Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - 285 | Arizona Diamondbacks | Profile & Projection

Episode Date: February 26, 2021

You guys ranked the Arizona Diamondbacks the #24 team in baseball. Jomboy, Jake, & Plouffe preview their season! 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 back to talking baseball. It's another team profile and projection. And today we're doing the Arizona Diamondbacks. And I'm going to be as honest as I've ever been with the people to start this one off, fellas. The Arizona Diamondbacks are the black hole for my brain in MLB. I know nothing about them. Like five minutes ago when we were prepping, I was trying to think of one player. And I was coming up so blank.

So Diamondbacks fans, don't listen to the thing I say. I'm going to be asking for help from you guys and just reading off websites. I don't know why, like last year I remember trying to fake it. They just escape me. They're elusive. I don't know anything about them. I never watched them. Marte.

Marte. Cattel. Mattes and Bumgarner? Cetell Marte. Oh, yeah. Bumgarner's there now. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Is Robbie Ray still there? No. No. No. What about the other pitcher that's always in trade talks? Is that Galen? Corbin's gone He loves Zach Gallin

Zach Allen's good Yeah I mean I don't Listen I don't know why They're just like they straight up Illusive I never get I never see him on TV I never watch him

I never Well I don't know Just being honest here Jake Can you tell me who they lost And who they gained Well I'll be honest with you Haven't been the most active This season

I mean technically they lost Kevin Crone He's going overseas John Jay Trevor's buddy was part of the Oregon. Mike Leak, who actually opted out of last season, was a part, and now he's a free agent, so he's gone.

They added Soria in the bullpen and Davensky, so hey, a couple bodies down there to get some outs or trade and catch your Brian Holiday, but it's been a quiet off-season down under Trev. Yeah, the lineup is, you know, I know some of these names, Jim, but I'm with you on this is kind of a team that's taken a team. backseat to everybody's mental space lately. That's a great way to put it. What are you, a writer?

He is. Maybe. I do have big hands. So anyways, a catcher. Small dick, though. That's me. Oh, that was Jake. That was Jake.

Correct. Now, this guy, Carson Kelly, their catcher, came from the Cardinals. I remember playing against him in old 3A. Jack Flaherty was a big proponent for him. And he'll be catching a lot of the balls there that old bum gardeners throwing. So that's fun for them. First base, they used to have a guy named Paul Goldie. but they shipped him away to the Cardinals

in that deal, I believe. And now they got Christian Walker over there. Second base, Kattel Marte, who's a stud, shortstop, Nick Ahmed, who's a stud. Third base, former teammate of mine, Eddie Escobar, who I will look for them to be moving somewhere. Because he's a player, and I think that

a lot of teams will be up for him, switch hitting, versatile type of guy, but he's a man in third base for them right now. In left field, they got David Peralta, centerfield, Dalton Varsho. I do not know Dalton Varsho. just be honest with you guys right now and then in Wright Field

they got a red head which I love Cole Calhoun go get it baby I like Jamie or Jimmy Yeah I'll tell everyone about their rotation After I say I don't know anyone Thank you Max for doing the research for us Madison bumgarner Garner Zach Gallin

Zach Gallin is very good I know him The Milkman You know these guys They'll come back Like once I see it Yeah but if you were like If you were catched me on the street If a Diamondbacks fan was to catch me on the street

And they'd be like, John, well, let's talk baseball And they wanted to talk D-Backs baseball with me I'd feel so inadequate Caleb Smith, too can't Sam He's with the Diamondbacks down? Your boy, yeah When did that happen? That was a August trade in 2020

How about that? Yeah Luke Weaver, Merrill Kelly Your boy, attorney at law Alex Young, Corbyn Martin, okay In the bullpen they got Soria who's this, Stefan Krichton.

Krixton. What's that? I mean, I'm not dialed in on Stefan. I know Kevin Ginkle, the Ginkman. Let's get ginkie. Yon Lopez. So, Jake, you take me where we need to be taken. Okay.

Let's do a couple things here. Let's start with Trevor's lineup. Jim, Cole Calhoun. If you're an MLB fan, you know who Swole is. And by the way, he had a really nice year last year. rated out as the 24th best player. I like Cole Cahoon. Cole Calhoun was doing his thing.

Catelle Marte. He was the MVP votes from a couple years ago. People were wondering how juice the ball is. Not an incredible last season. They want him to be a main piece for them going forward. And then, yeah, like Trev said, I love Eduardo Escobar, a really fun guy to watch play baseball. Kind of a, if I was making a five-tool light team,

like Eddie Escobar's on that. He plays a little defense. He can run. He's got some power, blah, blah, blah. And then, yeah, I mean, Nick Ahmed, people should know. He's one of the best Glovemen at shortstop in the game. He won back-to-back gold gloves in 19 and 18. Also from the University of Connecticut, so we like that.

And then, yeah, I mean, the other guys on this team, Christian Walker and Carson Kelly, what are you going to get? You're not sure they've got some pop in those bats. The freight train, who-hoo! David Peralto, one of the few. DeBax games I watched last year. They kept calling him the freight train. I was wondering if it was a joke.

No. They go hard on David Peralta, the freight train. Fans or commentators? Commentators, the social media. They are in on David Peralta, the freight train. Why? Why is it, how did it come to be? I think he's just like a thick, handsome boy.

Okay. You don't want the freight train coming through. Okay. I don't know, man. not a lot of sex appeal on this team. This is a tough listen for Diamondbacks fans. No, it's not. Look, look, look, okay, at the major level,

they have some good, solid players. They're in a really tough division, but you can look past it. Look next year, a couple of years down the road, their farm system across the board ranks in the top 10. They have one, two, three, four, five, six dudes in the top of 100 right now. Huge.

Like, that's what you want. Yeah, I'm not saying it. I'm not saying tough that their team's bad. I'm just saying tough that we are so uninterested in them. I'm interested in them. I like some of the guys here. And I'm curious to see what they do. What direction are they going to go?

Like we mentioned, we're going to be mentioning with pretty much any NOS team. You have the Dodgers and the Padres at the top. You're not going to break through that. It's just not going to happen. No. But they have some players here. Now, these guys start out the year good.

They start to trade them. They bolster that farm system even more. I mean, you could see this team. 20, 23. Kind of doing the damn thing. So, again, this might not be the dying back year, but I think at least they have a direction. And you can't say that about a lot of teams.

We've done this now. What is the seventh team we've done? You can't say that about all these teams, and they do have a direction. I like where they're going. Yeah, and Christian Walker deserved a little more love the past two seasons. 209 games, 36 home runs.

So some legit pop in that bat, a 110 OPS plus. But, I mean, there's just, you'd like a little more sex appeal. We'll see what the young guys are doing. I know in researchers Max notes that a lot of the pieces that came over from the Granky trade, I believe, are going to be getting the call this year. So we'll see what they've got in the bag. But, yeah, man, I mean, just brutal to be an NL West team that's not the Dodgers or the Padres for the next.

three years. Stephen Boat on this roster. He sure is. He is, yeah. Gotta give a shout out to Stephen Vow. One of my favorite teammates ever. So again, I'm rooting for these guys because I do like a lot of the players on their team and they do have a direction. So that is a good thing.

Is Caleb Smith do good? Is he good? He got off to a hot start and then I think he was getting hit a little bit. Zach Gallen is the story. He is a stud. Mad bum. Can they find anything left in that arm? God. Remember how that all went down?

They found out he was a rodeo guy, and then he was throwing 86 mile per hour fastballs after the break, and everyone was like, this contract is looking bad, huh? It's looked bad. It's looked really bad, and a lot of this is on Madison to figure it out, dude. I thought it was Mason Saunders. Oh. His twin brothers, the rodeo guy.

Sondairs. You're right about that. Hey, Trev, can I tell you a little tidbit that I want to hear your thoughts on? Jake and I were at Yankee Spring training once And we were sitting in the stands And we were watching Caleb Smith Who was on the mound for the Marlins Or some other team at the time

And the Yankees had the opposite Of a two-stroke strike approach on him Like they clearly didn't think He could strike them out at all So for strikes one and two They were swinging out of their shoes And then once they got two strikes on them It was like, okay, now they at bat starts

And they just straight up rocked him Have you ever had that approach with the guy? No fear of the strike. I know he's not going to strike me out. So I might as well take a hack one too and then I'll protect and just be normal. Yeah. I mean, you have the scouting reports.

Does this guy have a putaway pitch? Or if he has one, has it been working, can he control it? If this guy's put away pitch as a slider and in the first two endings and in warm reps, he's had zero control with it, then you just say, I am sitting dead red swinging at the fastball coming out of my shoes and then I'll take my chances with two strikes. I don't know his repertoire. Putaway pitch is the slider for him. Good call.

If he's not controlling it, you can absolutely just say, screw it. Yeah, because the fastball only gets put, he only has 8% put away percentage on his fastball. So I guess if the slider's not there, it's a pretty comfortable at bat. It's a common thing for a lot of pitchers. You know, we'll go through that over the course of the season.

Not many guys just are in the big leagues without a putaway pitch, you know, but there are times where like they just don't have it, man. They have the feeling is gone. for them. It could be a multitude of things, but there's a lot of times where you say this guy's put away pitch is gone. Don't worry about it. Hey, I've got something D-Backs fans can get a little excited for because a lot of this names in the lineup, you kind of know what you're going to get. Escobar, Peralta, Marte, Calhoun, Ahmed, like they each kind of do their thing. The pitchers,

I think we're going to have some essentially audition season. Like, Luke Weaver, let's find out what you are because you've had some up and downs as a pitcher. Caleb Smith, yes, same story. I think in AAA, though, they've got guys ready to go. And this season is going to have teams using a lot of pitchers. We've already seen baseball going that way, but especially coming off the shortened season. And in AAA, they've got Bukowskis, who came over in the Grinky deal. He's 24. He's ready to go. He's their seventh prospect. Corbyn Martin, same thing. He's their sixth prospect. DuPanteer, who MLB wants to be a star.

They've marketed him a lot. He's 26. He's their 10th prospect. So, hey, if you're DeBax fans, I don't know when it happens this season. I kind of hope sooner than later. But get the auditions going. Find out what you've got in some of these young arms. So when the Padres have money problems, in six years, you've got a chance to compete.

Do they, do we have news on Bumgarner? Is there? Has there been any changes? What do you want to hear? Has there been any updates? I mean, he was awful last year. I mean, have you looked at his peripherals, like his analytics? Let me show you, Jake.

Yeah. He was in 2% for XERA, 1% for barrel, 4% for whiff, 1% for fastball velo, 9% for K, 3% for expected batting average, 1% for expected slugging, 2%. Like, I mean... Skipping all the good ones. He did really good at walk rate. Or not really good. He was 74th percentile for walk percentage. So he was throwing strikes.

And he's spinning the eater. And he's spinning the fastball. The Vila's not there at all. That 86 mile per hour fastball is spinning. So he was injured to start. He finished the year out in September. I mean, this is the worst I've ever seen a starting pitcher have these baseball savant numbers look.

Like he's in the bottom five percentile for one, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven categories. Yeah, I mean, hey, you pray it's just nine starts in a weird year. If you're, if you're Dback fans, I mean, you just went back to the 2019 on it. And it's not crazy different. And in 2019, I think he was solid. So, you know, hey, he's got the pedigree to fall back on. I'm interested to see, is the arm just out of juice?

Because, I mean, that would stink. if he could find it, get a little craftier. You'd like to think a 31-year-old mad bum can still get some guys out, but that arm also has been through a lot of really awesome baseball. He needs some motivation. I don't know if he's going to get it

playing here with the debacks. Yeah. Well, why don't they put like, why don't they put it incentivize the rodeo, you know? If you strike nine guys out today, you can go to the rodeo. Yeah.

You know, you string together. three starts you get a day at the rodeo Mason Saunders. Hop on out. I'll say this about him. I'll never speak poorly about him because of what he did in the world series. I believe it was 2014 against the Royals. Maybe the most dominant pitchers ever been in the world series.

No day's risk. In relief, starting, doesn't matter. He was unhittable. Now, we're quite some time removed or seven years away from that. So he needs little bit of motivation. Hopefully he finds that within himself. Some self motivation. Gallin was so good. He's got

one start where he gave up seven earn runs. And even with that on the books, his ERA's 275. Like imagine if he didn't have that one blow up. He's got... He's real deal. Yeah. It's pretty fun. And he's one, he's no H, right? No H, yeah.

Love that. Got to love that. You do? A little edge to him. We have a Zach in the company here. You need a K. I think K clearly is I don't have a K or no K than an H It goes K Just a ZAC then H H is third of the three

That's a tough one Zatch Yeah okay Jake are you in agreement there Satch Sounds like a yes Depends on the person Okay well because Zach Gallin wears the rec specs on the mound He is a ZACC Yeah.

Yeah. See, that case in point. He takes off the Rexbacks. Now a K suddenly jumps into the back of his name and he's a Zach with a K. Loop. That's just. That's science. Yes.

That's all it is. Over under for this team. Did you ever check the rankings for the last one? Yeah. It matched up for the Royals. Can double check again. But we think that's right. Yeah, I think it's right.

They have them going 79 and 83. 79 and 83 I'll start I'm going under they have they have like a lot of A lot of places have this as like a top Like a upper Rotation like they got they got voted in a bunch of places like top Top 12 rotation and all of baseball and stuff like that

Yeah I'll take you know what's helped is the humidor We didn't talk about that all they started to put their balls in a humidor now it's not as big of a hitters park as it used to be. I just think they're going to be shipping some guys out, man. They know this is not their year. Two teams on a piece of paper test. This roster versus the Colorado Rockies.

I take the Rockies. Yeah. They're closer. What was the Rockies over? You're comparable. They're very comparable. I think the Rockies number was like 60 wins. Oh, yeah.

Because the clubhouse. That's 19 W. But the clubhouse in Colorado is just, you know, they're all stabbing each other and stuff. No, they're too high to do that. You don't stab someone when you're high on life. Yeah, well, that thin blood. I thought you were going that way. You bleed out.

Like don't get drunk and be in a hot tub and then cut yourself. If Vegas has 79, this is one of my easier overrunners, take the under, go get the free money. I mean, coming close to 500 for this team, I just don't think it's going to happen. I agree. I don't know why it's high. Yeah, I mean, dock it. Another consensus, because I don't get it. Paper test, you take the Rockies. And even if it's close and you're missing something,

I think this team has the Rockies, to be honest. Shouldn't it be a 19 game gap between those two teams. So, who, that's true. Maybe Dalton Varshow is nasty. Zach Gallin's a New Jersey guy, so that's cool. But he's South Jersey, so he probably is a huge Eagles fan. Philly guy. Philly guy probably talks like garbage mouth, so I don't know.

I don't know about all that. I respect my fellow Philly fans. I'm a legend there. Everybody knows that. I am taking the under as well, because it doesn't, I don't get it really, to be honest. Feels wrong. What are they? Feels like something is going to come out, and the Vegas number in two weeks is going to be 68.

and we'll be like, oh, yeah, that felt right. Yeah. It's in the sevens, but it's a low seven. What did they have it at? 78? 79? 79. I mean, they got to play 18 games against the Dodgers

and 18 against the Padres, right? Two wins from 500? I just don't think it's going to happen. What's it? Is it 18? 19 apiece? I think it's 19. 19. So we're looking at 28 games against those two teams.

I guess they get. to play the ALS too. No. Yeah, I don't, I just don't get it really. All right, I'm sorry, Diamondback fans. Sorry, Diamondback. We're sorry. This couldn't have been a fun listen.

Did Max have a fun stat for him, at least? It was about the... No, it's not a fun stat. Max's fun stat is Madison Bumgarner recorded the fifth lowest average exit velo on ground balls, 80 miles per hour. But the second highest average exit velocity on fly balls at 95.9 miles per hour last season.

No other pitcher ranked in the top five for one and the bottom five for another. Say it, Jake. I was going to spin it the other way because that's very sad. Corbin Martin, I've mentioned this before. Corbyn. Bukowskis and Seth Beer,

the power hitting first basement corner outfielder, all acquired from the Astros trade in 2019, all have a chance of playing baseball this year. So if you can get behind, He has to stone cold a beer. Set beer. He's got a stone cold, Steve Austin, a beer every home run. Is that beer night at the stadium?

See you tomorrow. Another episode. Episode a day every day until opening day.