PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Which MLB superstar ALMOST became a Diamondback this offseason?

Episode Date: March 9, 2024

Another day of spring training games and another day where an Arizona Diamondbacks batter gets hit in the hand by a pitch. We have your updates from Salt River Fields on how Lourdes Gurriel Jr is doing after being removed from the game, Merrill Kelly’s spring debut, and more. Also which MLB superstar said he almost signed with the Diamondbacks this offseason? SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports PHNX Events: Get your tickets to Suns Takeovers, Coyotes & Suns Watch Parties at BetMGM, and MORE here: https://gophnx.com/events/Arizona Lottery: Visit http://www.AZAdventure.com for more information on how you can take an adventure with the Arizona Lottery and for a chance to win $1 million in cash and Arizona travel prizes! PrizePicks - Download the PrizePicks app today and use code PHNX for a first deposit match up to $100! Pick more. Pick less. It’s that Easy!NASCAR Weekend at Phoenix Raceway: March 8-10! Find more information at https://www.phoenixraceway.com/spring/ on the Shriners Children's 500, and be on the lookout for racing content from PHNX!Desert Financial Credit Union: Open a free checking account online with Desert Financial Credit Union and get $200 in bonuses https://www.desertfinancial.com/200Empire: Schedule a free in-home estimate with Empire Today! Receive a $350 OFF discount when you use the promo code PHNX. Restrictions apply. See https://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 over to https://www.ogeezbrands.com to find where you can purchase. Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. Four Peaks: Follow on social @fourpeaksbrew & @fourpeakspub! Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. Someburros: 20% off your order of up to $100 when you use code PHNX at checkout for the whole month of March at https://www.someburros.com/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.

A ski to you all and welcome in to another episode of the PHNX feedbacks podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Montia. Of course, I am occasionally known as your mayor of PMX. This man next to me is your thunderstick, Jesse Friedman, occasionally known as your vice mayor. And we are here just to confirm for you that Lordus Coriel Jr. is fine. and we are taking up with MLB Diamondbacks players getting hit in the hand during spring training games. We've had enough and we're going to petition the league to make sure this doesn't happen anymore. Yeah, I think the Kyle Hendricks suspension case is currently being heard by Rob Manfred and company.

I mean, we're going to go testify. It is gaining steam. Of course. We do appreciate you guys being here. Shout out to OGs, by the way. It's a flavoring Friday. And OGs brands, the official. sponsor Flavoring Friday is all about having more fun this weekend. We got a lot of fun

planned this weekend, so make sure to keep it locked to PHNX. We're going to be out at the Phoenix Raceway doing a bunch of fun stuff. We can also head over to OGsbrands.com to see OGs full lineup, including their two newest gummies, the OGs naturals and the big OGs. Find out where you can purchase them at a dispensary near you. Yeah, definitely good news. I guess in the grand scheme of things that Loris Gruel Jr. is fine after being hit in the hand. He was actually actually hitting the wrist. And he was hit in an area where he's already had surgery to have like this little bone right here.

You know a little bit more. Yeah, the hamate, the hamate bone. Yeah. It was a storyline when the Diamondbacks made the trade with the Blue Jays back in late 2022. The Blue Jays had felt that that hamate bone, it was repaired after the season had ended. And that was a season where Lordus Gorya only had five home runs, which was kind of uncharacteristic for him.

So, yeah, they kind of wonder the diamond. Backs kind of wondered if that had zapped his power a little bit in that season with Toronto. And he had surgery and it was repaired. And last season, he certainly seemed to get that power back. But yeah, he still wears a protector in that area. The ball hit him. I think you're right. It was maybe more in the wrist area than the hand just underneath where that protector is.

But fortunately, it's just a left hand contusion. Nothing important. And this is getting a little old, I think. we did this with Christian Walker like a week ago. Do not like it. It's not great for anyone to have these things happening in games that don't matter at all, but the Diamondbacks dodge a bullet once again. I've been able to pinpoint it.

Nice. Solid. Not to see. Hello, Zach Allen. It was good to see Zach Allen too. It was good to see him, obviously, after the game, smiling and joking in the clubhouse, like, no x-rays were needed. He is perfectly fine.

And this is actually what Tori Lebello had to say in regards to that hand injury. I know you guys talk to Gurriel, but it's a left-hand contusion. You know, you hold your breath when you go out there, and he's a considerable amount of pain. I felt like he could have fought to change my mind, but at this point in the time, during spring training, I wasn't even going to let him. And I decided to remove him from the game for precautionary reasons. He said he didn't have an x-ray or didn't need an x-ray? Correct, yeah. Yeah, correct.

So there was no x-ray needed. The medical team felt very comfortable saying that he's in a good spot. And yeah, that's obviously a big bullet they dodged, right? Of Gorell losing any time or having any significant injury there. It just keeps coming back to a conversation that we had with Jason a few days ago where, like, he really stressed several times how important health is through spring training. Yeah. And this is exactly why, right?

Like there's all this debate about spring training being too long and how necessary is it and all of this stuff. But the last thing you want is to lose any of your starting players to injury in spring training, you know. Absolutely. I mean, it almost feels like that's all that matters in spring training because not much. Not much of it matters. I don't care how good to do you could have like a like a 176 batting average through spring trading. I just need you to get out of it healthy and fine so that we can play some regular season baseball. Yeah, I mean, especially on the position player side.

because like pitchers, they have to build up and whatnot. If you're a starting pitcher, it's obviously you need spring training. Maybe you don't need this much spring training, but you need some spring training, at least, in order to get ready for the season. But if you're a position player, yeah, this stuff kind of gets old. And, you know, you really hate to have injuries happen. And again, in games that mean absolutely nothing. We're going to see debacks regulars probably start playing more regularly.

We're going to see some back-to-backs. We've seen a little bit of that already this past week. So hopefully this thing. doesn't become a weekly thing where we're reporting on, you know, which Diamondbacks player got hit in the hand or whatever. As long as they're all fine. Lordus Gurriel, he yelped when this happened. It did not look good in the moment.

I think it was our pal Jack who asked us. Like, he was like, who yelled? And it was like, it was Lordus. That was a yell that came from him. It was either Lordis or someone in the crowd who, like, timed this perfectly and was an excruciating pain for some reason. To be fair, I would have yelled like that if I was in the crowd. If I was in the press box, I would have screamed like a small child when I saw that.

I mean, given your connection to Lourdes, I'm surprised. Yeah, like him feeling pain like didn't radiate to you. Jesse, don't forget what I told you. Earlier in the day when I was going to get in the shower, I stepped on my cat and I tripped and I hurt my finger. Very much so. And I think that was some sort of precursor to, it's the same hand. It's left hand, right? Left hand?

Left hand. So your. Is useless. I think that was just maybe, maybe you think that Lord is. getting hit caused me to hurt my hand earlier. I think that your cat, I think your cat is to blame for both of these injuries, Derek. I don't, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do with that.

It's not the hairless cat that I love. It's the other cats, trash cat. Anyway, you're right, though. There was a trash cat. Yeah, one of my cats is a, wow. It's just a trash cat. I mean, it looks like it belongs in the trash. It's, yeah.

That's harsh, though. I know. Well, that is hard. I do call her it to her face. I mean, it's not like I keep it from. Oh, that's good. I'm glad. That makes it okay.

Max Simpson gives us the super chat. Shout out to Max Simpson, who's calling me Chancellor Montia. And everybody in this room knows why he's calling me that. But I will also say that you were talking about the lineup today. There was a lot of starters in the lineup today. And of course, Merrill Kelly made his Cactus League debut. Went much better than Zach Gallen's Cactus League debut. Merrill was on fire today.

Merrill went two innings. no hits, no runs, no walks, three strikeouts, 21 pitches. In fact, he was so efficient because he was supposed to throw 35 pitches, I believe. Yeah, two innings, he was 35 pitches. Like Gallanded yesterday, that he had to go pitch in the bullpen afterwards because he had to get to that pitch count. Yeah, he only threw 21 in the game. He threw almost as many pitches in the bullpen as he did in the actual game, 14 in the bullpen, 21 in the game.

Yeah, he looked really good. Merrill Kelly looked fantastic. The stuff, his Velo hadn't. I think maybe it was like 0.3 miles an hour down from last season or something, but there wasn't a big drop off there at all like there was with Zach Allen yesterday. So, yeah, Merrill Kelly basically looked like he picked up right where he left off in the World Series where he was obviously fantastic. And you asked him about the slow ramp up and how he kind of feels about, you know,

the, I guess the delay to seeing some live pitching or to seeing or live batters, I should say, on an opposing team. This is what Merrill had to say about the slow ramp up. I've enjoyed it. I don't feel like I'm behind the eight ball. You know, in my mind, I'm getting ready for September, October again, rather than, you know, the first part of the season or spring training, to be exact. Obviously, the first games, every game matters.

I'm not taking anything away from those. But I haven't minded, I've enjoyed kind of the slow ramp up, especially with how many innings that we both went last year. But I got nothing but confidence that both me and him will be ready to go when we start. I love what he said there. I love, like, remember. remember how much I hated what Christian Walker said about like only being on the Diamondbacks for seven or eight months.

I loved what he said right there about how he's thinking about pitching in September in October. I think that last year gives guys like Merrill all the confidence in the world that they can get back there again. And I hope it empowers Tori a bit for Merrill to maybe lay off Tori a little when Tori goes out there and tries to save Merrill's arm for some of those innings that they're going to need them for in September and October, you know? Yeah.

Absolutely. I mean, that's been a theme throughout all of spring training is that the diamondbacks have the playoffs in mind from the outset of the season. You know, Tori has talked a lot about setting a standard as opposed to having very high expectations for this season. But at the same time, it's apparent what the decisions that this team is making that they, they expect to be in the playoffs this year. Ken Kendrick said it a couple weeks ago. They will be disappointed if they're not playing in October. And that's why the diamond backs are handling this the way that they are. You're not seeing Merrill Kelly and Zach Gallen in games until, you know, well into March, which is, which is a kind of an unusual thing for a team to do. But I think it makes a lot of sense.

Obviously, the Diamondback success in 2024 very much hinges on those two guys being at their best. And I do think that it's possible that, you know, maybe they, maybe there will be a little bit more rust than normal at the beginning of the season. And maybe it will take them a little bit to kind of get into the groove once the season gets going. But again, I mean, they want to be at their best at the end of the season. And if they have to make some sacrifices on the front end, I think they're okay with that. Mark Salera asks a great question. Mark says, don't you guys also have that mindset for podcasting thinking about each other in October? Right.

Like we're trying to make sure that we know that we're going to be podcasting in October. So we have to pace ourselves. Right. I try to tell this guy that every single day. Does he listen to me? Absolutely not. And when I say not, when I say no, he doesn't listen to me. I mean that about everything in life.

There is nothing that he listens to me about. But pacing himself is definitely something he doesn't. No, I don't do that well. I left the game today. I sat in traffic for 45 minutes. I got myself a chicken sandwich. I was back here at the office. I drank some water.

Jesse, meanwhile, doing shorts, button up right against traffic time, sending them in, making me worry and panic. If he's going to beat it, know beat the traffic and get it here in time this man doesn't stop working so uh no i mean maybe maybe we need to learn but maybe we need to meet somewhere in the middle i think what we have to do we have to start just doing like 15 20 minute shows right now because we want to make sure that we're we're really ready to go for when the world series comes around these our shows they're a think of the past we're just cutting this down to 26 minutes every single day uh as a matter of fact we got like six minutes left i got a lot of

ad read. Yeah, we got a lot to get in the next reason to get to before we wrap it up. Speaking of guys doing well, Merrill Kelly, of course, we know he's a 99 rating in our hearts, but as we talked about yesterday with MLB the show, it was revealed that he is the Diamondbacks fifth highest rated player with a rating of 83.

And Jesse wanted to get Merrill's thoughts on this, and Merrill probably couldn't care less. This is what he had to say about his 83 rating. You see your MLB the show rating yesterday? I didn't. 83. Okay. I feel like it's underselling you a little bit.

What do you think? It's going up, so that's all I can really ask. That's the way above my payager to decide those numbers. I don't know what goes into them. And at the end of the day, it's a video game. I enjoy playing it, but I'm definitely not going to put too much stocking. And myself as a pitcher with what are a video game number is going to say. I mean, not easy right there, but I do appreciate the fact that all he cares about that it's going up, right?

Jesse, do you think yours and Merrill's relationship took a hit after you asked that question? You think he'll look at you different the next time you ask questions? I hope not. I hope not. Jesse's journalist rating went down with Merrill Kelly is what happened. He was at like an 89 and I think he dropped down to an 86. Yeah, I'm well down into the 70s for sure. He was pacing towards a 91 after you did the thoracic outlet surgery piece.

But now, I mean, I don't know so much. Hey, I lost all my credibility. I will say this. Shane, of course, he's back and we couldn't be happier that Shane's back. But when I told Shane Merrill Kelly's rating, he felt like it was egregious, egregious. He thought, and this is a very good point, that if Zach Gallen is a 91, Merrill Kelly should be an 89. Correct. Is that fair?

When you read off the ratings yesterday, that was the one that struck me as too low. I thought all the rest were pretty reasonable. Right. And I was like Merrill Kelly. And Gabby as an 83 would be fine with me. Sure. But knowing Gabby's lower than 83, bothers me a little bit. I have a feeling he's not going to be.

I think low 80s is fair for Gabby. That's fine. As long as he's low 80s, right. Merrill Kelly, like, if I get that he's not like a sexy name and he doesn't have star power. Merrill Kelly, that's a. Are you kidding me? Merrill Kelly? He doesn't have star power.

But like, for example, like, I wonder what like Tyler Glass now's rating is because I've, I was saw someone looking at his numbers and he's like a low to mid three ERA type of guy. Yeah. But, you know, everybody, his stuff is nasty. And he plays for the Dodgers. And so that's hot. So I feel like, you know, like, you know, like. Like that hurts Merrill.

Interested to see what Jock Peterson's rating. And if they have included Jock Peterson writing a hoverboard into the stadium as part of the graphics, that will be the show. I'm sure you will return the game. Oh, I will absolutely not purchase it. But he was two for three today with his first home run, three RBI, had himself a great day, a great, I guess a great glimpse into what we could see out of Jock Peterson as the D.H for this team because, man, it looked good.

Yeah, opposite field, man. Opposite field, 103-ish, off the bat, 395 feet. I looked at his homers from the last few years. He doesn't go opposite field very often. I think there were three of them last year. It tends to have between one and three-ish every season that are opposite field. But yeah, it was a really good swing, and he is a very big part of the middle of the lineup. We touched on him the other day as being one of the players that people might be overlooking a little bit going into this 20-24 season.

because he can be really good. Like against Ryan, he's a limited player. You know, you want him in there against right-ease as opposed to left-ease as much as you can. You don't want him to play the outfield very much. But when he's in there against a right-handed pitcher, he is one of the best hitters in the game at times. And he has the potential, at least, to be that this year.

We also had some good pitching performances from Paul Seawald, Kevin Yinkle today. They contributed. Good, you know, they were all right. They were okay. Paul, excuse me, let's start with Paul C. Well, you mean me. I feel like it's fitting that you said they were good.

And then you suddenly have a coughing spat all of a sudden. Paul Seawald actually threw some changeups today. He did. Yes. They were pretty effective. He got groundouts on two of them, right? Yeah, he's gotten several groundouts. We've seen this was his third spring training start and we have seen him get several

groundouts at this point to today with that change up. And he's kind of used it to maybe. set up other pitches and other situations when he's thrown it out of the zone. We haven't seen him get a swing and miss on a change up yet, which I think will be, he'll probably want to see at least a little bit of that in spring training to have confidence in the pitch going into the season. Again, he's setting a very high bar with this pitch. He wants to go to strike out the best left-handed hitters in the game with it.

So I think that's something to continue to watch. But yeah, he looked all right. He got out of the inning. He walked a guy. His fastball Velo picked up a little bit. Still not fantastic. but it averaged 89.9 today it's hopped out at 90.9. He hit 90.9, almost 91 miles an hour, right?

Yeah. So, uh, would you calm down about his Velo now? I was never the one I feel like if anyone was getting all worked up about it. It was probably you, but, uh, you'd get worked up. Yeah, I know. It was impossible. I can't even imagine. That's crazy. You guys should have been here before the show.

Derek almost brought the studio down with his screaming and yelling. It was incessing. Oh, yeah. I was, I was going to fire Dave. And like you have that authority. Like I have that authority. I was going to fire David and Jesse at the same time. Kevin Ginkle.

Not such a great day. But he, you know, his velocity isn't really down. He's actually looked at. Today was his first outing against the actual opposing team? Yeah, it was his first spring training outing. He gave up a home run on his second pitch. He threw a fastball right down the middle. And it did go over the fence.

But yeah, his Vila was 95.1, I think, was the average today. Last year was 95.7. So not down in a significant way. Yeah, he's right there. Coming back from the elbow soreness that he had earlier on in spring, it seems like he's just fine and not a great outing necessarily, but this is the first one. And yeah, I thought he looked good for it being the first one.

What, do we have any updates on some of these guys that we haven't seen yet? I know Corby Martin is supposed to pitch. in a spring training game here soon, right? Do you think that's going to happen this weekend? What are the thoughts here? Yeah, I don't know exactly when. But Corbyn Martin did throw a live BP session on the backfields. In fact, we have some video of that.

I want to roll one of those clubs, Damon. Here he is against one Randall Grishick, who's another name, another guy we should mention in this conversation. You see Corbyn striking him out on a breaking pitch low and away. And then here he is facing out Thomas. And this is a called third strike and also a breaking pitch that just dropped right in the zone. Alec Thomas very, very clearly fooled there. I thought his stuff looks really good.

His command was a little bit in and out at times. But stuff-wise, Corbyn Martin looked really good. And Tori Lavello did say his next step is to get into a game. When exactly that happens, I'm not totally sure. I would imagine not tomorrow, not Sunday, sometime early next week. It seems like a reasonable possibility there. Tori did say that was the next step for him, right? Yeah, yeah, he's not.

I asked, is he going to do another live BP or you want to see him in a game? And Tori said that the next step is to see him in a game. So he's someone that people have maybe forgotten about in the bullpen competition a little bit, but I think there's a possibility that corporate Martin comes out and looks really good in some of these games. And maybe, you know, he still could find his way

into the opening day bullpen for the Diamondbacks. I wouldn't rule that out at this point. What about Randall Gritchie? Is he going to be available for this team by opening day? I don't know. The Diamondbacks have not, Tori Lavello has not said no at this point, but it doesn't seem like things are trending

in a positive direction for that necessarily. He hasn't really done much. Yeah, he hit today. This was his first time facing a live pitcher. Corbyn Martin was one of the pitchers that he faced. But, yeah, he hasn't run the bases yet. He hasn't played any outfield. I know Tori Lavello said way back when the debacks first got Grishik,

that it was possible he might be limited when the season starts. You know, maybe they would start him out as just a DH. And then over time, as the ankle heals, they'd get him back into the outfield. But, yeah, I wouldn't. I mean, you got to be able to run the bases. And in order to be a DH, you still have to be able to run the bases. And that's something that it doesn't sound like he's going to get to for at least a week from now. So I wouldn't, I wouldn't rule him out for opening day by any means.

but he's going to have to start picking up steam here pretty soon in order for that to be possible. And this is all dating back to that ankle surgery, right? Yeah, I mean. Clearing up some bone spurs or something like that in late January. Yeah. Bone spurs are, that's no joke, man. Yeah. It's a nightmare to live with.

I'm sure you have a lot of. I have every name some sort of. These injuries are all. I have it. They're all very relatable. You want to talk about a hip replacement? I haven't had that yet, but I'm probably on my way to words to that. ever since we played broomball remember that's what i hurt myself i didn't play broomball i know you weren't

i was the representative for our team and i did not do a good job uh i hurt myself quite a bit as a matter fact just bringing up broomball makes like my entire right side kind of get a little tingly and numb that was pre-daman too wasn't it yeah that was pre-daman and uh it was i have genuinely no idea what you guys were talking about right now and i've been here for a pretty long time brum ball was like it was like you went on ice and you played in your shoes on ice and you like use kind of this stick to hit like a kickball type ball into like nets right and uh it was i went pretty hard let's just say i mean you're so you're like slipping and falling on the ice constantly well actually like when you first get out there you're it's okay it's the fact that you're like running around on it

that then makes the ice slick because they kind of chop the ice up a little bit so that you can actually Walk on and on shoes. It's this is back when we're trying to do a bunch of like group bonding activities Right staff meetings and that only lasted so long because yeah these games just made us hate each other Oh my God. I hate shots so much because of most of this stuff to this day like I remember when we did the trivia and I was on Saul's team and he looked at me after it and he was like you were awful like that's what that's all is I played oh my god when we couldn't figure out the four major movies that Samuel Jackson had started and we just forgot about Avengers and

Star Wars all together. We were like Pulp Fiction and what else? Django. Oh, we were bad. I would have been really good at that game. I'm sure. I would have been a big asset if I were there.

Forgetting Star Wars and Avengers was crazy. That was just crazy, right? I might have got a Star Wars. I might have thought of Star Wars. We were like Jurassic Park, right? He was in that. Yeah, no, anything else.

Well, I don't know how to transition, but I guess speaking of assets, Elvis Andrews, he's another guy that the Diamondbacks still have waiting in the wings to make his debut. He faced pitchers in live BP today, and apparently Tori said he's targeting Sunday for his spring training debut. So he'll be in action earlier than some of these other guys that were still kind of got some question marks about. Yeah, we saw Elvis Anders working on some defense out there,

taking ground balls and whatnot. So yeah, he is here. He is working. And it sounds like, we'll see him in a Cactus League game here pretty soon. Yep. It's, there's just, there's still a lot of, I mean, this team is set, right? We know that this team is going to have a solid lineup. Yet there's a lot of questions still about how the depth is going to fill out,

which one of these guys are going to make the team. I mean, Michael McDermott made a great point a little while ago when he said Corby Martin is going to lose his roster spot to an inferior pitcher. and I could absolutely see that because I like Corbyn Martin a lot. And I think that he is going to be a great weapon for this team. It might not happen by opening day. But I think that the situation is going to remain fluid throughout the season as far as their depth from the minor leagues and guys that they call up and utilize as the season goes on. I think, you know, of course, we've talked about the difference between expectations and a standard and that even came up again today.

but I think that standard is going to be an understanding that you have to perform. And if you don't, you might expect to lose not only your starting role, but your job altogether with this franchise, right? Yeah, I mean, I think for Corby and Martin, it really is just all going to be health because, you know, the pitcher that we saw today, he did walk a couple of guys. I think he's truck out to and walk two. So there's clearly a ways to go command wise for him.

That is something that I'm sure the Diamondbacks will want to see come around. But from a stuff standpoint, the pitcher I saw today was pretty nasty. And Corbyn Martin is someone where in the past, you know, I'm not going to say his command has necessarily been excellent all the time. But that hasn't been like a huge issue for him in the same way that it has for some of these other, some of these other relievers, like Justin Martinez or, you know, some of the other guys who'd be in the conversation. So if you can get him healthy and you can get him enough reps in games where he's comfortable

and the command comes around, Corbin Martin could have as good as stuff as just about any one of the Diamondbacks bullpen. I agree with that 100%. I agree with that 100%. Well, we thank you guys for being here in the PHANXPorts YouTube channel. And yes, I'm fine, Nicholas,

with you shaming me about that. It was one of those situations where in a trivia game, an answer that you absolutely would know. We choked it. No, we could just say it. We choked it. But you know what I mean, right? Like, you're like, I know that answer

nine times out of 10. The one time that I don't know it is when I'm being put on the spot. And there's a time limit. Yeah, it was pretty bad. But, of course, we appreciate your forgiveness if you do offer that up. We thank you for being here in the PHAX Sports YouTube channel. If you haven't subscribed to the channel yet, do so now. Sign up for notifications.

That way you don't miss when any of our wonderful shows go live. Drop us a like. We always appreciate when you do that. And of course, we thank you for being subscribers on the audio side as well. Make sure you're subscribed over there. Leave us a review. We always appreciate that feedback. And we love hearing from you guys.

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It's that easy. So make sure to check out prize picks. If prize picks had an option for Diamondbacks and who they would have signed as free agents, I definitely would have said there was a very high probability of them going after who they got, which is Eduardo Rodriguez. And we know Eduardo Rodriguez was somebody that the Diamondbacks were interested in. We heard that they were pursuing him at the trade deadline. They didn't end up getting him then, but they did end up getting him during free agency. Now what we're finding out based on an interview from our friends over at Fowell Territory is that another starting pitcher, who was a free agent,

was very, very close to signing with the Arizona Diamondbacks, and that is Sunny Gray. Yeah, yes. This did come out, and I admire the foul territory crew. Oh, they drug it out of them. They're getting this out of Sunny Gray. We're not let you leave. They tell us who the other team is.

Against his will. Yeah, the Diamondbacks were, and I'm not, I wouldn't say I'm shocked by this. Like, I think it was clear that Sunny Gray made some sense for the Diamondbacks. Certainly someone we talked about on this show. we talked about him a lot actually going into the offseason is like if you you know you might be able to get a pretty darn good starting pitcher without paying the Blake's money or you know which we somehow we still don't know what the Blake's snow money actually is no money yeah but uh but yeah I mean I think it made a lot of sense for the diamondbacks then and now we find out that the diamondbacks were apparently pretty close to actually signing Sunny Gray this is what sunny gray had to say about it when eventually he gave up the goods

the reds were definitely one at the end and it ultimately did come down to those two at the end the reds and the cardinals at the end but i'd went to bed a couple nights before thinking that i was going somewhere else to be completely honest with you and so then the cardinals got involved and as soon as they did i mean me and me and jesska had a conversation my wife and we had talked about I mean, that's a place that it would when we sat down at the beginning of the free agency after the season and you kind of list all 30 teams. That was definitely a team that was right, right there at the top. And but then the free agency is weird. It was cool and it was awesome, but it was also very weird because then you go down this rabbit hole of like,

you can see yourself and your family in this situation and you're like, okay, and you get deep into that. And you're like, well, and then the Cardinals call and you're like, ah, you know. And then you got to take a step back and say, you know what? Like, where, when this thing started and everything, where did I want to, where did I want to be? And ultimately, it did, it came down to, I would say it came down to three teams at the end. And, you got to tell us who the third one. It was the Diamondbacks, the Reds and the Cardinals. So three, yeah, okay.

At the end, but before that, there were a few other teams that we were popular. We were. Because you were good. Well, thank you. Compliment. Appreciate that. See, that's the key. You get it out of them and then you compliment him right away.

God bless A.J. Presensky. I guess now we have to start looking at that because it feels like this is one of those situations where the Diamondbacks would not have acquired both of these guys. They would have acquired one of these two players, either Sunny Gray or Eduardo Rodriguez. So would Gray hypothetically have been a better pickup than Erod? I know we don't know that until I guess we see results in 2024. but what are your thoughts? I mean, we do have a little graphic comparison

that shows what these two guys. Yeah, let's take a look at that. Yeah, I think their numbers are fairly comparable from last year in some ways. I mean, they had the exact same whip of 1.15. Sunny Gray's ERA was better to 779 compared to 330 for Eduardo Rodriguez. You do see the FWR.

There's a pretty big difference there. 5.3 for Sunny Gray, 3.0 for Eduardo. Regis, Sunny Gray's FIP was really good and fan graphs really loves, they really love their FIP. So that's why you see Fangraphs were liking Sunny Gray so much more. And Sunny Gray also made a full season of starts. He started 32 games, 184 innings finished. I want to say off the top of my head second in Cy Young voting last year. Yeah, second in Cy Young voting was an all star. So it was a, it was a really, really good season for Sunny Gray. Like that's the highest in Cy Young voting he had ever finished and it was in his age 33 season. So yeah, on paper, I think we can start by saying

Sunny Gray was definitely the better pitcher last year. However, when looking at the two deals that were given, the Diamondbacks essentially almost get an extra year of Eduardo for what it would cost for Sunny Gray. Sunny Gray's deal was three years 75 million with a mutual option. Erod's deal four years, 80 million with a vesting option. Yeah. Yeah. And it's interesting. the construction of those deals, I believe Sunny Gray is only making $10 million in 2024, and then it goes to $25 million in 2025, and then it goes to $35 million.

So it's not an even $25 million all three seasons. He's actually making less in 2024 than Eduardo Rodriguez. Erod is also taking a lower number in year one. He's making $14 million. So, yeah, I mean, if you're asking me, would I rather on the 2024 Diamondback? be paying Sunny Gray $10 million as opposed to Eduardo Rodriguez $14 million. No-brainer, right?

Diamondbacks, they should have signed Sunny Gray instead if they could have had him for that number. But at the same time, there is the reality that Eduardo Rodriguez is younger, right, by about three, four years. So that's certainly a factor here. There's only a one-year difference in the guaranteed portion of these contracts. So you're committing to Sunny Gray up until his age 36 season, I guess his age 34 through age 36 seasons, which generally starting pitchers don't age all that well into their mid 30. So there's more risk there. Yeah, I think there's a, I think there's a case to be made either way on this one. The diamondbacks get a lefty.

I guess there's some advantages there. The fact that Zach Allen and Merrill Kelly are already right handed, it adds some balance to have a lefty. but if it's just if it's just me personally i think there's there's arguments to be made on both sides i just think that sunny gray just knows how to pitch man like he has just figured the thing out he's been doing it for a really long time uh and uh you know he hasn't necessarily been the most durable i don't think either of these guys necessarily have been but sunny gray was better last year and uh projection systems it's not a huge difference but projection systems like sunny gray better in 2024 and i would probably have picked sunny gray

if I had a choice between the two. But the money is not necessarily the same. So that, you know, it's hard to definitively say one or the other. Indulge me for a moment. Sure. What if we got both Eduardo Rodriguez and Sunday. I had a feeling you were going to take this approach. What if Brandon fought was our number five starter?

What if Sunny Gray was our number four starter? Or Eduardo Rodriguez was our number four starter? What if then, Jesse Friedman? What if then? not a real scenario, right? Like with how much these guys cost, there was no way the Diamondbacks are going to get at either of them.

It's the same reason why when the subject comes up, which we're going to expand on a little bit more in our audio podcast on Saturday, are any of the available pitchers on the free agent market? And there's a few of them that are really big names left. Are any of them players that the Diamondbacks

might actually look at? And the only reason why that answer is no is money, right? The Diamondbacks would love to solve their, you know, rotation, their fifth, fifth starter in the rotation by going out and getting one of these guys with experience and not having to rely on Tommy Henry or Ryan Nelson or one of their younger players. However, they still believe in those guys. And I think at the end of the day, they believe that they can get damn near the same performance, you know, maybe out of one of these guys that they could get out of a free agent that they bring in, not as Sunny Gray, because Sunny Gray is an excellent pitcher. So not, I'm not acting like you're going to get that out Tommy Henry or Ryan Nelson. But. compared to some of the guys that they might have the money for, they might as well just go with what they have in-house and allow the younger guys to compete,

not just now in spring training, but as the season progresses, compete for that spot. Yeah, yeah, getting both maybe a little, maybe a little ambitious. I mean, it'd be fine in the first year because combined they're making $24 million with how things have turned out. But in year three, I think you'd be paying them a combined, like,

$60 million. I don't think the Diamondbacks would want to do. But yeah, I just think, you know, Eduardo Rodriguez is someone where the durability has never been fantastic for him. He's managed to be pretty consistent from a result standpoint. But I just think he's, I think he's a tier lower in terms of starting pitcher.

He's not a bad starting pitcher by any means. What about being a lefty though? Does that, like, does that add anything? Does that do anything for you? It adds a little bit. It does, you know, it definitely is a point in Erod's favor. But at the end of the day, I would just want the best starting pitcher of the two. And if there was a way to get Sunny Gray without compromising the rest of the diamond backs off season, you know, does getting sunny gray instead of Erod, does that make it so now you can't bring back Lordis or you can't get Jock Peterson, whatever the ramifications of that is?

I'm not totally sure. But I liked Sunny Gray from the beginning. When the Cardinals signed him, we said on this show, that seems like a pretty good deal. Maybe the devac should have done it. And I still, you know, nothing against Erod. I don't think that the four-year, $80 million deal is necessarily terrible or anything. But Sunny Gray, who's just a really good starting pitcher still, three years, feels like a safe commitment where, you know, you're not committing to him well, well beyond when I think he could be effective. It, to me, it's still pretty compelling.

I mean, again, that's, it's an interesting thing to think about. And I think you and I are going to take a swing at maybe some alternate timelines next week on what might have happened. What if the Diamondbacks spent their money a little differently? And like this is one of those cases that we might circle back around to and say, what if the Diamondbacks went after Sunny Gray instead of Eduardo Rodriguez. So, of course, make sure to stay tuned for that. Also, we're going to be having some fun this weekend. Phoenix Raceway.

Yeah? I'm going to be out there. Jesse's going to be probably at a baseball game because that's what he does. But I'm going to be out of the Phoenix Raceway this weekend because Valley of the Sun roars in the life when NASCAR returns to Phoenix Raceway this weekend, March 8th through the 10th. It's happening today. They got stuff going on today. I think qualifying and such. I don't know a lot about racing, so I hope to learn some more tomorrow.

And my wife is very mad at me because she loves racing and she doesn't get to go. but I get to go. And you guys, of course, make sure to join us out there for the best-in-class fan experience, and it meets racing's toughest drivers for three days of action, all surrounded by the beautiful Australian mountains.

Whether your die-hard racing fan or simply looking for a fantastic day or weekend out, this event promises fun for everyone from live entertainment, fan hospitality areas, and an immersive infield experience. So get your tickets to the Shriners Children's 500 at the Phoenix Raceway right now.

March 8th through the 10th promises a good weekend of good vibes for the whole family. Get your reserved grandstand tickets now at phoenix raceway.com. And also, yeah, Nicholas says, if you're out at Salt Riverfields tomorrow on Saturday, make sure to go stop by, see the lads, have some chicken tendies. It's like the official, the unofficial, official diehard meetup happening tomorrow. Are you going to make an appearance?

I probably will, actually. I mean, if I'm invited, I don't know. We'll see if they'll have me. Do we have to be invited? I don't know. Aren't we like the mayor and vice mayor of the diehards too? Aren't we in charge of them? No.

It depends on what they say, Derek. We just, we aim to, we aim to serve them. So if they'll allow me to come over and hang out with them for a few minutes, hopefully, hopefully they'll allow me to. I'm a person that people typically like to invite to parties.

And the reason why that is, Damon, what do I normally have in my pockets with me when I'm at parties? Oh, geez, gummies? Yeah. It could have been, It could have been a million different. No, that is true.

I have a lot of stuff in my ears. I thought you're going to say like burritos, illegal piece. No, yeah, you're right. There's a lot of things that could. Pocket burritos are killer. Pocket burritos. Jesse scolds me for my pocket sandwiches

that I have every single day, by the way. I would, I do because you're a grown man and you probably should learn how to like bring yourself a viable. Hold on. This fan will pull out a handmade peanut butter and jelly sandwich and then scold me for my uncrustable. Have you ever seen something so hypocritical in your entire goddamn life?

There's a- Are you five? You're being uncrustable? Shut up! You don't shame me for my love of incrustable? They're great. They are happy that Espo just said. I'm fired up tonight.

If you brought an uncrustable one day a week, if it was an occasional like, man, I just didn't have time to come up with something else, that would be acceptable. But this man shows up in the press box every single day with an uncrustable. I like it. It's a snack. It's a good, healthy snack. I'm not going to listen to you guys.

And this is what I need OGs for, is to get over nights like this with these coworkers that drive me insane. They drive me insane. So, of course, OGs has the perfect thing for me, which is the big OGs that I consume on my own. They tell me it's perforated. Is that the right way to say it? Perforated. They tell me it's perforated.

I don't believe them because I've never actually checked it out. But it is 100 milligrams of THC in a single mega version of Peggs Raspberry Orange RSO. They also have the OGs Natural, which are vegan gummies made with live rosin, available in sweet Clementine flavor. To learn more about OG's Gummies, where you can find them, head on over to OGsbrands.com. And I won't be shamed for my love of them. Crustables at all. I won't be. I'm done with it.

Nicholas says you need to buy them specifically to make French toast out of them. That actually. You deep fry them. They have Nutella uncrustables. Nutella uncrustables, Jesse. And you know what? Max is in here right now. You'd be so mad about this free ad that I'm giving.

It's been a pretty long for you. It's pretty good. But anyway, we do appreciate you guys for being diehards, by the way. If you aren't a diehard yet, join us over here. Get your diehard membership. It's at go phtnx.com. You can get discounts on events like our upcoming takeover of the Chasefield pool on July 31st. Make sure not to miss that.

Not only that, but you get all of Jesse's content. You get access to our Discord lounge, which is the best place to be in Arizona Sports fan. We have all sorts of exclusive content just for our diehards and more. So make sure to join us over here. You get discounts with our partners. I could go on and on. It's a great thing. I forgot about the shirt.

Look at all the things I listed. I didn't even bring up the shirt. Sure. Get a free shirt from p.nx locker.com. which means there might be a new shirt come in very soon. Maybe two shirts, maybe three shirts. I don't know. Keep your eye locked to phnxlocker.com.

And of course, join us over here and become a diehard today. Jesse, I know you're going to hate this. I know you're going to hate this. But we have to talk about Jersey shit again. There's more Jersey news. There's more terrible Jersey news. I know Jesse's like, you have to be kidding me. There's another problem with the new MLB jerseys.

This time around, Paul Lucas, he's doing God's work over there at Unowatch.com. He's reporting that certain teams road gray uniforms don't seem to match the road gray pants. So the top and bottom are different shades of gray. And one of those teams is your Arizona Diamondbacks. He took a look at this picture of Gabby. I did notice that when they released this, I did not notice the pants mismatching. but now after Paul makes, you know, this assertion. Yeah.

I do see it now. I do see that they are a different shade. I did think when I first saw the Diamondbacks new gray jersey that it was a unique kind of gray color, right? It's not your just your typical, like, I don't know, they're all different shades of gray. And I know this sounds ridiculous for me to be able to see it. But like it just looked like maybe it had a little bit more blue in it or something. You know, like it just looks like a little bit, you know, nicer of a shade of gray. The Diamondbacks have had certain road uniforms in the past that were like a darker gray and things like that.

People know about the dark gray. The dark gray. Oh, yeah, they hate the dark gray. But, I mean, again, I referred to our pal Jack from Sports Illustrated because Jack has a lot of experience in dealing with manufacturing. And he's actually been in the shoe industry. But we talked about him. I asked him about this because I find this whole situation to be fascinating. Nike is completely scapegoated.

fanatics in this situation. Fanatics keeps saying we're doing what Nike asked of us. Nike keeps saying, yeah, fanatics is the one doing this stuff. I don't know what's wrong with them. But the interesting part about this is Jack was saying that this issue with the gray isn't really a fanatics manufacturing because the jerseys usually come over already the color that they are. So the color thing isn't necessarily to blame for them.

And Paul goes into much deeper detail. and Jesse wants me to go into here about like die batches and how this could happen where the pants are dyed in one batch and the shirt or jerseys are dyed a different batch and gray is kind of a hard shade to match I guess to make it exactly the same. There are a lot of shades of gray. There are a lot of shades of gray. At least 50. At least 50 of them according to the book. There might be more. I don't know.

That book might be full of lies. But anyway, yeah, I don't know how this stuff keeps happening. I mean, I honestly today just stopped and thought. Is this just because we can see stuff so clearly now? Like, did we care about this shit? Like, we're jerseys mismatching back in the 80s and no one gave a shit because no one looked at it close enough to scrutinize it this much? I don't know what to say about this, but it really does feel like this, like, it seems like every day there's something new. That's a problem with these jerseys made by Nike and Fanatics.

Can we pull up the picture of Gabby one more time? I had to sit with this image for a while. I was a little bit skeptical when Derek was talking about this. I was staring at this picture and I was like, they look exactly the same to me. There is nothing wrong. And then eventually after looking at this for about, I don't know, maybe a full minute is when I finally realized that, yes, they are slightly different shades of gray. And I think this reporter who put this out there, the Cardinals uniforms appeared to be especially noticeable. The Diamondbacks maybe a little bit less so.

They haven't been wearing their gray uniforms in spring training games because they don't do that. So we haven't seen them actually on the field. But yeah, this is just another episode and another chapter in the saga. Poor quality. Yeah, I'm tired of it. Yeah. I wear a laundry podcast, Derek. This is dumb.

That's what you get for covering fucking the jackets when I wasn't here. You know I'm still mad about that. That's fair. In other baseball nudes, Red's top prospect, Noel B. Marte, no relation to Arkelde, has been suspended 80 games for PEDs. That's a big hit for the Reds because obviously the Reds were looking at him as being their next exciting player in their system. Yeah, him and like six other guys. That farm system has really brought in a lot of incredible prospects over the last year.

So yeah, big loss, but also the Reds have like so many pretty solid young position players that I think. think they'll, I think they'll, they'll, they'll land on their feet and be just okay. But yeah, not a, not a good thing. You know, certainly never, never good news, especially with a young player who's just coming into the league. I don't, we haven't seen much information on how exactly this happened or what his responses or whatnot, but never something you like to see for, you know, an emerging young potential star in, in the majors.

Dave Roberts, uh, over at the Dodgers moved Mookie Betts over to shortstop. Yeah. And has moved Gavin Lux to second base today. And he followed that up by saying the change is quote unquote permanent for now. Which is one of my favorite phrases that I've ever heard. I'm going to start using that permanent for now. It doesn't make any sense. An oxymoron.

Who's playing third for them? For the Dodgers? Yeah. Is this like where you know it, but you're trying to like set us up to like own the Dodgers somehow? I'm genuinely asking because. It's not James Outman, Damon. I'm genuinely asking because last year it was Max Muncie because JD Martinez adds of DH so I'm wondering if Max Muncie is now

D-Hing or if he's still planning on playing third base. Well, Shohei Otani is going to some guy named Shoah Otani is going to do a DH say it. I thought you knew ball, David. Well, to my next point, is that the worst defensive infield in baseball?

Mookie played a few games at short last year and I thought he handled it pretty well. An inexperienced shortstop. A guy who was so bad at shortstop, he had to move this second and has been pretty notoriously bad this spring training. And Max Muncie, who can't, has no range and is not a good defense. Freddie Freeman is a pretty good first base. So your best, you have won, you, yeah. The other three are more important, though.

The other three are more important. Yeah, that's fair. Yeah, I mean, probably not going to be a great defensive infield. I think that's a fair point. Mookie Betso, I think, could probably be like a league average shortstop. I mean, he's just that crazy athletic. It's a testament to just how crazy athletic he is that Dave Roberts can just plug him in at shortstop

and be like, yeah, I'll be fine, that's cool. I absolutely hope it doesn't work out for them. I hope none of it works out for them. That stinks. It stinks. That's a bad on-paper defensive infield. And I hope we take advantage of that with our speed. It could be a situation where, once again,

you know, you try to figure out that you're going to have the best players, even if it didn't make sense where you have them, right? And you're going to make them change and fit as you see fit. Hopefully, it doesn't work for them. Like, that's the best case scenario for the Diamondbacks is that it's an absolute failure over there. The Dodgers just aren't, I mean, it's not going to happen. But, man, wouldn't that just be great?

Wouldn't it be great if they were just a colossal failure? I keep telling Jesse. Just like the Mets, you know, from last year, this year. I keep telling Jesse, it would be amazing. amazing if Yoshi was just, like, could not pitch at a major league level. It would be. And they just gave him 300 million. Yeah, well, it would be awesome.

So far, thank you. A lot has been made of Yoshi struggling the other day, but it kind of connects back that we were just talking about because Gavin Lux was like booting the, he was like kicking the ball all over the place in that game max months. He also struggled a little bit defensively in that one. So, yeah, I'm also curious if the Dodgers at some point would just decide to play Miguel Rojas at shortstop. He gives you next to nothing offensively, but he is really good defensively, and the Dodgers used him there last year for the majority of the season.

So maybe Gavin Lux just, you know, and this is a tough position for him where he really has to hit in order to justify being the lineup every day. And if he struggles in that regard at all, we might just see them go to Miguel Rojas's shortstop, in which case I think their defense would be pretty good again. You know, Dan, I shamed you earlier for not getting the OGs things right. but you're right. I do have a burrito in my pocket. And I should not. It's a breakfast burrito. Do you actually?

Yeah, it's a breakfast burrito. I'll save it for tomorrow. It's fine. But you know what I'm going to do is I'm going to replace it with a brand new one from some burrows on my way home. The reason why is because Suburros right now is offering PHNX listeners 20% off their orders for the entire month of March. All you have to do is give the code PHMX a checkout 20% off your order of up to $100 when

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locations throughout the Valley and Flagstaff. You're never far from delicious time-tested Sonoran-style recipes lovingly prepared since 1986. Check out their newest locations in Goodyear, Peoria and North Phoenix, or visit somebarrows.com to find one near you. Also, while you're out there, maybe go on a little adventure with our friends at Arizona Lottery. Arizona Lottery is introducing a new unique ticket promotion called Arizona Adventure.

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Big shout out to Arizona Lottery for sponsoring all of our spring training coverage. So thanks to them. And of course, make sure while you're watching some baseball games, you take in some. some of these wonderful locations with this AZadventure.com. Well, that's all we got. Like I said, we will be back tomorrow with our Saturday podcast, audio side. So make sure you're subscribed over there. That way you don't miss any of your weekly Derek and Jesse conversations.

In the meantime, if you can't get enough of us, you can follow us on social media. I'm at Kapp underscore Kman with the K. This maniac next to me is at Jesse N. Friedman. The producer that we are big fans of and we love and we are his dogs. He's Damon Dog. You can find him at Damon Dog. That's DAWG. We are Damon's dogs.

Bark, bark. You know, I was going to say, like, that felt a little over the top from you, Derek, but I honestly,

after Jesse's like, his so lack of, of, you know, he's just total apathy. Did you see my disappointment? Yeah. He like, I appreciate your effort for even trying.

Thank you. Thank you. This guy just doesn't even care. He phones it in all the time. It's hard. I did bark. You did. bark, but like we've been recruited by some people that want us to be their dogs.

Alec Thomas, Ryan Thompson. It's not my fault that Jerry P loves us. It's not my fault that Kevin Ginkle is a huge fan of the show, Damon. All right, they all want us to be their dogs, but we are OG Damon's dogs. Say it again. Bark, bark. Who was with you when you were in the mud, though? That's what I'm asking.

It was Damon Dog. We were Damon's dogs in the mud. We were down in the mud together as Damon's dogs. Was Alex trying to be your dog before the World Series run? That's fine. But to be fair, when he planted that flag in Philadelphia, I guess I did. I would have jumped ship.

I would have divorced my wife for Alan Thomas when he planted that flag in Philadelphia, David. I have no loyalty when it comes to these guys. All right. Well, of course, our show is at PHNX underscore D-Backs, but all roads do lead to at PHNX underscore sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

Thank you guys so much for stopping by. tonight. We appreciate your time. Hope to see out at Salt River Fields or out at Phoenix Raceway this weekend. At some point of course, we appreciate you. We love you. And remember kids, baseball is fun, but it is so much more fun when Merrill Kelly shoves.