PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - With Mitch Garver off the market, who should Diamondbacks turn to in DH search?

Episode Date: December 26, 2023

The list of potential Diamondbacks DH targets got shorter on Christmas Eve with the news that Mitch Garver signed with the Seattle Mariners. We discuss who the D-backs could turn to next, new rule changes coming to MLB in 2024 and a plethora of mailbag questions, ranging from a Diamondbacks murder mystery to draft pick valuations.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/200Schedule 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 into the PHNX Devac show. I just dropped my phone on the ground, but everything is totally fine, even though it made an extremely loud noise here. In the Four Peaks minivar, that's where we are today. It is just me. One, Derek Montia is off doing mayoral tasks, I guess, around the holidays, just sort of doing what he has to do. He'll be back with us next week.

We'll have a number of guests joining us here throughout the week, which should be a great time. But today you just get me and Damon, of course. Damon is also here. Damon will be chiming in throughout the show. Hope everyone had, of course, a very Merry Christmas yesterday. Damon, I had a fantastic Christmas up until right around 8.30 p.m. When the Phoenix Suns played a very bad basketball game against the Dallas Mavericks.

And then, yeah, and then all of the fun that I had had throughout the day just very quickly, it was just awful. and it left a very bad taste to my mouth from Christmas Day, which was unfortunate. I'd say that's fair. Yeah, yeah, not exactly the way I wanted to see the day end. But, hey, we're not talking about the Phoenix Suns today. We're talking about the Arizona Diamondbacks, a team that a lot of people have kind of turned to is like, you know, can't wait for spring training, can't wait for the calendar to flip around, and I get to stop worrying about the Suns and start thinking about the Arizona Diamondbacks, which of course makes a lot of sense given the season that they just had. But there was some sad news, especially for you, Damon, I'm sure, that came out a few days ago as one Mitch Garver officially signed with the Seattle Mariners, two years, $24 million. That came out on Christmas Eve.

Mad respect to Jeff Passon, who reported that. It was, you know, out there hustling, working on Christmas Eve when the rest of us were very much not. But Mitch Garver goes to the Seattle Mariners. Of course, he kind of steps in a nice piece for them. steps in and essentially replaces Tom Murphy in some ways. Tom Murphy, of course, was a backup catcher for the Mariners. We talked about him as being a potential target for the Diamondbacks. He winds up signing with the San Francisco Giants on a two-year deal for around $8 million.

We talked about that last week. Now Mitch Garver steps in into that Mariners lineup and he's a really good player. There's a reason that we talked about him here on this show as being one of the primary targets for the Diamondbacks. And, you know, for whatever reason, the Diamondbacks wound up not pulling the trigger here. He goes to the Seattle Mariners and Damon's Christmas was ruined. Am I right, Damon? Yeah, sweet baby Mitch.

I was really wanting him. And it just, it was tough. It was tough to see for sure. Mitch Garver, an 870 OPS in 2023. Numbers, yeah, I mean, numbers that were absolutely outstanding. And I can fully understand why, you know, obviously there's some injury concerns there. There's some durability questions with Mitch Garver that are very valid. And, you know, who really knows exactly what the Mariners are getting here? Are they going to pay

Mitch Garver $12 million or whatever it is in 2024 to play, you know, 140 games for them? Or is it going to be more like the last few years where it's going to be more like Mitch Garver playing, you know, 70 games for them, something in that neighborhood. But we saw with the Texas Rangers, you know, how impactful of a player he can be. You know, the Rangers, you know, the Rangers, were not necessarily relying all that much on Mitch Garver because they had a star studded lineup. But yeah, I mean, Garver absolutely one of the guys we had near the top of the list as far as who the Diamondbacks could target a DH. He winds up going to the Seattle Mariners.

And of course, this kind of brings up the question of where do the Diamondbacks go from here? If you're the debacks, Mitch Garver is now off the table. There are still a number of names that are still out there. J.D. Martinez, of course, is one that we've talked on this show quite a bit. Jorge Salare, Reese Hoskins, Justin Turner. We talked about Tommy Fam, just bringing him back as being a possibility there as well. As far as lefties go, we talked about a couple of left-handed options in Brandon Belt and Jock Peterson last week. Of course, Mike Hazen, when he addressed the media, talking about the Lordus Gouriel move,

he said that the Diamondbacks don't necessarily have to target a right-handed hitter for that DH spot. He brought up the idea of a lefty being an option as well. I guess you could sort of bridge the gap. and go with a Carlos Santana, him being a switch hitter and also a potential option here. Damon, I'm curious. Mitch Garver's off the table. You can't have the guy that might have been your number one. Is there anyone on this list who's sort of standing out to you is like, all right, that's the new,

that's the new crown jewel of all the designated hitter targets. Well, I think Mitch Garver was just like a personal, like I thought he was kind of undervalued. But I do think JD is better than Mitch Garver. So I would still say JD is the crown jewel. Yeah, I think that's fair. We did hear, I believe there was a report regarding the Mariners situation that the Mariners were priced out of J.D. Martinez, and that sort of led them in the direction of Mitch Garver, which is interesting. Mitch Garver gets 224 and the Mariners were priced out of J.D. Martinez. So probably safe to say that J.D. Martinez is looking for a two-year deal and we'll probably get it when all is said and done. We've talked about that before, how, you know, when a guy puts up those kind of numbers and, you know, hits 30. 33 homers and drives in over 100 playing around 115 games. It's hard to imagine that guy only getting a one-year contract, even though obviously he's 36,

and there's certainly some risk there. But yeah, J.D. Martinez certainly still probably at the top of the list for a lot of Diamondbacks fans can certainly understand why, you know, whether he's in, whether he's realistically in the Diamondbacks price range is a different question. And that's something that we'll just have to wait and see. My guess is that that would probably be pushing it a little bit. We know the Diamondbacks still want help at Catcher. Mike Hazen has talked about adding to the bullpen as well.

He's even talked about adding to the starting rotation. Back when the E-Rod move was made, he said, you're never done adding to your starting rotation and sort of gave the indication that the D-backs were still looking at additions there. We don't know exactly how much the debacks have to spend. They're already right around 140 million, you know, after these last few moves that they've made, after the Erod move, after the Lordus Gurriel move.

And that's a number we didn't even know if they would hit at the very beginning of the offseason. I think Gambo said 150 million. He said early in the off season that he wouldn't be surprised if the Diamondbacks wound up north of 150 or around 150 or around 150. So yeah, maybe there's another $10 million to spend if the debucks were to land around 150. But I don't think $10 million is getting you, J.D. Martinez. If it didn't get you Mitch Garver, it's not going to get you J.D. Martinez. So still have to kind of wait and see how things pan out there. Maybe there's a way for the Diamondbacks to pull off a two-year deal with a dollar value in the first year is a little bit lower.

Dollar value in the second year is a little higher. We've seen that on Lordus's contract. The first year is a little bit lower. 10 million. Similar story with Erod where the first year's 14 million. Maybe the debacks would try to do that again with whichever designated hitter target they ultimately signed. if they're able to get one. But we'll have to wait and see on that.

Another thing I wanted to talk about real quick before we get into the mailbag questions is some rule changes that happened that were announced just last week. There were four of them. If we could get that tweet up on the screen, this is from Jesse Rogers over at ESPN, just outlining the various changes

coming to Major League Baseball in 2024 because, of course, there were not enough changes in 2023. So we have to, you got to, you got to, you know, change things up a little bit, try to make the game more interesting in 2024, because clearly not enough was done in that regard this year. There are four main changes here. The first one is that the pitch clock with runners on base is being reduced from 20 seconds down to 18 seconds.

So not a huge change there. Major League Baseball had some research that showed that, you know, most pitchers with runners on base were operating much more quickly than this. So theoretically it wouldn't affect the vast majority of pitchers. But still something that, you know, they want to make, they want to keep pitchers from sort of circumventing the clock and, you know, using that extra five seconds that they don't really need, it seemed, in order to just sort of, you know, slow the game down. So that's one, one change here. Another one, mound visits, the number of mound visits had been five. It is now down to four.

This one, I think, is pretty reasonable. We did see some situations where the diamondbacks would, you know, you know, you run through a few mound visits early in the game and you're a little worried about what that might look like later in the game. The reality for me is that baseball is just such a reasonably slow-paced sport already and already gives you plenty of downtime specifically in the dugout in between innings and so forth. You really should be able to operate without all that many mound visits.

I don't have a problem with this and it wouldn't totally shock me if Major League Baseball tries to continue to bring this number down over time. I don't know if I ever see Major League Baseball having a universe where there are zero mound visits. That would be fascinating. I don't really see that as being a realistic possibility, but that seems to be the direction that things are moving. We'll see what that looks like this year with only four of those visits as opposed to

five. Another interesting one, if a pitcher warms up to start an inning, must face at least one batter. And to be clear, this is talking about if a pitcher warms up on the mound. This is not just if a pitcher is warming up in the bullpen. He automatically has to enter the game and pitch one inning or at least face one batter. That would be utterly ridiculous. That is not what this rule says.

It is not that if you get your closer up in the bullpen and then the score changes and you don't want to use them. You still have to bring in your closer. That's not what this says. But it does, there were, I think it was like 24 situations that Major League Baseball found from the entire 2023 season, not all that many, where teams brought in a pitcher to warm up on the mound. And that pitcher because of, you know, some like pinch hitting situation or whatever, they wound up not wanting that pitcher to actually face anyone. And so, you know, you've just had that pitcher like taking all their warm up tosses. and then that time is essentially wasted when a team decides to go to the bullpen and bring

another pitcher who has to then, you know, get warmed up on the game mound and everything as well. So not a whole, not a huge issue there that Major League Baseball is trying to combat. This is a pretty rare occurrence. But of course, everything is done in the name of trying to, trying to get the game to move more quickly and trying to eliminate any, any little, you know, any little thing that is causing downtime. and Major League Baseball identified this as being one of those things. The last one, at least that's significant that's worth talking about. This one is interesting.

The running lane to first base has been expanded. Another pretty subtle change, some people may not have been aware of, but this is per an MLB.com article from Anthony Castrovance said previously, MLB Rule 509A11, required a batter to run the last half of the distance, between home plate and first base, between the foul line and a three-foot line drawn on the right-hand side of the dirt. So essentially what this rule does is it just simplifies the process

and it just makes it so that four base runners, if you're going from home to first base, it's simple. Dirt is good, grass is bad. If you're running on the dirt, this is good. If you're running on the grass, then that, of course, would be a violation at that point. This works, especially well for right-handed hitters who have a little bit more of a direct line to first base because they're allowed to use the entire dirt rather than just the sort of first base side of the dirt if that makes sense. So yeah, not a not a huge thing, pretty subtle. I wouldn't say that any of these changes are enormous. But Major League Baseball is trying to cut down on the timing of the game. That's the primary goal here. Of course, some of these

things are kind of nitpicking at other aspects of the game. But of course, the MLBPA was not happy about it. We have a tweet here that shows MLBPA's response, which, of course, it seems like anything that is instituted by Major League Baseball, there's going to be some pushback. This is a statement from executive director Tony Clark regarding player votes against these 2024 rule changes. Clark said this afternoon, player representatives voted against the 2024 rule changes proposed by the commissioner's office.

As they made clear in the competition committee, players strongly feel that following last season's profound changes to the fundamental rules of the game, immediate additional changes are unnecessary and offer no meaningful benefits to fans, players, or the competition on the field. This season should be used to gather additional data and fully examine the health, safety, and injury impacts of reduced recovery time. That is where our focus will be. So basically how this works is Major League Baseball is set up a joint competition committee,

but the players are sort of underrepresented on that committee. And so if Major League Baseball wants to institute changes and everyone on their side unanimously agrees, it doesn't actually matter if the players vote against it. That's just the nature of how this committee is built. And so as you saw there, the players did not vote in favor of this. They voted against all of these changes being made. you can certainly understand their sentiment that they don't want Major League Baseball changing the rules again so quickly after instituting obviously very significant changes during the 2020s season. I thought it was interesting in response to the tweet that had that statement in it.

Diamondback's pitching strategist Dan Herron sort of voiced his opinion on this as well. We have a graphic here of Dan Herron's response. he just sort of just tried to kind of make light of the situation and make his opinion known. Any word if they are shortening the two and a half minute commercial breaks in between innings, Dan Heron said, doubt it. And this is sort of his way of saying that, you know, Major League Baseball is doing everything in their power to cut down the times of these games. And yet they're not really giving anything up in return, right?

They're not shortening commercial breaks. You know, their agenda here is very clear that they're trying to shorten the length of the game. And they're not going to shorten other things like commercial breaks that obviously would not be in their best interest to do. Dan Heron not too happy about that. And you can understand why him and as I said earlier, the players at large are not super on board with the idea of Major League Baseball introducing rule changes once again. My personal take on this, though, is that none of these changes are all that significant and it's probably fine. Mountain visits from five to four is kind of just a deal with it situation where I just think teams are going to be fine. I think they should be able to do that.

20 seconds to 18 seconds with runners on base. Again, I don't think is going to be a major, major change when all is said and done. You know, the baseline being expanded, that also not a major change probably helps, helps right-handed hitters in particular, as I said earlier. The pitching, you know, pitchers warming up on the mound thing, another pretty minor detail. So yeah, you kind of get the sense that MLBPA is just going to pose anything that Major League Baseball does. And there's some validity to their case. But ultimately, I don't really have a huge problem with any of these changes. And I think they're probably all going to be fine when all is said and done.

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Visit CircleK.com for details. Well, today is not Monday. Today is Tuesday. Monday, of course, was Christmas. No show on Monday. So we were unable to do our normal Mailbag Monday show, but we decided to just push that a day, do that today. Instead, we got a number of.

fun questions as well as some also serious questions about where the Diamondbacks are headed in 2024. So you all know what we do on Mondays, even though today is not Monday. Damon, let's go ahead and go to the mailback. I can't believe I have to do this again, but every month is Pride Month. Every month is Indigenous People's Month. Every month is Women's History Month. Every month is Black Women's History Month.

Every day is Earth Day. Every week is Shark Week. Every Monday. Or Tuesday. Or Tuesday. We go to the mailback. something interesting in my mailbox. I'm trying to get to everything in my mailbox.

And then once in a while, there's a letter that makes me go wow. Thank you to everyone who submitted a question for the mailbag this week. We have a whole lot to get to, so let's go ahead and jump in. This question comes from Chris the Dula on Twitter. Chris says, if I can get this load, will you give paving flowers for his gift to his parents? The video had me crying emoji. Yeah, if people didn't see this, it is something that all of you should know about.

Pretty cool moment. Paven Smith posted a video. I think it was on TikTok. I want to say that's where I saw it. It might have been on Instagram as well. He basically paid off his parents' mortgage as a Christmas present. And Paven Smith, of course, is I believe he also gave his parents a car not long ago. That was like a thing floating around for a while.

he's shown himself to be very, very generous. Pavan Smith also, of course, is not exactly the highest paid member of the Arizona Diamondbacks. He made, he was on the league minimum essentially right around the league minimum in 2023. Of course, he didn't spend the entire season in the majors. So it was sort of like a pro-rated portion of that league minimum plus whatever you make in the minors for just being a member of the 40-man roster.

So he made less than 750K. in 2023, according to our calculations. I don't know exactly what it was, and I have no idea what his parents had left on their mortgage, of course. I imagine his $5 million signing bonus from 2017 might have helped out a little bit there. But an extremely generous gesture from Pavin Smith to his parents, and he wrote a lovely poetic note to his parents in order to kind of explain to them what was happening. And it was incredibly heartwarming. So if you haven't seen the video, you should go, you should go find it. And yeah, everyone should be throwing some flowers to Pavin Smith after seeing him do that. If I was a parent of any other member of the Diamondbacks,

I would be like, all right, like, why aren't you paying off my mortgage, right? Like, if Pavan's going to pay off his parents' mortgage, everyone should be doing that. But yeah, incredible, incredible gesture from Pavan Smith for sure. What do we got next, Damon? All right, our next question comes from Brian Lefevre. I'm probably mispronouncing that last name. I think it's Lefevre. Lefevre.

Okay, thank you. He says the DeBak's magical run last year was incredible, but I feared if they didn't win the World Series, it'd be 10 times more difficult for them to get back. With other teams getting stronger, what can we expect from the team in years to come? Regular playoff appearances, are we happy with that? Yeah, I think this is a good point.

obviously I think I think magical was a is a good word to describe the diamondbacks run it is it is incredible what the diamondbacks were able to accomplish in in 2023 and frankly pretty unexpected you know even the the diehardest of diamondbacks fans probably didn't see the diamondbacks going all the way to the world series when all when all said and done but there is this reality that you know once you make it to that point it's really hard to get back, no matter how bright the future looks. And as much as I hate to bring up the suns again, we saw the sons get to this point a couple years ago.

And it seemed like it would be the first of many. They were way ahead of schedule at the time. Obviously, Chris Paul was aging a little bit. The sons were going to need to find someone to step in for him. But in the long term, the future still looked extremely bright. And a couple years later from that, that wasn't that long ago. The sons are now in a difficult position where they've made some moves. You know, they've made some bets that really haven't paid off so far.

And the Diamondbacks haven't made any of those moves. They still, of course, have, you know, a very promising core in place. But no matter who you are, no matter how well you are set up for the future, there's always this reality that once you get to that point, it's going to be really hard to get back no matter what, no matter how promising that future looks. And yeah, Brian said, with other teams getting stronger, what can we expect from the team in years to come?

As far as that part, yeah, I think the whole. if you're a Diamondbacks fan is that this team is able to find its way back into the postseason time and time again, right? You're looking for some consistency here. The reality is, had the Diamondbacks not made the playoffs in 2023, which they very narrowly were able to do, it would have been the longest playoff drought in franchise history. The Diamondbacks have, you know, they've never had more than six years between playoff appearances, but there were times this past season where it looked like it was going to be more than six years. And yeah, I think that's probably what you have to hope for.

If you're hoping for, you know, to be back in the World Series two out of the next three seasons, that's probably a little bit unrealistic. But if you're able to get to the playoffs in two of the next three seasons, I think that's a much more realistic outcome. Baseball is a sport where making the playoffs gives you a shot at going to the World Series. So I don't think it's realistic unless you're necessarily the Dodgers to expect to go to the World Series, you know? Yeah.

You just have to get into the playoffs. and hope things break your way once you get there. Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, I mean, even the, you know, the teams that are arguably set up best in 2024, those teams are just hoping to get in the playoffs as well and probably feel confident that they will. But, yeah, once you get there, anything can happen as we saw in 2023. And yeah, if you're a DeBax fan, I would be happy with that.

I would be happy with the debacks just, you know, finding a way to consistently be a postseason team for, you know, really the first time since the very beginning. of the franchise. You know, they had a nice run there for a few years after the franchise launched. Since then, these postseason runs have been very sporadic. Yeah, I mean, like I said, I'm going to say it again. Only the Dodgers have that kind of championship pressure aspirations, in my opinion. So we will dance on their grave when they don't do it.

There you go. There you go. What do we got next here, Damon? All right. Our next question comes from at more for me on Twitter. This is from Travis. He says, can you please talk? about the value that comes with the debaq's first three draft picks being where they are right now

as opposed to having one really high pick for next year's draft is their value in getting more bites at the apple yeah that's an interesting question um i think you'd obviously like given where the debacks are picking you'd certainly rather have three picks than one uh there's no question there the debacks will pick 29 31st and 35th in the 2024 draft that 29th pick is just coming from the fact that got second place when all of a sudden done, they went to the World Series. Their draft capital took a big hit with every round that they advanced. But of course, I'm sure the team is certainly happy with that, that the trade they'd make. But yeah, they're picking 29th.

They're picking 31st. That 31st pick comes from Corbyn Carroll winning the rookie of the year award. And then they're also picking 35th. That's in the competitive balance A round. That's another pick that they have. Fangraphs wrote a story back in 2019 about the value of a draft pick, which is an interesting concept. It's not really the slot value of the pick.

The slot value is just how much money you have to spend on the player, but the value of the pick is trying to quantify, like, how much value, which ultimately goes back to wins above replacement, how much value are each of these players on average going to produce for you? And this Fangraph story from 2019, they said that the 29th pick in the draft is worth $10.3 million. The 31st pick is worth $9.8 million. And the 35th pick is worth $8.8 million.

So according to that, the debacks have about $28.9 million of value between those three picks. Now, for reference, the Colorado Rockies will pick third overall in the 2024 draft. That pick, according to this article, which again is a few years old, is worth $38.2 million. So on paper, if you look at the average value that comes from a number three pick versus the combined value of the three picks that the debacks have, you actually would rather just have the number three overall pick. But that said, if you're the debacks and you're in a situation where you just went to the World Series and you're not going to have a number three pick, you would obviously rather have more bites at the apple, as Travis said,

than just having, you know, I guess two picks would normally be the situation. They'd have the competitive balance pick. And then they'd also have their first round pick wherever that lands. So yeah, there's a lot of value in the Diamondbacks having, having these extra picks. But at the same time, you just want to keep in perspective that a late first round pick, an early second round pick, is not at all the same as a top of the first round pick. Theoretically, you'd rather have that on paper.

Damon, let's go to the next one. What else we got here? Next question comes from Karen on Twitter. This is at Groundhog Mama 2. She says, how do you think the debacks will respond in 2024 to having quote unquote expectations on them? They admit they played free because there were no expectations in 2023. And yeah, I think that's a really good question. The dynamic of the 2024 Diamondbacks is going to be very different, just given the fact that they are no longer the under the radar, you know, nobody knows about them kind of team, right?

And this is something that Tori was actually asked to winter meetings a few weeks back, back at the beginning of December. You know, it seemed like you guys really thrived in being in a situation where you were the chaser. You were the hunter. You were not the hunted. And Tori was asked about that and what it will look like when the script kind of flips in 2024. Here's how his answer started. He said, first of all, that's unavoidable. And I want us to embrace that.

I get introduced to different things or different events. and it's the National League champion Arizona Diamondbacks. That sounded great. It sounds great, but you're right. Now there's an X on our back. And this is certainly something that devax are going to be aware of going into 2024. I think about Zach Gallen and the Players Tribune article that he wrote a few days ago and just the confidence that he expressed, the fact that, you know,

he's viewing this as a new era of Diamondbacks baseball. What the team accomplished in 2023 is, you know, maybe going to have some staying power into into 2024. as well. So yeah, it is absolutely going to be a different dynamic for the team in 2024. And Tori is aware of that, wants the team to embrace that. I think it's also worth noting that during the season, if you go back to May and June, the Diamondbacks in some ways were kind of the hunted, not maybe to the extent that they will

be in 2024. But there was a point a couple months into the season when the debacks had the best record in the National League. They have been, you know, a team in that kind of position before. And frankly, they didn't handle it all that well, right? When they were in that position during the season, that's around when their free fall started. Obviously, you know, end of June into July, early August was a really tough time for them. They went from 16 games over 500, you know, all the way down to two games under 500 in the span of about a month.

So they have some experience with this in some ways and it didn't go especially well. but 2024 will be different and it will be very interesting to see how the diamondbacks respond to that. We have one more question here for this segment of Mailbag Tuesday. This comes from Don's Bread and this was an inevitable question that someone was going to ask. Don's Brits said, when are we getting Jesse to shop for Christmas during a normal period? And the reality, Don's Bread is that it's never going to change until I have a Christmas where I just don't come up with something for someone. Like the day where I show up at Christmas and I just don't have a gift for someone that I needed to get a gift for, that's when it ultimately is going to change. But Damon, that hasn't happened yet.

And as of right now, I'm not sure it's ever going to happen because I find a way to pull this off every year, even though I don't start my Christmas shopping until basically Christmas Eve. And Damon, I have a sense to maybe you're in a similar boat here as me. My parents both listen to this podcast, so at the risk of them getting upset with me. I went down to Tucson on Whenever our last show was Whatever day that was And I stopped at Tempe Marketplace On the way down

And it was a total shit show I mean there was so many cars It was red traffic Like literally in the parking lot On my maps Tempe Marketplace is just I feel like that was just a bad choice On your part, David

Yeah I probably could have found A different Barnes & Noble for sure Well yeah it's all about where you go to I will say that is That is an important factor. On Christmas Eve, I was at, it was a Walmart for a while. It was roaming. On Christmas Eve?

On Christmas Eve? That's insane. They don't close until 6 o'clock. I left it like 3.30, Damon. So I had plenty of time. I'm way better than you. I went on the 23rd. All right, fair enough.

But yeah, again, I was able to get all the gifts I needed to. So we'll see if that ever does change. We have a special parlay arranged for you. that you should absolutely get in on over at our friends at BedMGM. If you don't have the BetMGM sportsbook app, you should get it. I'll tell you more about that soon. But I want to hand it over to Damon, who has our parlay for this week that you all should be getting in on. Yeah, guys.

So I cooked up half of most of this parlay on the PHNX Bet show. All of this were picks that I made, but I'm kind of combining a couple here for this parlay I'm giving out. And we're going to go Magic money line against the Wizards, Rockets money line against the Pacers, and King's money line against the Trailblazers combined those three, plus 184, bet MGM sportsbook. See if they got a boost or something for you. But Kings and Magic playing the Wizards and Trailblazers, terrible teams. And the Rockets are playing the Pacers who are solid, but the rockets are 12 and 2 at home. So it's in Houston, and that's how we're doing it.

All right. Well, everyone knows that Damon has a 100% success rate with these parlayes. I don't lose. So if you don't actually place that bet on the BetMGM Sportsbook app, you're just walking away from free money is basically what you're doing. But yeah, if you haven't already downloaded, the BetMGM Sportsbook app, you absolutely should go ahead and do that. You can sign up for BetMGM.

Use bonus code, PHNX when you do so. Place your first BetMGM Sportsbook wager through BetMGM Sportsbook. mobile application of at least $10. If that bet loses, your bonus bets will be available once your initial wager is settled. Really incredible, incredible intro offers that they have going over there right now. Check out the show notes for full details. And now listen to Shane talk about. I'm going to need you to filibuster for one second.

All right. You're going. Yeah, we're soon going to listen to Shane. Talk about the disclaimer. We're not quite there yet. But yeah, I guess I'll just talk more about Damon and how incredibly successful. All of his vets have been. He is the host of our bets show here at PH&X.

So if there's anyone to trust, it's absolutely Damon. And he has the track record to prove it. So, yeah, I don't know. Again, if you're not placing this bet, then you're just walking away from free money. Check out the show notes for full details. Now listen to Shane talk about the disclaimer. Gambler, Colorado, D.C., Illinois, Indiana,

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I wasn't sure if he was going to do it with me or not. Yes. Also, be sure to check out our friends over at game time if you have not already. This is another great way to make up for, you know, if you just gave someone a dud of a gift, you can just like go get them some tickets to an event they care about. It's going to make everything just perfectly fine. There's a very personal experience buying from our friends over game time. It's the most aesthetically pleasing ticketing app that is out there.

These, of course, as I said, make great gifts. So be sure to get in on that. If there's someone in your life that you still feel like you need to give something to, snag the tickets without distress with game time download the game time app create an account and use code phnx for $20 off your first purchase terms apply again create an account and redeem code phnx for $20 off download game time today last minute tickets lowest price guaranteed and with that we jump back into the mailbag damon what else what else do we got this question comes over on twitter it's a Cody bellinger related question this is from big both

269 on Twitter. What a bad name. Yeah, what an incredible, incredible hat. Absolutely. He says, probably out of the realm of possibility, but Cody Bellinger would be a great fit since Hazen said he wanted a left-handed power bat.

He hangs in against lefties, has speed and gold glove defense, then could trade a left-handed outfielder for a backup catcher. That's betting 2020. He wasn't a fluke and no one overpays him. Someone is probably going to overpay him. I guess I'll just start by saying that.

The rumor, of course, has been that Cody Bellinger wants at least $200 million. He's represented by Scott Boris. And, yeah, I know, I know, you know, this individual has already said that this is probably out of the realm of possibility. I think it is very out of the realm of possibility for the debacks, not just from a financial standpoint. But we've talked about Bellinger a little bit before on the show as well. The roster fit just doesn't really make sense for me when you have Alec Thomas Manning's Centerfield doing what he's able to do defensively out there. It just doesn't really make sense to pay a premium to add someone else at that position, especially given that Cody Bellinger, as we've also talked about on this show,

the numbers just don't really back up, don't really back up the surface numbers that he put up in 2023. Some of the underlying numbers as far as hard hit rate, barrel rate, all of those things. They don't really, they're not really indicative of an elite level major league hitter. I think Cody Bellinger had a good offensive season in 2023, but I think he's probably a little bit more, like a little above average as a hitter, not the top tier hitter that we saw this past season. I do still think the idea of the Diamondbacks trading a left-handed hitting outfielder is a possibility. I'm not sure whether that would be for a backup catcher or something else. That is something I would keep an eye out on. The debacks still have some depth in that area,

especially after bringing back Lourdes. You have Jake McCarthy. and Dominic Fletcher theoretically not really fitting into the everyday lineup at this point. There is some depth there. There's theoretically a move to be made. But yeah, Cody Bellinger, I will acknowledge, like, yes, they're, you know, he kind of did away with his big splits this past year. You know, he wouldn't be a bad player to have on the team, but given the cost and the fit, I don't really think it. I don't really think it makes sense. What else do we got, Damon?

This question is regarding the TV situation, which of course we've talked about a lot on the show. It's from Bob Altman on Twitter. He says, what is the latest on the TV situation for next season, trying to decide whether to get Hulu Live, YouTube, or something else? And I want to make sure I can get the games. Yeah, it's a good, very valid question. At this point, it's a little bit hard to say as negotiations are still taking place, which of those streaming services are going to have Diamondbacks games and which ones will not. This past season and over the last few years, it's been a bit of a revolving door where you sign up

for one service and they have it and then a few months later they don't have it. And so you wind up having to cancel that one and go get a different one. I could try to make a prediction about which ones will and which ones will not right now. But yeah, I would be more guessing than anything. I think unfortunately we kind of just have to wait and see how all of this pans out. and you know who how the diamondbacks are are really planning on doing this it's possible that there's some direct over the air component to this that's something that ken kendrick talked about something the phoenix suns of course have taken part in um so yeah maybe maybe you won't even

have to pay to watch some of these games that's a possibility but at this point i can't really speculate too much on which services will have him uh which ones will not to my knowledge i don't believe Hulu Live or YouTube TV had access to Diamondbacks games as of the end of the season. So, yeah, maybe if there's anyone in the chat who's had those services recently, they can confirm that. But I don't think those have had Diamondbacks games in the recent past. So I probably wouldn't count on them carrying Diamondbacks games moving forward. But yeah, as we get updates on this situation, we'll certainly keep all of you guys updated.

Damon, what do we got next? This question from at Granky's... No, no, no, no, no. He wants to remain anonymous. Oh, yes, thank you. Thank you for that. Yeah, we're not going to share this individual requested to remain anonymous. Yeah, this is from Zach cranky himself.

We'll just leave it at that. With Guriel, expected to be a majority left fielder next season, just as this season, do you have some concerns on Corbyn Carroll as a full-time right-fielder considering his arm value is rated bottom 1%. Yeah, this is a downside to the Diamondback's decision to bring back Lordus Gurriel. Lorda Scuriel is a left fielder. I do not expect him to play any right field in 2024 or probably beyond. And that means that Corbyn Carroll will probably get a lot of time in right field.

Not great to have a guy with a first percentile arm, you know, as your everyday right fielder. the one thing that I do see here that is that is possible and could help the situation is the diamondbacks won't necessarily have Corbyn in right against lefties in particular against righties. They probably will because Alec Thomas is going to start. He's going to play center field. You figure Lordis is still going to start against righties. Corbyn would probably be in there in right field. But against lefties, I think the door is open. We saw a lot of this last year for Alec Thomas to not start.

we of course know that Alec has struggled against lefties in the past. That would push Corbyn Carroll to centerfield, potentially, and then it would open the door for someone else to play right. Now, of course, that was Jake McCarthy a lot this past season. We saw what that looks like. McCarthy is probably a better arm than Corbyn Carroll, but not necessarily by a whole lot. The debacks don't have a whole lot of great arms in the outfield in their system currently.

So, yeah, you know, I guess it's sort of done. depends on who that DH that we, uh, that the diamond backs bring in, winds up being, which we talked about at the top of the show. If it's someone who does have the ability to step in and play a little bit of right field, which we know the diamond backs would love to have some degree of positional flexibility with

that guy. If it's someone who can step in and play right field and has a decent arm, uh, that might allow you to, you know, against lefties. You switch Corby and carroll to center where his arm wouldn't be quite as big of an issue. Uh, and then you have,

you know, a better arm set up in right field. But either way, this is going to be not a strength for the diamond backs. There's just no, there's no getting around that. And the fact is that the diamond backs are going to have a pretty good outfield defense anyway. You know, there's a lot of different ways to be valuable in the outfield. Range is the one where the diamond backs have really thrived. They're able to get to a lot of balls that other teams can't get to. And they do, yes, they do have a bit of a setback as far as arm strength is concerned.

But when all is said and done, I think they're still going to have a pretty good outfield defense when all is when all is said and done. And that's, yeah, I mean, ultimately that's kind of the most important thing is the debacks are not going to be, you know, a liability defensively. Corbyn Carroll still grades out as a roughly average defender because his range is quite good, even though he takes a bit of a bit of a step back as far as his arm is concerned. Do you think that there's any way that he can develop that? because his arm strength, while it's not good, is not 1% of the league bad. Whereas his own value, like, meaning like, I'm assuming his accuracy and how many putouts and stuff he gets from his arm is horrific. So it shows to me that at least there's some room for growth there, if he can practice that well. Yeah, it was interesting.

If you go back to 2022, this was obviously a really small sample for Corbyn Carroll. he was at 86.9 miles per hour. That was his arm strength ranking. I think it's taking like your top, the top 10% of your throws or something like that and then averaging out, you know, the miles per hour of the baseball as it exits your hand. He was above average, actually,

in a very brief sample in 2022, around 87 miles an hour. And then in 2023, that number dipped to 83.3 miles per hour. It's a little hard for me to believe that Corbyn Carroll's arm just got like significantly worse over the off season. That's, that would seem to be a little odd. I think the way that they calculate this number, there's a lot of noise. So I wouldn't really read it as like Corby and Carol went from having an above average arm

to having, you know, one of the worst arms in baseball. Yeah, I don't know if there's as much development to be had there as much as just getting like the true value of his arm and, you know, finding ways to have it translate results wise better than has. The strength probably just is what it is. Hopefully it just is like a little bit of an anomaly and it just brings back to the mean a little bit. But because, yeah, I mean, 65 arm strength last season, 34th this past season,

right. Shouldn't be 1% of the league value of arm. Yeah. That's a very valid point. So yeah, I don't think it's good. It may be good. It probably never will be good. But there are some reasons to believe it won't be, you know, it won't.

It won't be quite what we saw in in 2020. Last year it was like jump off the screen at you bad. It was pretty bad. Like every time you throw it, I was like, I was like a shame. Yeah. It was obviously the weakest part of Corbyn Carroll's game. But the reality is that he's, he's so good at so many other things that he can, he can still be like an MVP candidate. He's a four-tile player.

Yeah, he's, yeah. He's quite literally the definition of a four-tail player. Yeah, he is definitely a four tool player for sure. And hey, if you were going to have a four tool player, the tool you'd want to leave out would be the throwing arm for an outfielders. We've talked about that before. Like, it's by far the least valuable of the five tools. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right.

So, yeah, that probably just is what it is. And when the debacks brought Lordus Corrielle back, they were in some ways buying Corby and Carroll some more innings in right field. Not necessarily the best situation. What else? What else we got, Damon? This is a question from our friend Alex. Alex is noticing that I put out a very sad son's tweets from time to time, and he wants

to know how much does Jesse get paid for his sad little son's tweets following each loss? They're on the house, Alex. They're on the house. They're just me expressing my sad boy hour feelings about the Phoenix Suns. and I've you know been a pretty avid sons fan for a long time especially since the team started not being a total embarrassment a few years ago and yeah they have not they have not repaid my efforts well damon my fandom has been very disappointed here in in recent recent months it's been a rough go of it's been a it's been a pretty rough go yeah my hope is still I still have

some hope that the sons are are going to be able to turn things around I just think the roster is too talented for this team to continue to play like around 500, even below 500, where they are right now. But yeah, honestly, we were talking about this earlier in the office. I kind of just want McHale Bridges and Cam Johnson back. I'm one of those Suns fans. Just like looks at Kevin Durant's crazy stats and is not moved and is like, give me the fun that, you know, McHale Bridges and Cam Johnson brought to this team when they were here.

So, yeah, it's unfortunate. Yeah, it's pretty rough. It's not looking good right now. It's not looking good. There needs to be some sort of roster shakeup. You want Frank Vogel out, Damon? Yeah, is that we want? I think that's fair too.

I think that's the first reasonable starting point. I don't think the Sons can really trade their way out of this. They might get like an interesting buyout dude or something at the trade deadline, but that's a little ways away. That's fair. But yeah, I will continue to be a Sons fan and I will continue to, tweet out, you know. Oh, that's slander on your name, Jesse. What are people saying right now?

I think Jesse is a closet Laker fan. That is not true. No, that is, that is not true. I can attest to Jesse's fandom. He is a big son's fan. That is so disrespectful. I grew up in Arizona and have really never, I guess I've had a soft spot for a couple of other teams.

Like growing up, I had a soft spot for the twins and the Phillies. My parents are from Minnesota. Soda and Philadelphia, respectively. So, you know, I've had like, like, yeah, you know, I sort of like that team or whatever. But no, the Arizona team's sons, Cardinals, unfortunately, were definitely my teams growing up and have continued to stay that way for better or worse. We have one more mailbag question, which is an incredibly silly and fun one. This is from Aaron Hughes.

I'm still trying to understand exactly what this means. But Aaron said if the D-BAC's roster was a murder mystery story, who would be Sherlock and Watson, who would be first dead, and who would turn out to be the killer? Derek is not with us today, and he would thrive off this question. This is Derek's question. This is absolutely a Derek question. And so even Derek, even though Derek is on vacation, I did shoot him a text message about this question. And he responded within a matter of about 15 seconds.

I think he was like just sitting there, like, waiting for me to. ask him this. He likes to spy on us from afar on his on his days off. So he immediately, these were Derek's exact words. He said, Corbyn is first dead. Tori is the killer. Nobody will ever see it coming. So Tori kills Corby and Carol. There you go. And then I followed up and said, all right, well, who are Sherlock and Dr. Watson? And he said Gabby and Lourdes. He said, Lordus is Sherlock, Gabby is Watson, and the whole movie is in Spanish. I just want to say I received the most Jesse text ever regarding this question. He said, does this question make sense to you?

He sent it to me earlier today. And I was laughing before Jesse got in the office showing Danielle and Leah. And we all thought it was the funniest thing ever, just because that's so, Jesse, just be like, this isn't baseball? Yeah, you know, we like to have fun on the show. I was just, I was just confused. Like, how do you turn a roster into a murder? Like, it just, it just, like, my analytical brain, it just, like, didn't totally click for me.

But there you go. You all wanted to know what Derek thought, and that's what Derek thought. Danielle said that she thought Paul Seawald would be the killer because he's crazy. That's what she said. Paul Seawald's crazy? I don't know. That's what she said. Isn't he the one that, I don't know.

Okay. All right. You guys are always talking about his, like, fun dad, like, personality. and, you know, just like the dad jokes and the, like... Maybe that's why you didn't see it coming. He's a murderer now. Interesting. Okay.

Yeah, I mean, I didn't exactly have Tori Pegg is the killer either, and that's the direction Derek went. It's always someone you don't see coming. Yeah. I guess, I mean, I guess that's the way it's supposed to be. But yes, I hope Derek's answer has everyone as entertained as they were, as they were hoping to be. That is a pretty funny question.

Jack Summers, our friend, says the fact that Christian Walker is not Sherlock Holmes invalidates the premise of the response. That's fair. That's fair. Yeah, we can make Christian Walker Sherlock. If Christian Walker is Sherlock Holmes, then who is Watson? I guess that would be my follow-up question. Yeah, it's a great question.

I think because what Derek was going for there was the Lord of Scabby connection that they have. When I was thinking earlier, I was like, what about like Miguel Castro and Luis free us you know right it's got to be like a dynamic duo kind of a thing but christian walker's identity in the clubhouse isn't really tied to anyone else i'm aware of um let's see who could that be christian walker and is it is it paven smith is that what it is that what it is paven's the killer uh so yeah all right so yeah either christian either paven smith is Watson or Pavin Smith is the killer. You guys can decide.

Or both. Yeah, that would be. Now, that's just, that's just cooked it up, I think. That's just straight, that's just straight fire right there. What an incredible storyline that would be. Well, hey, speaking of incredible things, if you haven't already, you should hit up our friends over at Shady Rays and get yourself some incredible sunglasses. We know it's been a little gloomy in the valley recently, but the sun is back out.

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We'll have a bunch of guests throughout the week. So looking forward to that, I believe we have Jack Summers making a return appearance on the show later in the week. Should be a great time having him back into the studio. Some other folks around the office lined up as well. So be sure to join us here throughout this week for more on this Arizona Diamondbacks team. As always, you can give us all a follow on Twitter. you can find me at Jesse and Friedman. You can find Damon at Damon Dog.

I am Damon's dog. Bark, bark. Feels very sad to do this on my own. I appreciate that, though, Jesse. Yeah, yeah, there you go. I am, I am Damon's dog through thick and thin. And of course, you can also give us a follow on Twitter at PHNX underscore Dbacks. But of course, all roads lead to you at PHNX underscore Sports.

That's on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Well, thank you again all for joining us here today on the PHNXD Back Show. And remember, kids, baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun when Mitch Garver plays on your team. And when you're in the Four Peaks mini bar.