Full Transcript for D-backs Set for Roster Shake-Up, Hire New Pitching Coach

the aging curve isn't quite doing its job in reducing his forward-thinking projection due to aging. At the same time, you have to then consider the potential baggage. But even if you do all that and drop him down to the value of two-and-a-half, three-war player, that's still worth a lot more than he's going to get paid next year, which is going to be about $ 13. 5 million to $ 14 million, depending on how they and where he landed on his incentives. So it does get more expensive in the subsequent years, over $ 20 million a year, and then three years after that, and then he's got. 00:07:03 Speaker 3: An $ 11. 00:07:03 Speaker 2: Million player option for his age 37 season, which, you know, by that point, he'll probably end up picking that up. So we'll have to see where it all lands. As far as the no trade clauses are concerned, a lot of people have been talking about his prior five-team no trade list, One thing I want to point out, a lot of times players put bigger market teams on their no trade list because they figure that's a better chance of a team that's going to want to trade for them and absorb the salary. And that gives the player more leverage to then be able to negotiate with the new team and extract a renegotiated contract with higher dollar value, of course. So a lot of times you'll see players... why they put the Dodgers or the Yankees on the no trade list. I mean, maybe it's because they don't want to go to a big market, but a lot of times it's because they want that leverage to be able to say, okay, I'll accept a trade to the Yankees, but they got to tack on two more years from ideal or something like that. 00:08:07 Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think when it comes to Cattell, we can be very straightforward and say the Diamondbacks would have gotten more for Cattell Marte if they traded him last offseason. That is not exactly rocket science at this point. There was some reporting that maybe the D-backs could have had a Peyton Tolley plus Franklin Arias package from the Boston Red Sox. I'm forgetting who exactly reported that, but it was a credible reporter out of Boston. 00:08:35 Speaker 3: Boston Globe, I think. 00:08:37 Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you're right. The Boston Globe reported that. Peyton Tolley is one of the best young pitchers in baseball. And Arias would easily be the Diamondbacks' best prospect, continues to be one of the best prospects in all of baseball. Even if they didn't want to keep him long-term, he's the type of trade ship that could get you a lot of different valuable players around the league. So I don't think they're looking at that this offseason for Cattell Marte. Could they get something of value though? Like, could they still find a way to acquire a pitcher who has a couple years left, a starter who probably not a frontline guy, but someone who can eat some innings and be valuable for you. I think something like that could be possible. Do the D-backs have to eat a little bit money, a little bit of Cattell's

money in order to sweeten the package? I think that is also possible. Last year, that was, I don't think would have been on the table for the D-backs. I don't think they would have considered eating money because the contract was, appeared to be a really good value. after the season he had in 25. So it's hard to imagine a scenario where the D-backs come out from a Cattell trade and it's like, oh, this roster got much better in the process. I don't really see that as being likely, but could the D-backs come away with a piece that helps them and not get too much worse by trading Cattell? That might be what you're looking to do at this point. 00:10:06 Speaker 2: The best you can hope for is that the reallocation of resources ends up as a net push or positive. So in other words, I don't expect to get equal value back. for Cattell simply because of his off field issues. 00:10:21 Speaker 3: Okay. Yeah. Whatever, whatever the. 00:10:23 Speaker 2: Proper market valuation is for Cattell Marte, they're not going to get that because of his off field issues. So this is plain and simple, but you're still saving some money. And so how do you reallocate that money to then maybe make up some of the loss at the same time, you're going to need somebody to do much better than, currently projected at second base if you move Quetel Marte. 00:10:51 Speaker 3: Again, he's projected for war. And right now, you know, I know a lot of people. 00:10:56 Speaker 2: Are clamoring for Demetrio Crescentes, but I'm telling you that at the moment, Demetrio Crescentes is a replacement level player. And projecting him for anything more than that is pure folly. And I'm making a very strong statement here. Anybody that thinks that Demetrio Crescentes can even remotely come close to replacing even half of Cattell's on-field value just is missing a lot. 00:11:23 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:11:24 Speaker 1: I mean, I think I would soften that a little bit and say, like, we do see young players burst onto the scene sometimes. Like, could Demetrio Crescentis come out and, you know, hit 300 for a few months? I think it's possible. I don't want to say definitively that Crescentis is going to come out and, you know, hit 240 or something with no power and not great defense. Like, I think there's still a lot of unknown about what he ultimately becomes. But based on what we've seen from him in AAA, if you're looking at the underlying data, if you're really doing your homework, I do agree that like the baseline projection for Demetrio Crescentis is not like, oh, he's going to be Cattell Marte on April 1st or anywhere close to that. So the Diamondbacks have. 00:12:07 Speaker 2: I'm not saying he's going to be a four-war player. 00:12:10 Speaker 3: I don't even think he's going to be half that. Right. Not this year. 00:12:14 Speaker 1: And I would say I think he could be half that. But I agree with you that that's not your baseline expectation. You shouldn't expect him to be half that at this stage in his

career. 00:12:25 Speaker 2: There are a lot of concerns about his defense. 00:12:28 Speaker 3: A lot. 00:12:29 Speaker 2: And I've been out to Fall League and watching and it's pretty shaky. He came into Fall League with the intent to work on his defense and it's not looking great. Yeah. And I can tell you that both internally and externally around the league, there are concerns about his ability to play even a league average defense at second base. So, you know, between that and the fact that, you know, the bat hasn't really been there since he left Amarillo, even here in the fall league, it's not, you know, really happening for him. So I'm not seeing it at this time. It doesn't mean it won't happen. I'm saying he's not ready. If you're looking for Demetrio Casantez, to come out in 2027 and be even a shadow of what Cattell Marte is even last year in a down year. 00:13:21 Speaker 3: Yeah. It's overly optimistic. It's not realistic. 00:13:25 Speaker 1: We'll circle back to some more off-season roster movement possibilities. We're going to really hone in on the starting pitching front a little bit later in the episode. Look at some other things that Mike Hazen said there. Before we do that, I do want to talk about a new hire the Diamondbacks made that is pretty important. The Diamondbacks have hired Ben Fritz as their new pitching coach. He, of course, replaces Brian Kaplan, who was with the organization in 2025 and 2026. A little background on Fritz real quick. He spent the past seven seasons with the Padres as their bullpen coach. He apparently interviewed for the Rockies pitching coach position as well. This offseason lands ultimately with the Diamondbacks. And it's hard to argue with the numbers, Jack. Always, we don't know for sure exactly how much of this should be attributed to Ben Fritz directly. Certainly having Mason Miller as part of your bullpen helps. But if you go back to 2020, when Fritz's tenure in San Diego started, Padres relievers have the seventh lowest ERA. They have the third highest fan graphs, wins above replacements. And in twenty twenty six, the Padres bullpen ranked first in all of baseball and fan graphs wins above replacement. And of course, he's been working alongside pitching coach Ruben Niebla, who is one of the most highly respected pitching coaches in all of baseball. So on paper, Jack, it's easy to understand why the Diamondbacks did this, what there is to like about Ben Fritz. And we'll see what it looks like in twenty twenty seven and beyond. 00:15:07 Speaker 2: Yeah, well, the team hasn't made it official yet. They were still ironing out some details. And so we haven't had a chance to speak with Torrey or Mike or Ben Fritz. So I don't have a lot to say about it until we talk to them. But, you know, from reading around, I mean, he likes to go with a strength based approach. So he prioritizes maximizing what pitchers already do well and then works on fixing some slight mechanical flaws. as opposed to trying to force them to overcorrect their weaknesses and dilute their primary weapons. So that's something that has really been a philosophy for him, according to what I've been able to read. So I want to ask him, is that accurate reporting, number one? And number two, how does that translate between starting pitchers and relievers? 00:16:01 Speaker 3: You know, because with. 00:16:03 Speaker 2: relievers you know basically you get a two pitch mix and a third show me pitch and you're good to go yeah but with with starting pitchers you need three legit pitches and then maybe a fourth show me so i don't know if there's any differencing in there um supposed to be you know a very good uh communicator he's supposed to be both data and mechanics driven he's supposed to be very collaborative um so you know those are some of the positives with him um But, you know, he's never managed while he was an interim pitching coach for a little while, for a short period, for about a little over a month when a couple of years ago when pitching coach was fired. But other than that, I mean, you know, he's never been really the man over a full season and navigating a full 162 game season. 00:16:54 Speaker 1: I do think it's noteworthy. Dennis Lynn over at The Athletic wrote that Fritz was or that he attracted pitching coach interest from multiple clubs last offseason. And the Padres gave him a raise in order to basically not have him be available for any of those positions. So he's been pursued in the past. And I think you certainly like to hear that. It's not like the Diamondbacks are the only team out there viewing him as a candidate for this sort of job. Of course, pitching coach has been a bit of a revolving door under Tori Lavello. Fritz will become the fifth pitching coach that the Diamondbacks have had since Lavello's stint began. I know you put out this tweet earlier in the week, Jack. We can see the history of pitching coaches here with Mike Butcher of 2017 to 2019, then Matt Hurgis in 20 and 21, Brent Strom from 22 to 24, Brian Kaplan, 25 and 26, and now Ben Fritz. starting now. And, you know, you look back at the Diamondbacks pitching metrics since 2017, it generally has been, I guess, not terrible. If you look at ERA +, the Diamondbacks are ninth in the NL in that span, but certainly not good either. 00:18:15 Speaker 2: Yeah, their baseball reference war is 11th. Their fan graphs war is 13th. As you mentioned, they're ERA plus and ERA minus, both ranked ninth. But traditionally, the Diamondbacks have had a strong defense. They ranked fourth in the National League since 2017 in defensive run saved and second in fielding run value. So the Diamondbacks have always looked at taking a holistic approach to run prevention. But the reality is, is the pitchers are below average or have been below average in total for the last 10 years. And the only year that they were in the top 10 was 2017 when they basically inherited a really good pitching staff and put up a 128 ERA plus.

The only additions from Mike Hazen's regime that were really meaningful in the 17th season were Tyrone Walker, Fernando Rodney, and maybe Jorge De La Rosa. Everybody else was already there. We're already in the system. So, you know, we all have talked about it and beat the dead horse about the fact that the Diamondbacks have struggled with pitcher development. And that shows up in those numbers that we were just talking about. I mean, you know, never even ranking in the top half of the National League except for the very first year of the Hayes and Lavella regime. And meanwhile, they've gone through five pitching coaches. I think for me, the takeaway here is you know, I don't know how important the pitching coach is if you don't have the underlying talent to work with. 00:19:54 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:19:54 Speaker 2: You know, I think just having really good pitchers that have been developed really well, you know, so you're looking at draft, amateur signings and trades, free agent signings, all of it together. I think the lack of strong pitcher development has forced the D-backs to take swings in free agency that they probably, you know, otherwise wouldn't have taken. And the combination of some bad choices and contracts and some bad luck have all combined, you know, to give you the Madison Bumgarners and, you know, the Jordan Montgomery, the first two years of Eduardo Rodriguez and the first two years of Corbin Burns. I mean, it's all been, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars thrown out the window chasing down free agent starters. And, you know, so I don't know where the pitching coach comes in to fix all that. I still think that you need to hand off from player development pitchers that are mostly major league ready, you know, and just need minor tweaks in their approach or pitch mix or whatever, you know, in the game planning. But if they're trying to fix mechanics too often in the major leagues, hey, that's, you know, That's that needs to be done before they get there. 00:21:11 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:21:11 Speaker 1: And once again, I mean, the Ben Fritz had some pretty great arms to work with in San Diego, right? There's Mason Miller in that bullpen. Brad Clay Rodriguez has unbelievable stuff. Adrian Moore hone, uh, the list goes on of, of guys in that bullpen who just had unbelievable stuff and shifting gears to the diamondbacks organization. Yes, there are some big arms in the bullpen, uh, that, that will be kind of a similarity, but There's not quite as many big arms in the rotation. And that leads us to this graphic that you put together, Jack, looking at the Diamondbacks pitching metrics in 2026. So really keying in just on the starting pitching here. The Diamondbacks were 19th in starting pitcher ERA at 4.28. This, of course, looking at the whole league now. They were 25th in FIP at 4.56. They were 28th in expected ERA at 5.00. And again, you know, taking a step back here and comparing those numbers to 2025, the staff ERA was actually

almost identical. It was a 4.29 ERA for the rotation in 2025. The expected ERA was actually quite a bit lower at 4.42. And the FIP was also quite a bit lower at 4.21. So I think there was a narrative this season that the Diamondbacks pitching staff got better that Eduardo Rodriguez turned back the clock and turned in this awesome season and Brandon Fott was super good for a couple months. But I mean, if you look at the underlying stuff, the Diamondbacks rotation, if anything, was worse in 2026 than in 2025. And when you look at it through that lens, it makes sense why, you know, Brian Kaplan maybe wasn't the guy moving on. The team wanted to make a change here and we'll see if it pays off for them. 00:22:58 Speaker 2: Yeah, if you go back to that graphic real quickly, once again, you will see The fielding run value from StatCast, the D-backs ranked fourth overall with plus 36. And in defensive run saved, they ranked 10th overall, plus 31. 00:23:13 Speaker 3: So what this is. 00:23:14 Speaker 2: Telling you is that the underlying quality of the pitching staff in total for starting pitchers, I'm sorry, this is just a rotation that we're looking at here, was 24th to 28th, but they ranked 19th in ERA. of five to eight starts spots was due to the defense. 00:23:37 Speaker 3: The defense covered it up. 00:23:39 Speaker 2: Now, again, they take a holistic approach and that's great, but you would like to have middle of the pack, at least, you know, a 15th rank starting pitching staff that then is elevated to 10th by the defense, not a terrible pitching staff that is elevated to the periphery of the lower middle class. 00:24:04 Speaker 1: And I think that takes us back into the conversation about this offseason and what the Diamondbacks need to do in that conversation with Nick Pecoro. Mike Hazen also talked about starting pitching. This is what Nick wrote in that regard. He wrote, Hazen sounded unlikely to push hard for a starting pitcher in free agency, but said he would like to acquire a young arm to round out his club's rotation depth. And the word depth there is certainly a key term. It doesn't sound like the D-backs are going out and trying to trade for, you know, a Brian Wu necessarily. But they're looking to add some depth to the five guys that they have in there already. And as we think about this rotation without Michael Soroka in it, I mean, he was a big part of the success that they did have in 2026. And without him, like, yeah, this rotation once again is going to look like a bottom 10, maybe even worse than that group. And maybe that's an area that D-backs need to take a closer look at this offseason in terms of not just adding depth as Hazen is talking about, but maybe trying to do a little bit more than that. 00:25:17 Speaker 2: Yeah. And I just want to clarify for everybody too, you know, I reached out to Nick, as you know, he's a friend of the show. He comes on from time to time and a very open guy. And he was kind enough to just make sure that my reading of his article wasn't incorrect because the word depth stood out to me as the key there. And it seemed like because his article was aggregated by MLB trade rumors, there's a lot of stuff on social media, thinking that means that the D-backs are going to go out to trade for a young controllable starter like Brian Wu. But he was talking about depth options, i.e. Mitch Bradd, Cole Drake, Ashton Izzy, David Hageman, that level of pitcher. In other words, not somebody to replace one of the intended five starters, but rather to have more depth so that when somebody gets injured, they have more options than they finish the season with for a rotation depth piece. So don't anybody misinterpret that. I double-checked all this with Nick, and that's exactly what Hazen was talking to him about. 00:26:27 Speaker 1: If we look at the projections right now for this 2027 Diamondbacks team, of course, this coming from Steamer right now, that's the only projection system we have available. Diamondbacks position players are projected for 25.5 war, pitchers just 12.6 war. And if you do the math here, theoretically, this team would wind up somewhere in the 85, 86 range, maybe a little bit south of that by the time they run the simulations and you know, actually play out an entire major league season. But on paper, the D-backs project to maybe a little bit north of 81 wins. And a heck of a lot of it is coming from the position player side. It really feels like without Soroka as part of this rotation group, the projection systems are just not high on what the Diamondbacks have there. And based on the numbers, the rotation numbers we were looking at earlier and how they compared at 2025, It feels like the D-backs could use a more significant boost in that area. And I don't know if they're willing to trade someone out of their current rotation in order to make room for another arm. Certainly, you can never have too much starting pitching. So I guess if you do go out there and add a starter who's an upgrade for you, you figure it'll kind of work itself out by opening day where you're probably going to have to deal with an injury or something and Having six starters likely won't come back to bite you. But there's no question, Jack, looking at the roster this team has, the rotation is really the primary weakness for this team. 00:28:06 Speaker 2: Yeah, a couple of things I want to point out real quick here. So if you go to Fangraphs and you go to their depth chart projections, the depth chart projections right now comprised. 00:28:16 Speaker 3: Of just steamer inputs. Steamer is a projection system. 00:28:21 Speaker 2: And the depth chart is based on playing time projections created by the Fangraph staff. So they prorate the steamer projection into their depth chart projection of playing time. Later on, in late January, early February, they will add the finalized zips projections to that pot. And zips and steamer, basically, they average out 50-50. And

then that goes into the depth charts. But the current form of the depth chart projections have too many innings pitched and too many plate appearances. 00:28:59 Speaker 3: So that kind of. 00:28:59 Speaker 2: Inflates the war totals a little bit on a team level. So I actually had to go in and I removed some of the guys that are not on the 40-man roster and took out their innings and at-bats to get the innings pitched and the plate appearance totals about correct. Roughly 1,440 to 1,460 innings is what you're looking for there on the inning side, and roughly 6,200 plate appearances. 00:29:26 Speaker 3: So if you see a little bit of difference, if somebody else. 00:29:29 Speaker 2: Goes in and adds up those numbers, keep in mind that I kind of rearranged the volume there, and then everything, of course, is then adjusted accordingly. So, you know, the bottom line here, though, and I want to give a shout out to a friend of the show, Jeff Irving, who wrote a terrific article over at AZ Snake Pit. I highly recommend you go over and find it. It was Jeff's off-season plan. And he had mentioned to me as he was writing it and preparing it that You know, from his research, he felt like the D-backs are maybe kind of going down the wrong path here and that they really need to bolster their starting pitching more than anything else. His article is to push above 85 wins. The D-backs are saying they want to get to 90. But in any case, looking at the on-paper projections as of right now with position players basically producing twice as much value as the pitchers, Um, it's, you know, 25 to 12. That's not where you want to be. The starting pitching portion of that projection only totals eight war. And last year it was 7.9. And don't forget that's, you know, you have to kind of adjust for who was healthy and who wasn't. Um, if you can flash that projection for the starting pitching. So this is the projections that are in Fangrass depth charts right now. 00:30:54 Speaker 3: And you see Eduardo Rodriguez. 00:30:56 Speaker 2: Brandon Falk, Merrill Kelly, Ryan Nelson, Corbin Burns combining for 141 starts in 826 innings. Those five pitchers actually last year combined for 98 starts in 560 innings. 00:31:11 Speaker 3: A lot more innings. 00:31:12 Speaker 2: Of course, Michael Soroka had 20 plus, Zach Gallin had around 20, and then the rest went to your replacement level pitchers. But The range here of ERAs are from Nelson's 4-3-5 to Kelly's 4-7-1, even Corbin Burns' 4-6-4, Eduardo Rodriguez' 4-4-8. 00:31:34 Speaker 3: Brandon Falk, 4.53. 00:31:37 Speaker 2: These five guys are projected to have a 4.54 ERA and produce just eight war as a group. And that's if they're all relatively healthy and give you 141 starts and only leave 21 starts out. on the table for replacement level pitchers. So this very much supports Jeff's thesis that the D backs really need to add a good starting pitcher to their rotation. And, you know, maybe trade away one of the not so good or find a way

to replace them. So in other words, not just a depth piece, that's going to start the year in triple a, but an actual upgrade. And if they want to get to where they want to go, he, he recognizes that, the starting rotation as a weakness. And after studying this a little bit and reading his article, I tend to agree with him. I think he's really onto something. 00:32:30 Speaker 1: I think for me, the, the danger of, you know, trying to acquire some, some genuinely solid starting pitcher and then trading off one of these guys is that your line of defense in the minor leagues is still going to be really thin at that point. I mean, even though I agree with you that D-backs could use better than just starting pitching depth, I think they also need depth. I mean, I think that having Mitch Bratt as the first line of defense and then, you know, David Hagerman at some point, maybe he's ready next season. Ashton Izzy is another name like, you know, Jose Cabrera is in the mix there too. We saw what that looked like this past season, relying on some of those guys and it wasn't great. So- I think they need both. I mean, I think they need starting pitching depth for sure. And if possible, could you go out and get a starting pitcher who actually is a legitimate upgrade over one of the guys in the rotation now? You'd certainly like to do that. I have my doubts, though, Jack. Frankly, I think that the cost to acquire a pitcher, not to say that any of the five in the rotation right now is like totally awesome, but the cost to acquire a starter that I am very confident is better than a Brandon Fott or a Ryan Nelson or an Eduardo Rodriguez or a Corbin Burns or a Merrill Kelly. The bar is, it's not super high, but it's high enough that like you have to go out and get a pretty established starting pitcher in order to legitimately push one of those guys out of your rotation at this point. And, you know, there's not a whole lot of options in free agency or And as Nick wrote, I mean, it doesn't sound like the D-backs are going to push all that hard in terms of acquiring a free agent pitcher. They're already spending a lot of money on three-fifths of their rotation as it stands right now. Do you really want to pay another pitcher $ 20 million in 2027? I have a hard time seeing them go down that road. And so that's where I think back to a Cattell Marte trade. And I think about like, is there some number three, number four starter type who maybe is an upgrade over at least one of the guys you have right now, could you bring back a player like that in a Marte trade? I think something like that could be possible. Or could you bring that back in another trade? The D-backs certainly have some other assets they could move as well. I think that's probably what you're looking at. 00:34:54 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:34:54 Speaker 2: I mean, look, you could make the argument, like, is it worth it to try to trade Merrill Kelly even if you have to eat half his salary? you only save 10 million

out of the 20. 00:35:07 Speaker 3: And then you. 00:35:08 Speaker 2: Turn around, you also trade Cattell for this year, you're saving 13.75. So, you know, and then if you end up non-tendering Pavin Smith, you're up to about an additional $ 25 million that you've cleared on top of the, at least 15, $ 20 million you probably had to spend anyway, you know, so you could get your numbers up high enough where then you can turn around and, You know, you make a trade for some depth. You, you know, take a swing at one more free agent, you know, or you put the money into a free agent bat and, you know, kind of empty the farm a little bit to get a, you know, a starting pitcher that. 00:35:50 Speaker 3: Fills in there. 00:35:51 Speaker 2: There's a lot of different ways to go about it. The question is, is can they trade Cattell and are they willing to move on from Merrill and eat half that salary, looking at him as being probably, only worth about half his salary. And that's, I mean, that's where he's projecting out. Well, just slightly over one war. And that's if he's mostly healthy. Now, maybe he has a big bounce back season. You know, you sure hate to completely count the guy out, but things were pretty rough last year for basically the entire season. Yes, he had a slow start and he had a back issue, but he had plenty of time to recover from that and plenty of time to kind of right his ship. 00:36:29 Speaker 3: And he never really did. And he's another year older. 00:36:31 Speaker 2: So, These situations usually don't get better from here, but they might. I mean, you can't completely rule it out. He didn't have great stuff to begin with, but his command and in-zone work was just so bad. And sometimes that goes before the velocity. Or that's just another sign of aging is the inability to put the ball where you want. It's not only about velocity. 00:36:57 Speaker 1: My gut on that is that you kind of just have to hold on to him. and, and hope for the best. I mean, we, we talked over the course of the year about how Merrill Kelly's stuff really was pretty similar to what it had been in prior years. And I agree with the points that you're making, like his command was not the same and that is part of aging too. So there's, there's no guarantees that just because the stuff is the same, that the regression was not real, like that he's totally going to bounce back, but you're bringing in a new pitching coach, right? You're, you're giving him a different look. And I think Merrill Kelly has given enough to this organization over the years that the D-backs are probably going to bet on him for better or worse. They're probably going to bet on him coming back and having a bounce back year. And we'll see how that turns out for them. The projection systems, I think it was a 4-7-1 ERA for Merrill Kelly. That's not great. And hopefully he's able to do better than that. The last thing we wanted to get to on this show, Before we get out of here is another piece of news. This one came from Gambo over on Twitter. He tweeted out, it was actually Nolan Arenado that approached the Diamondbacks about playing first base. This apparently is a new storyline with this D-backs team. Gambo continues, while he was great for Arizona this year, his defensive metrics at third base were just okay. So likely he will move to first base, but could play some third base. It leaves a hole at third, and Jose Fernandez would be an option to play there, but Arizona will also explore the market free agents slash trades to see what is out there. I'm not going to lie, Jack, it'd be real weird to see Nolan Arnauto not playing third base. He is going to be a Hall of Famer, and a lot of it has to do with what he's been able to do at that position, but it is true the defensive metrics for him were pretty ordinary. You'd see glimpses here and there of vintage Nolan Aranato defense, but you'd also see some, some lapses here and there that certainly were not the, you know, not characteristic of the player that he once was. So I, I think it could maybe help the diamondbacks that he's willing to do this, but I'm also not convinced that like converting Nolan Aranato to a first baseman is a clearly, a clearly like good roster maneuver for the diamondbacks. 00:39:21 Speaker 2: Well, I mean, one of the other things Gambo emphasized, of course, was that, you know, this actually was coming from Nolan, right? 00:39:29 Speaker 3: You know, that. 00:39:30 Speaker 2: it was he that suggested it. I think he's concerned about his body holding up. At the same time, I don't think that they're talking about doing this on a full-time basis and just having him abandon third base altogether. But maybe they move him over to first base, you know, when there's a lefty on the mound and you need to sit your left. 00:39:52 Speaker 3: Hand at first basement. 00:39:54 Speaker 2: And so he gets, you know, 30 or so reps or starts over at first base. And that maybe gives him a little bit of a break from the rigors of playing third. So it sounds to me like that's more what's in the cards, but it's not certain that they're going to end up doing that. I think the team is maybe a little noncommittal at this point. really has to do with what else they end up bringing in. You know, but if they, like, for example, if they brought in a full-time first baseman that can hit right-handers regardless of his handedness, you know, or doesn't need to be platooned, then that's a different story. If they brought in, like we talked about, Ty France, well, then you're not going to use Nolan Arenado at first base. 00:40:37 Speaker 3: Right. 00:40:38 Speaker 2: Right. But if they bring in a strictly platoon left-handed player to play first base, they have can't face lefties then sure why not you know you can you of course then i don't know where what we do with tim tower and are you going to you know then give up on your pre-arb talent and not give them the chance to develop and take the next step

there's a cost there as well. 00:41:03 Speaker 1: I mean as gambo mentioned there like that could just be opening the door for jose fernandez at third base uh so I mean, maybe that is a path to actually leaning into some of the pre-arb talent you have. But I'm a little skeptical that D-backs are going to run Jose Fernandez out there as like an everyday first baseman. You know, I'm not sure he's you have a platoon over at first with with Nolan and some left handed hitting first baseman you bring in. Do you feel good enough about Jose Fernandez's bat to like be a full time player? I'm not sure I see that in the cards. I guess maybe he's just facing lefties and then Nolan slides over and plays third against right-handed pitching. But it seems like there's a clear need for the Diamondbacks to add in the offense department. And the fact that Nolan is willing to move over to first, it just gives the team a little bit more flexibility there. 00:42:02 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:42:03 Speaker 2: By the way, as we're speaking and recording, they're in the middle of announcing the Gold Glove Awards. And Geraldo Perdomo won the gold glove for the National League at shortstop. So congratulations to Geraldo Perdomo. 00:42:17 Speaker 1: Yeah, and unfortunately, I don't think we're going to wind up sticking around long enough here for all of the announcements to come out. 00:42:24 Speaker 3: We could. 00:42:25 Speaker 1: We could just keep podcasting for another 30 minutes or an hour, however long it'll take. We probably won't do that. But yeah, congratulations to Geraldo Perdomo, his first gold glove. very well deserved, even though things were not quite as good for him offensively in 2026. He had the best defensive season he's ever had and obviously plays a premium position. So just makes you feel even better about the contract extension that the Diamondbacks signed with him a couple years back. Gabriel Moreno, of course, is also an option here, has an opportunity to win a gold glove. We think he probably will, but we don't know that for certain right now Corbin Carroll and Ildemar Vargas also vying for those awards. So who knows, Jack, are the D-backs about to go four to four or four for four? Is that what we're expecting here? 00:43:17 Speaker 2: Well, that's what we'll be talking about during our next show. It won't be news for you guys at that point, but we'll do some deep dive analysis on the seasons that they had defensively and, you know, how they ranked out against the guys they were competing against. And hopefully there's a lot more congratulations in order. 00:43:35 Speaker 1: Well, I see that Gabriel Moreno was just announced as a Gold Glove winner as well. So the D-backs are two for four so far. Corbin Carroll, we were pretty confident about. So I think they're going to go at least three for four. And then we'll see about Ildemar Vargas. He also has a case in that utility spot as well. Until our next show, you can find us over on social media. I am at JesseNFriedman on Twitter. Jack is at ShoeWizard59, and our show is at SnakesTerritory. You can read all of Jack's written work over at Arizona Diamondbacks on SI. And once again, shout out to our good friend Jeff Irving, who wrote a great story over at AZSnakePit. You can find that story over at AZSnakePit.com if you want to check that out. Jack, any final thoughts here as we say goodbye? 00:44:25 Speaker 2: A great way to end the show. I'm just really excited for Gabby and Podomo. And I hope Corbin Carroll gets his hardware as well. And it'd be awesome for Ildemar Vargas too to get the utility award. 00:44:37 Speaker 3: He might. 00:44:38 Speaker 2: So I'm excited to log off here and go find out what's happening with the rest of the awards. 00:44:44 Speaker 1: Thank you again to all of you for being with us on this episode. We really appreciate your time. And we'll be back very, very soon with another edition of Snakes Territory. 00:44:54 Speaker 2: Thank you.