Speaker 1: The guy stepping into the number two spot in the
Speaker 1: lineup has been Heraldo Perdomo, and because of him, the
Speaker 1: Diamondbacks really haven't missed a beat with kateel Marte currently
Speaker 1: on the injured list.
Speaker 2: Hey, we've got Jesse Friedman joining us right now, the
Speaker 2: new host of the new show Snake's Territory, which did
Speaker 2: its first live show last night, So check it out
Speaker 2: on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. Jesse, great
Speaker 2: to have you on. Let's just start really nice and
Speaker 2: simple here. What kind of grade would you give the
Speaker 2: Diamondbacks for the first few weeks of the season.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, first of all, thank you guys for having me,
Speaker 1: really appreciate it. Yeah, a grade for the first few
Speaker 1: weeks of the season. They're coming into today, they're playing
Speaker 1: right now, but they're coming in today, eleven and seven.
Speaker 1: I would probably give them an a minus feels roughly appropriate. Granted,
Speaker 1: the Diamondbacks are a fourth place baseball team currently, which
Speaker 1: maybe we'll get into later just how wild the NL
Speaker 1: West is currently, But just in and of themselves, they
Speaker 1: have played pretty well to start the season. As I said,
Speaker 1: they're eleven and seven. That's a pretty good place to be.
Speaker 1: Eighteen games in. Certainly it hasn't all been perfect. The
Speaker 1: starting rotation is something that we could get into as
Speaker 1: an area of improvement for this team. Certainly there were
Speaker 1: high expectations for this rotation coming into the season after
Speaker 1: the signing of Corbyn Burns. Several guys in this rotation
Speaker 1: have not quite performed up to where you would maybe
Speaker 1: expect to this point in the season. But in really
Speaker 1: all other facets, the bullpen has been quite good up
Speaker 1: to this point in the year. The offense, I believe,
Speaker 1: is fourth in baseball and run scored entering today. And
Speaker 1: this Diamondbacks defense tends to be pretty good a year
Speaker 1: in and year out as well. So they're clicking on
Speaker 1: most cylinders right now. And I think if you got
Speaker 1: this rotation to where a lot of people think it
Speaker 1: could eventually be, you could be looking at genuinely one
Speaker 1: of the best teams in all of baseball.
Speaker 3: So what are we missing? What is the what is
Speaker 3: the non Arizona following media missing in the sense of,
Speaker 3: like I see that Corbyn Carroll's leading team and Homer's
Speaker 3: run stole you different categories. Are we missing something that
Speaker 3: like everybody in the nation should be watching right now.
Speaker 1: Corbyn Carroll has certainly gotten the vast majority of the
Speaker 1: attention from this team, and rightfully so. I think someone
Speaker 1: who probably deserves more attention is Heraldo Perdomo, Diamondbacks shortstop
Speaker 1: who's been a pretty solid player in this league over
Speaker 1: the past few years. But the start that he is
Speaker 1: off to this season has been extremely impressive. Entering today,
Speaker 1: he was hitting three to eleven with a nine to
Speaker 1: seven OPS. And currently the Diamondbacks are without Katel Marte,
Speaker 1: who is certainly their best player a year ago, one
Speaker 1: of the best players on this team for quite some time,
Speaker 1: and he's been out since April fourth, so it's really
Speaker 1: the majority of the season that the Diamondbacks have been
Speaker 1: without their best player, and the guy stepping into the
Speaker 1: number two spot in the lineup has been Heraldo Perdomo.
Speaker 1: And historically Prodomo has been a guy who could give
Speaker 1: you a quality at that but was not necessarily going
Speaker 1: to slug a ton. Was not necessarily you know, most
Speaker 1: of his hits are going to be singles. He's going
Speaker 1: to hit singles and draw walks. But what we've seen
Speaker 1: so far this season has been really a different version
Speaker 1: of him. He already has matched his home run total
Speaker 1: from a season ago with three homers so far in
Speaker 1: this young season, and he just seems to be driving
Speaker 1: the ball with more authority and because of him, the
Speaker 1: Diamondbacks really haven't missed a beat. With katel Marte currently
Speaker 1: on the injured list.
Speaker 3: Tel Marte is the year in and year out possible
Speaker 3: MVP favorite. He was top three last year. Does Corbyn
Speaker 3: Carroll slide into that role now? And not just because
Speaker 3: of what he's done this small season sample size, but
Speaker 3: also after he made his swing change part way through
Speaker 3: the year last year, going back again on top of
Speaker 3: the heaters, do you think he's an MVP candidate?
Speaker 1: It's hard eric to watch what Corbyn Carroll is doing
Speaker 1: on a day to day basis right now and think
Speaker 1: anything different. I mean, this is a guy who for
Speaker 1: those people who like wins above replacement as a way
Speaker 1: of measuring player performance, Corbyn was number one on both
Speaker 1: Fangrafts and Baseball Reference as of the start of play yesterday,
Speaker 1: talking about, according to that metric, the best player in
Speaker 1: the league. Right, and certainly this is a guy that
Speaker 1: we've seen in this conversation in the past. Last year
Speaker 1: not so much, right, he had such a brutal first
Speaker 1: half of the season that even with a pretty stellar
Speaker 1: second half, he just wasn't going to be in that conversation.
Speaker 1: But in his rookie season, when he was Rookie of
Speaker 1: the Year and had twenty five home runs and fifty
Speaker 1: four stolen bases, he did finish top five in MVP voting.
Speaker 1: That's season and back then I certainly would not have
Speaker 1: been surprised if Corbyn became a legitimate candidate to win
Speaker 1: the award at some point in his career. And what
Speaker 1: we've seen so far with the swing stance change that
Speaker 1: you mentioned, he seems to be kind of downplaying the
Speaker 1: impact of that, but it's hard as an outside observer
Speaker 1: not to associate how well he's playing right now with
Speaker 1: what is a pretty drastic change to his swing stance
Speaker 1: that he made. He is crushing anything and everything, including
Speaker 1: pitches at the top of the zone, which has been
Speaker 1: kind of maybe the one hole in his game that
Speaker 1: you could have identified a couple of years ago. That
Speaker 1: does not seem to be a hole any longer. So
Speaker 1: I think it's still early, certainly to be having these conversations,
Speaker 1: But in my mind, Corbyn is absolutely a viable MVP candidate.
Speaker 4: All Right, we're talking about all the things are doing well.
Speaker 4: What's the achilles heel of this team? Is it the bullpen?
Speaker 4: Because the bullpen wasn't great last year, they didn't do
Speaker 4: a lot to address it this offseason. Is that the
Speaker 4: one thing you look at. I know, the starters aren't
Speaker 4: been doing great, but Korba Burgs is going to be fine,
Speaker 4: Gallen is going to be fine, Meryl Kelly's gonna be fine,
Speaker 4: Fought's gonna be fine, and Water Rodriguez gonna be fine.
Speaker 4: These are veteran guys. Is it their bullpen? That's there
Speaker 4: one thing where you look at and say, this has
Speaker 4: to be right for them to compete with the Padres,
Speaker 4: the Giants and the Dodgers.
Speaker 1: You know, for the vast majority of this team's existence
Speaker 1: as franchise, I think you could look at the bullpen
Speaker 1: as kind of always being their achilles heel. And certainly
Speaker 1: last year there were some issues. Once again, Paul Sewald
Speaker 1: was hurt for a while, and then when he returned
Speaker 1: from injury, was good for a time and then just
Speaker 1: really really hit a rough patch in July, and the
Speaker 1: Diamondbacks really didn't have a great situation at the back
Speaker 1: end of games the rest of the way. What we've
Speaker 1: seen so far, though, Aj is what I think is
Speaker 1: a pretty good bullpen. We'll certainly see whether this is sustainable.
Speaker 1: But the Diamondbacks acquired AJ Puck at the trade deadline
Speaker 1: a year ago, and he was outstanding in the second half.
Speaker 1: He hasn't been quite as good so far this season,
Speaker 1: but the stuff looks still pretty darn good to me.
Speaker 1: I think he's going to be fine, And I think
Speaker 1: the real story with this bullpen is the emergence of
Speaker 1: Justin Martinez, a guy who some people are maybe starting
Speaker 1: to hear about more and more. I think MLB dot
Speaker 1: com recently had an article about how his splitter is
Speaker 1: effectively a ninety mile an hour knuckleball, and beyond that,
Speaker 1: he's throwing, you know, one hundred and one hundred and
Speaker 1: two miles an hour on the regular with his four
Speaker 1: seam and his sinker. So Justin Martinez hasn't allowed to
Speaker 1: run yet this season. Shelby Miller, a guy the Diamondbacks
Speaker 1: picked up over the offseason, invited him to spring training.
Speaker 1: He has been outstanding as well. He is not allowed
Speaker 1: to run so far this year either, So between between
Speaker 1: those guys and aj Puck still being here is I
Speaker 1: think a pretty solid weapon at the back end. The
Speaker 1: Bullpen's been all right so far, and I don't really
Speaker 1: have a reason to think it's it's going to change
Speaker 1: anytime soon.
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Speaker 3: It makes sense. It makes sense.
Speaker 4: They brought in some veteran guys to help, obviously, and
Speaker 4: you should read what was it on. We did a
Speaker 4: newsletter not long ago name five guys to look out for,
Speaker 4: and one of them was Martinez because he throws one
Speaker 4: hundred with a ninety mile an hour, splinker, sinker, splitter thingy,
Speaker 4: whatever you want to call it. Can Puck though, here's
Speaker 4: my question. Shelby Miller got off to a great star.
Speaker 4: I love Shelby Miller. I caught him for a couple
Speaker 4: of years. Great guy. Can he keep it up? Can
Speaker 4: AJ Puck keep it up? These are guys that have
Speaker 4: kind of had a little bit of up and down,
Speaker 4: especially in the bullpen. Bullpen so volatile it can change
Speaker 4: literally week to week. Can these guys keep this up
Speaker 4: for one hundred and sixty two games?
Speaker 1: I guess that's the million dollar question, right. I think
Speaker 1: it's totally valid to wonder if they if they can. Right,
Speaker 1: You're You're absolutely right, AJ Puck? You know, since I
Speaker 1: think a Brown May of last season has been one
Speaker 1: of the best relievers in all of baseball. But before that, yeah,
Speaker 1: he was not that.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 1: He made some adjustments to his pitch arsenal early last
Speaker 1: year in Miami and really started to throw the ball well.
Speaker 1: The Diamondbacks wanted to trade for him, and so far,
Speaker 1: so good. But yeah, he's only you know, he's only
Speaker 1: been this version of himself for probably a little less
Speaker 1: than a calendar year. And certainly Shelby Miller as a
Speaker 1: guy who was you know, a non roster invitee just
Speaker 1: just about a month or so ago. Right, you certainly
Speaker 1: need to see more from these guys, I think to
Speaker 1: feel great about it. But certainly, what we've seen so far,
Speaker 1: it's as good of a place as I've seen the
Speaker 1: Diamondbacks bullpen in at this stage of a season for
Speaker 1: maybe as long as I can remember. This has certainly
Speaker 1: been the achilles heel for this team for many, many
Speaker 1: years past.
Speaker 3: Can this fourth place team win the division?
Speaker 1: They've got a lot of ground to make up already, Right,
Speaker 1: it's outrageous what's currently happening in the NLS. You guys
Speaker 1: might have already talked about it. I believe entering today,
Speaker 1: the four best records in Major League Baseball are all
Speaker 1: NL West teams. It is the Padres, it is the Giants,
Speaker 1: the Dodgers, and the Diamondbacks. Granted, I think a few
Speaker 1: other teams are tied with the Diamondbacks entering today, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's unreal what we've seen so far in the
Speaker 1: NL West to start the season. I think if you'd
Speaker 1: asked most people entering the year what the best division
Speaker 1: in baseball is, I think the N West would at
Speaker 1: least have been a popular choice, probably the most popular choice.
Speaker 1: But I didn't expect this, Like I did not expect
Speaker 1: the Giants to be what they've been so far, and
Speaker 1: even the Padres, after the offseason that they had, you
Speaker 1: kind of knew that the top end talent was there,
Speaker 1: but they lost a whole lot of depth over the offseason,
Speaker 1: and somehow that really has not held them back at
Speaker 1: all so far. So I think it's too early to
Speaker 1: get too wrapped up into what the standings look like
Speaker 1: right now, but frankly, the odds are certainly stacked against
Speaker 1: the Diamondbacks and in winning the n West. You know,
Speaker 1: the Dodgers, of course, being I think the primary deterrent there,
Speaker 1: but also the Padres and Giants looking pretty good early
Speaker 1: in the season as well.
Speaker 4: It's never too early, by the way, it's never too
Speaker 4: early to look at the standings. Trust me, it's never
Speaker 4: too early because you got to win games. But also
Speaker 4: the other thing is, you know, West hasn't really started
Speaker 4: playing each other yet. The Rockies taking the brunt of
Speaker 4: it from everybody right now, but the other four teams
Speaker 4: haven't really started to play. The Padres and the Giants
Speaker 4: and the Dodgers and the Padres. They haven't really gotten
Speaker 4: into it yet where they're playing the thirteen times yet.
Speaker 4: So it's a little bit early to say, oh, this
Speaker 4: team is better than this, because they're going to start
Speaker 4: beating up on each other at some point, and when
Speaker 4: they do, whoever comes out of that scrum is who's
Speaker 4: going to win the division.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I want to remind Jesse about a quote that we
Speaker 2: got when we were at Diamondbacks camp from Kevin Ginkel.
Speaker 2: He said he feels like the Dodgers tighten up a
Speaker 2: little bit when they play the Diamondbacks. Did you catch
Speaker 2: that quote?
Speaker 1: I did, Yes, I do remember him saying that, and
Speaker 1: I think there's some truth to that. I mean, I've
Speaker 1: covered pretty much every Diamondbacks Dodgers game in person here
Speaker 1: over the last few years, whether in Arizona in Arizona
Speaker 1: or over in Los Angeles, and the Diamondbacks have played
Speaker 1: the Dodgers really tough over the past few seasons. Granted,
Speaker 1: part of that is that Christian Walker would just turn
Speaker 1: into a superhuman every single time he entered Dodger Stadium.
Speaker 1: He had one of the most unbelievable three game series
Speaker 1: that I've ever seen there last July. I think he
Speaker 1: hit four home runs over the course of those three games.
Speaker 1: So it'll be interesting to see what it looks like
Speaker 1: without him on this team anymore. But yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: think that the Diamondbacks are intimidated by anyone in this league,
Speaker 1: and based on what we've seen from them so far
Speaker 1: and certainly what this starting rotation, I think still could
Speaker 1: be if Corbyn Burns and Zach Gallen and some of
Speaker 1: these guys that you expect to be really good kind
Speaker 1: of find their way. Yeah, I think they certain only
Speaker 1: can compete when when they're playing the Dodgers.
Speaker 2: It's gonna be a fun division to follow if the
Speaker 2: Giants stay involved here too, because that's really the extra
Speaker 2: team that I don't think most people.
Speaker 3: Expected to be Giants exactly.
Speaker 2: They're have a good series against Philadelphia too. Jesse, this
Speaker 2: was great, thanks for joining us. Congrats again on Snake's Territory.
Speaker 2: Keep it up. We'll talk soon.
Speaker 1: All right, sounds good, guys, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Jesse Friedman, host of Snake's Territory. So go
Speaker 2: check it out. Jack Summers on there with them multiple
Speaker 2: times per week. You can also follow Jesse at Jesse
Speaker 2: and Friedman F R I E D M A N.
Speaker 2: But go check out the show. It's awesome. They'll pop
Speaker 2: on live after some games as well.
Speaker 3: See right.
Speaker 2: Show sometimes is for gold stars. How do you say
Speaker 2: his name?
Speaker 4: I don't know. I don't know Mark rip Mark Rippager,
Speaker 4: Mark Ripperger did one hundred percent. He's the guy. I
Speaker 4: didn't look at this, so I don't know. Yeah, he's
Speaker 4: got one hundred percent flow too.
Speaker 3: Nice Salad Empire scorecard.
Speaker 4: Could have been me a lot of money and I
Speaker 4: wouldn't have said he would have.
Speaker 2: Really, there were some trolls or maybe not trolls, maybe
Speaker 2: they were right that were like, no, it actually wasn't
Speaker 2: perfect on dot com or stackast whatever. It had one
Speaker 2: or two misses, but I'll go off on scorecard. They're
Speaker 2: pretty good. So they've got him in the zone when
Speaker 2: he was supposed to be out of the zone, when
Speaker 2: he was supposed to be hound percent.
Speaker 4: But no, here's my question, though it was his ninety four percent, right,
Speaker 4: what was that I missed some balls that were allowed
Speaker 4: in the eu Z, which is the estimated umpire zone.
Speaker 4: I don't know what that stands for.
Speaker 2: That's the demilitarized zone.
Speaker 4: Ye see one strike one called strike outside the So
Speaker 4: did he really looks like he did miss I don't know.
Speaker 2: They can We all agree.
Speaker 4: That this is really cool to see. Good for you.
Speaker 2: There's a border and then that's where you get I know.
Speaker 2: So are we getting love?
Speaker 5: Are we happy about this?
Speaker 3: This is why we haven't had the abs till now,
Speaker 3: and this is why we're gonna have arguments with it.
Speaker 3: Are we giving pitchers a twenty one inch plate because
Speaker 3: a two inch baseball touches the edge of the supposed
Speaker 3: strike zone? So now the plate is going to be
Speaker 3: extra wide and we're doing this for more offense or
Speaker 3: what are we doing it for? So there's there's a
Speaker 3: lot of discussion here. Listen, perfection is tough. We need
Speaker 3: to name it something when an umpire, we got to
Speaker 3: come up with something like the ump Showman, something like
Speaker 3: a perfect game.
Speaker 4: That's cool. I don't think they want it because the
Speaker 4: last guy that got one hundred percent, we don't talk
Speaker 4: about him anymore.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I was in the playoffs and he just
Speaker 3: had he just had his name connected to his buddy's account.
Speaker 2: He was, yeah, you can look that up. We did
Speaker 2: plenty on that, and I've got in trouble for the
Speaker 2: bad stuff, getting involved with the friend, the bookie, the
Speaker 2: whole deal, all right. Next up was this batter's interference
Speaker 2: on Austin Hayes. Tons of back and forth on a
Speaker 2: number of different social media platforms, with people being like
Speaker 2: Ellie de la Cruz should not have been called out
Speaker 2: from batter's interference here on Austin Hayes. They said a
Speaker 2: lot of people are like, you can't fall back, that's
Speaker 2: your fault.
Speaker 3: Bad call.
Speaker 4: He didn't touch him, didn't touch him. I used to
Speaker 4: fake and hit all the time and try to steal that.
Speaker 4: When I know I had no chance of throwing out
Speaker 4: fast dudes like Ellie. I'd just be like ah, no,
Speaker 4: like interference. You know for replay, they couldn't tell. But
Speaker 4: he didn't even touch them, like he's not even close
Speaker 4: to him. That's a bad call for me.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry. I don't know if it's the band calls.
Speaker 3: Definitely judgment there. I'm going because because Cal had to
Speaker 3: really stand up to throw over him, it was Cal's fault.
Speaker 3: All Cal had to do was do his normal move,
Speaker 3: go straight through him. But it is hard to say, Okay,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna throw and I'm gonna allow my knuckle to
Speaker 3: hit your helmet. No, not a chance. So you do
Speaker 3: you let your glove hit AJ? I mean go look
Speaker 3: up some of AJ's flops from behind the plates. Technically
Speaker 3: he went across the line that he should have gone across.
Speaker 3: And the line is not the inside part of the
Speaker 3: batter's box. Yep, he is choreographed.
Speaker 4: You don't get these for nothing.
Speaker 3: I think it is I think it is interference. I
Speaker 3: think it is batter's interference.
Speaker 2: This is good, this is I love this, this is
Speaker 2: good heat.
Speaker 4: This is the batter's interference.
Speaker 2: It's not you guys are the experts.
Speaker 4: Not it's a week tweaks back when I played you
Speaker 4: had to spin that wheel to get the interference right.
Speaker 4: You had to fake it till you make it right.
Speaker 4: But not anymore. You don't even have to touch the guy.
Speaker 4: You can just yell and scream and they'll give you
Speaker 4: whatever you want.
Speaker 3: I do. I do agree with you that you had
Speaker 3: to make contact or the umpire had to believe that
Speaker 3: the throw was manipulating. Without making contact, they weren't gonna
Speaker 3: they weren't gonna call it. But I still think it's in.
Speaker 3: I mean, according to that of the law, it is interference.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you got follow then manipulate them. I didn't try
Speaker 4: to break the rules. I just tested their elasticity.
Speaker 3: Please, people go and look it up. It's on YouTube.
Speaker 3: There's some there's some nice like I'm talking, oh, like
Speaker 3: a mix between one in the playoffs and La Liga.
Speaker 4: To see the playoffs when I was with when I
Speaker 4: was at the Cardinals where somebody hit me with their
Speaker 4: bat and I went down like I saw believe in
Speaker 4: the rain on purpose. They came out and gave me
Speaker 4: the whole potato and I was like, I'm fine. It
Speaker 4: worked though the guy had to go back and yeah, okay,
Speaker 4: we're good.
Speaker 2: I got my call and I'm fine play on hey
Speaker 2: acting is part of the game. Apparently