects. And the, the wild thing about prospects is they're exactly that, especially pitching prospects. Like there's there's such a low chance in some cases of guys making it, you know, to major leagues that it's kind of crazy that the market changed in that way. It's kind of crazy that a tested pitcher that's had good seasons in major league baseball and it still isn't very old. Maybe we're talking about a guy that's, you know, still around 30 years old, has somehow lower value than a guy that's never pitched in.

Starting point is 00:13:37 Major League Baseball. And yeah, the potential is there. The sky is the limit. But, like, you still don't know if that guy's ever going to be able to pitch in Major League Baseball. It's kind of crazy. It's just, it's this weird thing. Like, teams don't want to be the organization that traded away, you know,

Starting point is 00:13:54 Zach Gallen, like the Cardinals did, you know, or some of these guys that they get rid of a prospect for a trade in the moment to bring some superstar to their team. That doesn't pan out. But meanwhile, they gave up two of the best pitchers in the game. in the deal, right? So that just, it's like that's scarier than, you know, just trying to test your luck on a major league player, I guess. I don't know, but I do think that the Diamondbacks are in a great position, regardless of where they fall on this list for, you know, not only to continue adding these guys, because they're, Mike Hazen isn't going to be done. In some cases, Mike Hazen is going to make moves to

Starting point is 00:14:33 bring more prospects in. I don't like he his approach to the team seems to be a bit fluid. So I'm not 100% convinced that we're just going to see them continue to try to make big moves, right? Like I guess I'm comparing it a little bit to the Sons where the Sons just tried to make, you know, they're they're starting five so good with like superstars and established talent that like the rest of their team kind of leaves you a little bit wanting, right? The Diamondbacks, you know, again, could continue to make moves. moves to add prospects to this organization and they do have all of those draft picks. So I'll wait and see how the farm system looks next year.

Starting point is 00:15:13 Yeah, I think if you're a baseball fan, I probably wouldn't get too stressed out about farm system rankings. Like maybe you should if you're like a fan of the Angels and your team kind of sucks and you're also showing up at like 28th or 29th on these lists. But for a team like the Diamondbacks, you know, where you're currently in good position, to contend, it's not, it's not that much of a concern. There is still some talent in this farm system. You know, I think about a team like the Houston Astros that have been near the bottom

Starting point is 00:15:42 of these lists for a while. There may come a day where that's an issue for them. They're in a different situation from the Diamondbacks and that a lot of their core pieces are going to reach free agency soon. So maybe it's a little bit more of a concern for them. But even then, like, I don't think Astros fans are like super stressed out about their farm system rankings when they're constantly playing in the ALCS or, you know, or the World Series every year.

Starting point is 00:16:04 That's such a good point. That's such a good point. And in general, it doesn't mean you don't have stars in your system. This is still just an opinion piece in a way. Like you and I have met some of the people that put these lists together. Sometimes I'm amazed that they're just regular old human beings and not some sort of, you know, superhero with extraordinary powers to see into the future and know where these guys are going to be ranked at. But yeah, I mean, you're definitely right about that.

Starting point is 00:16:32 The other thing, too, is that with what the Orioles are doing right now and to talk about the Baltimore Orioles and what the Arizona Diamondbacks did in the playoffs last year, those were the two bottom teams just a few years ago when we started doing this show. Those were the two teams that we were joking about, you know, Josh Van Meeter ruining an opportunity for the Diamondbacks to have the number one overall pick, right? Like, and look at where both of those teams stand today. You know, the Diamondbacks are National League champions. They appeared in the World Series, and they just rearmed themselves in a pretty significant way that addressed all of their weaknesses during the off season and could potentially, most likely, will make them a better team next year than they were this year, the year that they reached the World Series. Meanwhile, the Baltimore Orioles just got one of the best arms in baseball to be their ace, and they already won an incredible amount of games. in, in 2023. So, you know, you have them now sitting kind of at the top of the heap as well.

Starting point is 00:17:36 It's just, it's amazing how quickly both of these franchises kind of turn things around and are now, you know, competitive and are a little bit of the talk of the baseball this offseason. Yeah, it's funny. You mentioned earlier that the debacks surplus value thing, which is an interesting calculation. I guess it's just trying to project out like how much value each prospect will produce compared to how much money they'll make over the course of their careers. It seems like kind of a crazy calculation. It's insane.

Starting point is 00:18:06 I'm here for it. I like numbers, so I'm here for it. The Baltimore Orioles number, I think, was around $380 million. So it's more than twice as high as the Diamondbacks. I believe it was about $50 million higher than the next closest team. And yes, this is still considering, this is still factoring in that the Orioles just traded to pretty darn good prospects. you know, in that in that deal for Corbyn Burns.

Starting point is 00:18:32 So yeah, the Orioles, I mean, they're, I guess, the envy of everyone, right? And that the Orioles are not only a team that very well could win 100 plus games in 2024. They also have, by a considerable margin, still the top overall farm system in the game. And, you know, if you're the debacks, you wouldn't rather be that many teams right now, but maybe you'd rather be the Orioles because that's a, I mean, it's a pretty incredible, position that they're in right now. Well, in a very similar position as the Diamondbacks, where it's like the future is now for them,

Starting point is 00:19:05 but their future is even brighter with how stacked their farm system still is, right? That's, it's incredible. But it's going to be fun to watch. It's going to be fun to watch baseball this season. And I cannot wait three weeks away. We have a baseball spring training games start. Of course, we thank you guys for being here and listening to the PHNX sports audio-only version of the Arizona Diamondbacks podcast right here.

Starting point is 00:19:28 on PHNX. If you have not subscribed to us on your favorite audio podcasting app, make sure to do so now. Leave us a review. We always appreciate that feedback and what you like about the show. We also very much appreciate those five-star reviews. Of course, if you are a PHNX diehard, we appreciate that as well. If you are not a diehard, you can sign up today at go-PhNX.com. We have wonderful, wonderful content to offer you, including our Discord discussions. We have all sorts of fun content in the Discord like our City Council meetings and our upcoming game show next week. Squeeze play, that's going to be a lot of fun.

Starting point is 00:20:00 We also have access to all of Jesse's content, all of our wonderful writers' content here at PHNX. You also get access to some of our discounts on our events, get access to some of our discounts with our partners, and most importantly, get that free t-shirt from the PHNX Locker.com, a t-shirt of your choice, so make sure to sign up today over at go phnx.com. Jesse, yesterday we talked about that fraud,

Starting point is 00:20:23 Pung Satani Phil and his 30% accuracy rate on predicting the weather. Groundhogs Day be damned. That guy is not good at his job. I think that, of course, we should continue to question these frauds when they that they know the weather and then they go around with a 30% accuracy rate. They don't know shit. But umpire accuracy, actually getting better in Major League Baseball. Is that right?

Starting point is 00:20:50 Am I to believe that? Am I to believe that as much as I'm to believe? that a groundhog can tell the weather, Jesse. You know, like yes and yes and no. I guess yes. I think I would overall say yes, which may come as a shock to a lot of people who are convinced that umpires are getting worse and worse by the year

Starting point is 00:21:11 and our need for robot umps is, you know, is getting bigger every single season. The numbers say otherwise. There's a really interesting story over at fan graphs that came out on Thursday. This is from Davey Andrews, where he looks at what the numbers have to say about umpire accuracy. And since we're on the audio only side, we can't really, can't really show this to all of you.

Starting point is 00:21:33 But there is a graph that is the percent accuracy on ball strike calls over year. And it goes from 84% in 2008 to just over 92% in 2023. three. And it is a just like a linear just going up every single year without really any divets along the way, which probably is a little bit surprising. Like there is, there's very clear evidence here that umpires are getting better at their job on a year to year basis. Now, if you dig a little bit closer into the numbers here, it's, it's kind of interesting. I guess you can, the way that the article does it, you can kind of split umpiring into two different skills. there's correctly identifying balls like pitches out of the zone as balls and then there's correctly

Starting point is 00:22:24 identifying pitches in the zone as strikes and there you actually see kind of a split umpires have consistently gotten better over that entire 15 year span at pitches outside the zone uh from like the high 80s to just about 95% at this point but pitches inside the zone uh they have improved pretty dramatically over the course of these 15 years, but they've hit kind of a plateau. And it actually looks like from 2021 to 2022, and I believe into 2023 as well, they've actually gotten a little bit worse, talking like fractions of percentiles here. So, you know, nothing significant. But yeah, apparently umpires are just getting better and better and better at calling pitches

Starting point is 00:23:08 outside the zone as balls, but pitches inside the zone is strikes. It kind of feels like they've hit this maximum point. and they can't get any better than that. And now things are kind of starting to level off. How much does statcast kind of factor in here? And the fact that like the strike zone as we've kind of clarified at times is much different than what we kind of think. Like what you see on TV is this fine lined white box with small squares on the inside

Starting point is 00:23:36 to identify the different zones of the, you know, in the zone. And then it seems like when we see these balls that are called, strikes that are just on the outside of the zone, that those were all wrong calls, you know, but then you look over on MLB.com, you look at a game day and in there, you know, on the on the strike zone, you see there that there's that, that little bumper zone that we've kind of talked about that goes around the strike zone that isn't there on TV. That's not really taken into consideration a lot of times, but that is kind of like this dead zone in a way where if they're calling the balls and that, like that kind of stuff feels like it

Starting point is 00:24:15 have impacted the accuracy rating. Is that something that's always been part of the way that they've tracked this accuracy, or is that something that's changed over the years, the way they consider those, you know, that little buffer zone to be kind of, you know, no man's land, if you will. My understanding of the bumper that you see on game day is that I'm not sure if it's exactly this, but I think it's at least closely related. Major League Baseball has established like a threshold of bad call for which they will actually, I don't think they penalize umpires,

Starting point is 00:24:51 but they would actually ding an umpire for, right? There's kind of like the level of egregiousness that you have to reach in order for major league baseball to actually consider a call to truly be bad. However, at the same time, they call it the shadow zone on fan graphs, by the way, is what they call that little bumper zone on the, the outside. And they say that, you know, any changes that are happening around the edges of the plate in the shadow zone are, you know, that's something that could kind of impact the accuracy, but it's not necessarily like the reason why, you know, umpires are getting better at calling

Starting point is 00:25:29 balls and strikes. I also feel like part of it besides that shadow zone is, is just the pressure, Jesse. We are so close to having robots take over your actual. job. You can no longer be cocky about it. You can no longer have a chip on your shoulder and be like, what are you going to do? Have a camera replace me? And we're like, yeah, actually, that's exactly what we're going to do. Right. So like, by necessity, umpires need to be better because MLB with the advancements in technology really could pursue, you know, phasing them out at least of calling balls and strikes behind home plate. We've talked about you're always going to have a home plate umpire, which really isn't going to change, you know, a lot here when it comes to baseball games

Starting point is 00:26:13 other than, you know, a more accurate strike zone. But if umpires can just get it right, then, then we don't need to threaten to have you replaced by Rosie the robot. Yeah. And I don't want people to confuse the bumper for like the strike zone being ambiguous or like, oh, like, they could be a strike or it couldn't be. It's kind of open to where you think. Every, every pitch is either a strike or. or not in its pure form. The bumper doesn't take away from that. That's just kind of giving the umpires an air bar because umpires are human beings.

Starting point is 00:26:48 And I think we can all at least sympathize with, you know, umpires are not going to be able to get everything right. That's never going to be possible, hence the need for the bumper. But every pitch, when we move short. That, that, I'm sorry to cut you off again. I know I did that twice. And it's because we're on audio only. People can't see your face and how frustrated you are with me. No, but part of the problem, Jesse, is the strike zone they call on TV, right?

Starting point is 00:27:13 Because that's not really what the strike zone is. And I think that's kind of more of what leads to that fan scrutiny over umpire calls rather than, because sometimes when you see them on game day, it makes way more sense than what you saw on TV where the little fine-lined box, the ball was outside of the fine line box. That should be a ball. How did you call it a strike, right? Even though it's very close and it's almost touching the fine line, I can see with my naked eye from here on my 70 inch TV that there's a little gap between where they showed the ball landed, which might not be accurate, and the box on TV.

Starting point is 00:27:48 So it's almost like the television presentation also lends to that when it's not really correctly displaying what the strike zone is. Yeah, that's a very good point. I think I think the little TV zone box probably does us more harm than good in some ways. It's not. It's not foolproof. I still like it on it. Honestly, like, every once in a while it'll, every once in a while it'll glitch out and it bothers me. Like when it's gone, I'm like, oh, no, this is, I need the box.

Starting point is 00:28:16 Some channels every once in a while, like have the presentation without the box and I'm like, what are we doing here? What are we doing? I can't. I don't know what's going on without the box. But it's important to know that any like two-dimensional representation of the strike zone, which is ultimately what you're seeing on TV. is imperfect. It's not, the strike zone is actually a three-dimensional thing. And so, yeah, anytime, whether it be on game day or, you know, the MLB app or on TV,

Starting point is 00:28:53 you're not, you're not getting the full story there. Well, we'll, we'll forgive umpires for now. And as long as this accuracy rating continues to go up, I will consider not wanting to replace them with robots. But in the meantime, watch your ass umpires. That's all I'm saying. Watch your ass. We do appreciate you guys listening to the audio-only podcast.

Starting point is 00:29:14 We will be back on Monday with our mailbag Monday episode. Make sure to send us some questions for that. In the meantime, you can follow us on Twitter. I'm at cap underscore caveman with the K. Jesse is at Jesse N Friedman. Our show is at PHNX underscore D-Backs. But of course, all roads do lead to at PHNX underscore Sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. We thank you guys so much for checking us out today.

Starting point is 00:29:34 We appreciate your time. and remember kids, baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun when you threaten umpires that robots are going to take their jobs.

PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Where does the Diamondbacks’ farm system rank entering 2024?

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