Do D-backs Have the Resources to Build a Contender in 2026? | Snakes Territory

Do D-backs Have the Resources to Build a Contender in 2026? | Snakes Territory

[Music] Hello and welcome into another episode of Snakes Territory. I’m Jesse Freriedman alongside Jack Summers. And uh Jack, it’s uh it’s been a fun few days here with the GM meetings happen. We’ve we’ve uh we’ve had a few different stories being written, some headlines come out. Uh we actually have a decent amount to talk about today. It’s always a good time. Always a good time. And I missed you, Jesse. It’s been too long. Yeah, we uh we apologize for not sticking to the the show schedule that we put out earlier in the week. Uh you all can probably still hear it. I am I am getting over a cold here. Uh my voice is maybe at 80% today, but yesterday it was at like 50%. It would have been a pretty painful lesson for all of you. So uh we did it. We did it really for uh for your benefit more than more than anything else. But yeah, the GM meetings happened, Jack, here over the past few days. Shout out to our good friend Nick Pakoro over at the Arizona Republic who did some great reporting out there on the Diamondback situation. The question that we wanted to to start off with here today, Jack, is is shown there at the top of the screen. Is Mike Hazen boxed in uh just hearing more about the Diamondback situation this off season? What their goals are? Uh is it even possible under the budget constraints that this team has to to be able to get back into contention next year to put together a roster that looks like a team that that really has a shot at making the playoffs? It’s not a super easy question to answer, but uh I think it’s definitely worth considering. Yeah. Well, I mean, essentially Mike has three potential avenues to improve the roster, and specifically, most importantly, improve the pitching staff. that would be uh via free agency, via trade off the major league roster, or stripmining your minor league system um of any and all prospects that are actually uh would get you somebody that’s going to actually help you this year. Um so you know those are the avenues and when you look at each one individually one by one as we’re about to do um it really creates quite the dilemma. I mean I I just kind of want to open by saying look they’re very creative people and they’re very intelligent and this is why they get paid the big bucks and just because I don’t see the pathway forward doesn’t mean there isn’t one. Um, but you know, if they manage to get to where they need to be as far as building up this pitching staff without weakening themselves so much in other areas, then they should get executive of the year before the season even starts. I guess all of this really has to do with the the the milliondoll question of how much money do the Diamondbacks actually have to spend this off season? We’ve heard multiple times from people in the front office that we should expect the payroll to be lower than it was a season ago. That gives us some insight, but it doesn’t tell us a whole lot. I mean, the Diamondbacks set a franchise record. They were up near $200 million in payroll this past year. As of right now, depending on how you crunch the numbers, it’s somewhere in the 140 $145 million range is what they have on the books right now. So, you know, less than $200 million doesn’t tell us a whole lot. I mean, is it less than $200 in that they actually don’t have any money to spend at all? Or is it less than 200 in that maybe it’s about halfway between where they are now and and where they were this past season? Maybe it lands somewhere in the 175 range. I think that’s kind of what you and I have maybe assumed that that somewhere in the middle is is probably the most likely outcome. I know Hazen himself talked about this, Jack. Uh an article that came out, I believe it was uh just just a couple days ago from from uh Nick Pakoro, or was this one today? I think I’m looking at the wrong one. um an article that that came out uh I believe that came out today from Nick Pakoro uh where Mike Hayen addresses some of the the the payroll questions and he he said this when when asked about if the Dbacks have any flexibility at all. He said, “I don’t really feel that way honestly.” Um talking about, you know, not feeling like he has zero room to add at all. He continued, “That’s not the impression I have. Are we going to be doing what we did last off seasonason? Probably not. But I don’t think I have zero wiggle room or avenues to pursue players. Uh Jack, what do you uh what do you make of this? Yeah. Um well, look, you know, the numbers are the numbers. I feel a little bit validated. I had 141.6 million, I think, in our last iteration. Nick said it’s about 144. So, same thing. It’s there. Um, and you know, I’ve been working on the assumption that they probably have at least 25 million to work with and maybe as much as 40, right? I mean, when they say they were close to 200, it was really more like 192, 195. Um, you know, depending on how you want to uh compare apples to apples and how you want to categorize things. So, you know, I think that if they’re only cutting 10 or 15 million off the payroll, then that’s not too big a deal. If they’re cutting 2530 million off the payroll, then it’s a big deal. Um, you know, so, uh, that’s that’s the first point. Of course, you know, there’s a lot of dead money on the payroll due to people that are injured. Corbin Burns, Lordis Guriel Jr., AJ Puck, who’s going to get paid in arbitration, Justin Martinez. I mean, these guys are all, you know, eating up over $50 million. I don’t know if it’s $60 million. It’s a big number. Um, and they, you know, they’re not going to be there. So, they have to fill all of those slots, um, at least for half a season, if not more. So, I I I think that, you know, look, when we look at this, um, it’s it’s a very tight box that he’s in. doesn’t mean he can’t operate within it to improve the team, but the bottom line here is if you if you can pull up that chart which shows the pitching. Um, so Fangraphs came out with their depth chart projection and this is based on steamer projections and it’s war projection by batting by pitching in total and I’ve sorted it by worst to best just the worst 10 or so teams on the pitching side. And what this shows is pitching war. The Rockies are projected for 6.6, six, the White Socks 8.5, and the Diamondbacks 8.9. Um, those are the only three teams in single digits. And the Diamondbacks are projected to have the third least productive pitching staff as of today. So, that’s the platform that they’re that they have to build off of. And they need to get that number up to 13, 14. They need to add five, six, seven war on paper to that pitching staff. just to have a reasonable shot at being an 89 90 win team and going to the playoffs. You know, that’s kind of on paper, right? Might take a few wins less, a few wins more, but that’s kind of what they need to do. And so when you look at it that way, yes, they have that terrific core of position players. It’s 26.3 war projected on paper for position players. 20 of that comes from four guys, right? Corbin Carroll, Heraldo Padomo, Catel Marte, and uh Gabriel Marino. So, you know, 20 of that 26 war comes from four position players and it’s not spread very evenly and it’s woeful on the pitching side. Um those are based on one projection system, Steamer, and then applying their pro playing time projections. Once they layer in zips projections and average it out, it might change five or 10%, but it’s not going to be it’s not going to grow by leaps and bounds. That’s already the band we’re in. If they’re at 8.9, that projection isn’t going to be more than 10 um just by adding zips. It’s probably going to be around the same. So, basically, the Diamondbacks are are entering the season with on paper the third worst pitching staff in all of baseball. And that’s not particularly surprising given what we witnessed this year, what we witnessed the year before that, right? I mean, the Diamondbacks were near the bottom of the leaderboard in all pitching categories. Anyway, I guess they were 23rd in erra when when all was said and done. So, yeah, I mean, this is a this is an already bad pitching staff that is losing two of its bigger name arms in Mel Kelly and Zack Gallon. it it’s a pretty abysmal situation to be in. And yeah, the question is, can the Diamondbacks find a way to add enough on the pitching side under the budget constraints that they have without also, you know, compromising what they have on the offensive side? And that brings us to a really big question, Jack, something that there’s been a lot of buzz around here in the past few days, and it’s will the Diamondbacks trade Catel Marte? We dedicated a whole show to this question a few weeks ago, but it’s something we’ve gotten a lot more reporting out uh a lot more reporting about here in recent days. Uh Mike Hayen himself addressed this at the GM meetings as well. This is also from our good friend Nick Pakoro over at the Arizona Republic. On this topic, Hazen said this, “We field questions on all of our really good players. There’s interest all the time. at the deadline, before the season, after the season. I have to do my job. I have to listen to what people have to say. Hazen added, “We’ll see where the conversations go beyond that. I’d say it’s mostly unlikely for that stuff, for that type of trade to happen.” Um, and yeah, I I know that Gambo came out recently and tweeted out about how the Dbacks are not shopping Catel Marte, but that they would listen on him. I don’t really think that’s a distinction that matters all that much. I mean, with someone like Kel Marte, you don’t have to go calling other teams to see if they want him. Like, he is a good enough player and there’s enough phone calls that are exchanged over the course of an off season. You’re going to get some calls about Catel Marte no matter what you do. And it sounds like the Diamondbacks are more willing to listen now than they probably ever have been before. Uh and of course one of the big reasons for that jack is that Catel Marte is very close to reaching 10 years of major league service after that point the Dbacks uh would not be able to trade him or at least he would have he would have veto rights once he uh once he got there right you know this the whole semantics around you know motivated Bob Bob Languel reported that they were motivated to trade him right um and of course the denials came out and everybody who has access to Hasin and the Dback’s front office receive those denials. No, we’re just listening. Um, and you know, I’m going to ask everyone to put on their critical thinking hats. If the Diamondbacks, as Bob was told, um, let teams know that Marte is available, make an offer. Okay, that’s what Bob was told. Yeah, they let teams know that he was available, make an offer. If that were true, would Mike say that publicly? Would he say that publicly to Gambo on air? Would he say that publicly at the GM meetings? Of course he would not. No. I mean, what do you expect him to do? To go out there and say, “Yeah, I’m shopping Catel. We’ve got to improve this pitching staff. That’s the guy that I’ve got to move. It’s the only way I can get this done. Um, sorry, but this is this is No, of course he’s not going to say that.” Um, now you know, so all of the argument about was he listening, was he shopping, was he just, you know, it doesn’t mean anything. What we’ve said before, and I’ll reiterate, I mean, if you go back and listen to those episodes, we have both said, I don’t think he’s going to get traded, but I don’t think he’s going to get traded because I think it’s an extremely difficult task to find the right match. Yeah. Um, ironically that whole Hunter Green proposal that we made and I wrote about that too. Oh my god, that got, you know, and then I mentioned that on foul territory. I mean, I got absolutely blasted to smitherreens by fans of both teams. Hey, that’s when you know that’s when you know you got something that might be compelling is when both fan bases are angry at you. Yeah. I mean, both fan bases were like, you know, because nobody wants to look at objectively at the risks of their own players, right? You know, that’s that’s the bottom line. And both players have risks. We don’t have to dive into all of it right now. The point being that it is unlikely. I agree with Mike. It’s unlikely that he’s going to trade Catel Marte because I think it’s very unlikely that he can get a needle mover. You know, I mean, how many guys out there that might be trade available that wouldn’t bust his budget could he get? I mean, that’s why we focused in on Hunter Green. He’s an ace level starter when healthy and he’s reasonably priced. You know, the Reds desperately need offense. So, there was a potential match there, but maybe it’s not a good enough match. And I would gather that what Mike is hearing from other teams about what they would be willing to give up for Katel Marte um is not going to be enough to entice Mike to make that kind of move. Just that simple. You know, it doesn’t make sense for him. Now, there one one last point I want to make here. um our good friend uh Jeff Irving, he he and I had some great uh back and forth conversations on DMs and uh you know we talked about the whole uh rearranging the deck chairs type of situation and Nick alluded to that as well. Whereas if you move Catel you know he’s projected for four and a half war um you know if he’s fully healthy 100% and plays 150 games he’ll do more than that. Um but you know on paper that’s what you’re talking about. Now, if you bring in a four plus war pitcher like a Hunter Green, what have you accomplished? All you’re doing is swapping war. But the argument I made there was there’s two reasons why that could still be beneficial. number one is if you’re just repositioning some of that production into pitching, um it kind of levels you out a little bit and might make you better able to win some of these close games and correct your atrocious one-run game record, you know, with a pitching and defense model. So, that’s one. And then the second, and you’ve mentioned this, Jesse, it’s easier to backfill. Um, you know, okay, if Catel’s 4.5 war, I think it would be easier for the Diamondbacks to find a way to at least come up with 1.5 to two war at second base. Yeah. To replace Catel than it will be for them to come up with 1.5 to2 war pitching where, you know, 1.5 to two war innings each pitcher is getting 16 $18 million a year. So, you know, on the free agent market. So, one is easier to backfill. Kind of if you think a little bit back to the Paul Goldmid trade, not relitigating that, when they traded him, it was just a one-year deal, right? Because he only had one year of control left, right? So they picked up Carson Kelly and they picked up Luke Weaver and for what they did in 2019, that production was almost equal, but they backfilled with Christian Walker at two plus War at first base, which she wasn’t going to reproduce Goldie’s five and six war seasons, but it wasn’t that difficult for them to backfill and and at least plug war right there while they improved in other areas. So that’s kind of the concept here. Now, I hate to invoke that trade because that’s not what we’re looking for, what we’re talking about. I maintain that if the Diamondbacks trade could tell Marte, they must get a premium frontline pitcher back or it makes no sense. I would agree with that for sure. I I do want to circle back to to Hazen’s wording. Uh the phrase mostly unlikely to to desri to describe the chances that Catel Marte is traded. I mean that to me like if ever Mike Hazen were were actually shopping a player, I almost feel like that’s what he would like that’s the type of phrase he would. I might be reading way too much into that, Jack. I probably am. But there’s just something weird about the phrase mostly unlikely. He could have very well said that a trade is very unlikely. And that would have probably caused me to at least think a little bit differently. be like, “Okay, if Mike Kasan says it’s very unlikely, then okay, we you know, that probably means something.” But mostly unlikely, it doesn’t even really mean anything. I I mean, it it sort of just has like these qualifiers kind of built into it. So, uh we’ll we’ll see how things turn out over the course of the offseason. I very much agree with you that trading Catel Marte is going to be very challenging. feeling like you’re actually moving the ball forward in that move uh is is going to be tremendously difficult. And I’m with you, the default outcome is probably that that trade just doesn’t happen because the Dbacks just can’t find a fit that makes sense for them. Uh but uh continuing on with with some storylines from the past few days, we did get some news about some other Dbacks that very well could be traded over the course of the off season. We’ll talk about that. We’ve got some other GM meetings news. We’ll talk about Heraldo Purdomo. uh a little bit later in the show, some MVP ballot information that we now have. Uh we’ll be right back after this break here on Snakes Territory. This episode of FT is brought to you by Square. Your favorite neighborhood spots run on Square. Give me an example in Pennsylvania. Cratz, right down the street from my house, the Tap House. 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Well, I don’t know if this is earthshattering news necessarily, Jack, but we did also get a report from Nick Pakoro during the GM meetings that one of Jake McCarthy and Alec Thomas appears likely to be traded this winter. We’ve talked for a long time about how having both of those guys on the same roster hasn’t really made a ton of sense. And especially now with with really neither McCarthy nor Thomas having provided much value at all in 2025, having both of them on the roster going into next year, it it just seems like it it might be time to to commit to one of those guys instead of both. see if you can find playing time for that guy, but use the other one to try to get help in another area. Yeah. My guess here is um the best that they’re going to do is get a reliever with a couple of years control that they like. Yeah. I mean, you know, then what else can you get? You’re not going to get any starting pitching of any consequence for those guys. Um you know, nobody’s giving up a top prospect for those guys. Uh you know, I’m just it is what it is. Their trade value is very low. uh because of the season that they they had. Um between the two, I still maintain that um the baseball community probably views Alec Thomas as having more upside than Jake McCarthy. And so at that point, you’d probably rather gamble on his upside. I don’t know if that’s actually true, but um you know, I think the the gaps in each player’s game are fairly evident. We watch them every day for the last four years, so we know them very well. And I’m sure teams scouting them do as well. But, you know, the bottom line is is Alec Thomas does have some pop if he can get the ball in the air and he can get to it and improve his plate discipline. A lot of big ifs, but if he can, he’s got more pop than Jake McCarthy. And so, that’ll always play as far as, you know, looking at potential trade value. So, my guess is um if they trade one, it’ll be Alec because he has greater trade value and they may actually be able to get something in return that will be useful to them on the major league roster in the form of a relief pitcher with two years of control or something like that. It’s an interesting comparison because they’ve actually played almost the exact same number of games in their major league careers. Jake McCarthy is at 431. Alec Thomas is at 420. Uh their their plate appearance totals 1453 for Jake, 1385 for Alec. So they’re in a really similar place in terms of how much we’ve seen of them at the big league level. I don’t know. Oh, I mean I think I definitely agreed with you. Maybe maybe like the beginning of last year still where Alec Thomas, you’d seen what he could do defensively and offensively there there was no question that he had more power. That continues to be the case. But just looking bigger picture at this point, Jack, I mean, Alec Thomas has a career 76 OPS plus. Jake McCarthy has a career 96 OPS+. And with Jake, I mean, if you’re willing to buy in that like the truth for him lies somewhere between what he was this past year and what he was in 2024 when he hit 285 and had a 749 OPS. I mean, that’s at least like a valuable player, right? I mean, he’s he can play all three outfield positions. He can run the bases a little bit. He’s going to be one of the fastest players on your team, and he’s a close to league average bat. So, I I I mean, it’s maybe not a debate worth having. I I wonder if Jake McCarthy maybe is caught up or or might even have more trade value right now, but uh it’s uh it’s it’s hard to say. Unfortunately for the Dbacks, neither of these guys, as you said, is going to get them a whole lot in a trade right now, right? I mean, it is what it is. Um you know, I hate to keep using that phrase, but I think that our listeners and, you know, Dbacks fans have watched them. I mean, they’re they’re both great people. They both work hard. Um, you know, I I couldn’t want more success for either one of them. I mean, you know, I love them both. Um, and uh, you know, I wish that the the team was able to help them. I mean, maybe they’re both change of scenery candidates. You know, maybe they go elsewhere and and somebody can help them. You know, that I I guess we can’t rule out the possibility that they both get moved. Well, the Ducks are going to need somebody to play in the outfield in 2026. So, uh, they could they could move both. You’re right. It’s possible they they certainly would have some uh some spots to fill if they if they did that. Transitioning over to to another topic, Jack. Um one of the biggest variables for the Dbacks going into 2026 is Corbin Burns and not just Burns, I guess, but also AJ Puck and Justin Martinez, Lordis Guriel Jr. guys who are going to be coming back from pretty significant injuries at some point during the season. and we don’t know exactly when, but Burns is interesting because he’s a starting pitcher. I mean, he’s exactly what the Diamondbacks need and he showed in the first half this past year why the Dbacks gave him the the money that he did. Things were that they did. Things were a little rough for him early in the season, but he really really settled into to a nice rhythm before going down with the injury. I know you’ve done some some research, Jack, into what we can expect from Burns. I think a lot of people have a sense that like when when a guy is coming back from Tommy John, you you don’t want to expect them to be their their regular selves right away. Uh but I know you have a little bit a little bit more uh research, some more specifics into what that what that usually looks like. Yeah, I I wrote an article. You can find it over on u, you know, Diamondbacks on SI. Um, the title of the article is why Corbin Burns Demback’s return may be disappointing. Um, and it’s only going to be disappointing to people that expect him to just step in and resume being, you know, Corbin Burns where, you know, you’re you’re going to get six innings every night and he’s going to post a three RA. Um the the reality is this even and I in my research I kind of culled it down to elite or top end starting pitchers guys that had won Sai Youngs gotten Sai young votes made all-star teams right you know I didn’t want to look at average pitchers I wanted to look at guys that were really good that went down with Tommy John surgery and returned like the year after mid year because there’s a big difference between say a guy going down towards the end of the year, missing the entire next season, then having another full off season and spring training to ramp up. Think Justin Verlander, right? And he came back and won the Sai Young. But you we’re not talking about that. We’re talking about guys that, you know, they go down in February, March, April, May, and then they come back mid-season or a little later the next year, you know, so somewhere in that 12 to 14 month range, sometimes a little longer. That’s what I was looking at because that’s what Burns is talking about. He’s talking about coming back on September 29th. He was interviewed and said, “My target is around the All-Star break.” Okay. So, everyone got all excited like, “Oh, wow. Corbin Burn’s going to be back earlier. Mike Hazen, to his credit, has what I think is a very healthy attitude. He said, um, he view he he views the returning arms coming back as more of a boost to the Dback’s roster rather than being from the solution to a need to be filled in a at a later date. Alex Dagustinino wrote that and here’s the exact quote from Mike. Uh, we will be welcoming them back as we move through the season, the injured players. it will be a boon to what we’re trying to do. So, how do we get to that point is what I’m focused on right now. So, look, you know, they they are talking about it’s like picking a players at the trade deadline, but at the same time, like who are you getting? So what I did, you know, was I started looking at who are these players that in the last five years or so that were are on a similar level had Tommy John surgery and what did they do when they came back. So I broke it into three groups. The one was the moderately successful returns and uh those included um Chris Sale uh Hunin Ru and Shane Bieber. So Chris Sale, you know, he had his surgery in July of 2020. He came back in mid August of 21. He made nine starts and put up a 316 erra, but he only threw 43 innings. So less than five innings per start. Rue similarly went down had his surgery in mid June of 22, came back August 1 of 23. So again, that’s just 13 and a half months. He made 11 starts and he had a 346 ERA, but he only threw 52 innings. Again, less than five innings per start. He also had kind of a nasty fifth at 491 and he went back to the KBO and pitched in Korea the last two years. And then you have Shane Bieber who went had his surgery in April of 24. Now, he took a little bit longer. He came back in late August of 25. He made seven regular season starts and he averaged over five innings per start. He made 40. he pitched 40 innings, went three and a half erra, and he pitched well in a postseason. So, those are um kind of nice, you know, positive comps, like, okay, that’s something that you could maybe hold your head on to, but then we look at like some of the poor regular season returns. Walker Beller had his surgery in late August of 2022. Um, and he came he came back in uh 24 in May. So, he took a while to come back, but it was mid-season and he made 16 starts and had a post at a 538 erra. Now, he did pitch pretty well in the uh uh NLCS and in the World Series and helped the Dodgers to uh uh World Series at that point, but I mean, you know, he was pretty disastrous in the regular season and he had a disastrous regular season this year. And then the other was Robbie Ray had his surgery May 3rd of 2023. He came back in July of 24. He made seven starts. He barely crossed four innings per start. He threw 31 innings and he posted a 47 RA and then he went down for the season with a hamstring injury. Um now in the case of Sale backing up a little bit, I mean he was really good the next year. Um, Bieber was obviously good in the postseason. Um, Buer still not so much, but Robbie Ray had a solid season. So, I’m not saying these guys are toast. I’m saying that when they first come back, it’s a mixed bag. Then you have all the guys, and I’m sorry this is going on so long, but I’ve got a list of six guys that are kind of in that comparable range and what I call incomplete returns. guys that came back and either pitched less than 10 innings or just 10, 12, 13 innings. Carlos Rodan, Luis Severino, Norah Synergard, Tyler Glassno, Garrick Crochet, Jacob Deg Grom. So these are all guys that had surgery between 2019 and 2023. Almost, you know, most of them had their surgery in the first half of the year, like Burns, and most of them didn’t come back until late in the year in September. you know, whether that was their original timeline or if they had setbacks. Um, but you know, Rodon pitched eight innings in his first return year. Severino six, Synergard 2, Glassnell 7, Crochet 13, Deg Grom 11. Um, now almost all of them in subsequent seasons had a lot of success. Rodan, Synagard, Glassnau, Crochet, Deg Grom, all had success after the year after their first return year. Every athlete’s different. Every arm surgery situation, they’re all unique. I’m just trying to illustrate a wide range of outcomes and saying, “Hey, you know, yeah, you might get 8 to 10, 12 really good starts out of Corbin Burns, or you may get a half a dozen or a dozen pretty mediocre starts.” And a lot of you, think about the Diamondbacks, you know, pitch count control, uh, you know, keeping the innings down. They’re not going to let him just go out there and all of a sudden rush out to 90 100 pitches. No way. The Dbacks do that. So, if anybody’s thinking along the lines of, well, just get a decent starter and back fill and then when Bordon’s come back, everything’s going to be hunky dory. I wouldn’t count on that. Anything you get from him is a boost and a boon, but it’s not something you can depend on. So, a long way of saying all that. No. Yeah. I mean, that’s really good stuff. I I think it’s important perspective for people to have. I mean, you you think about getting a name like Corbin Burns back mid-season. It’s like, oh, well, maybe maybe the Dbacks could get by with just one starting pitcher. Uh, you know, maybe a Christian Maya or someone from TripleA can fill in until Burns gets back. But when you look at the numbers you just described, I mean, what really stands out to me is even the guys who performed well were not going deep into games. Uh, you know, Chris Sale and and you know, uh, Shane Bieber, I guess, is a is another example. We certainly saw him in in the World Series have some success. It’s not that you can’t get anything from these guys. It’s just that it’s probably not going to look like it did before they went down with surgery. you’re really looking at 2027 where you’d hope to see Corbin Burns kind of look like himself again. I do want to circle back real quick, Jack, to the Catel Marte conversation just for a second. Something that I I I don’t think I realized initially in uh in in uh Nick Pakoro’s story over at the Arizona Republic. He said for the Diamondbacks to ultimately part with Marte, they likely would need to receive a package of young big leaguers or a combination of young major leaguers and prospects who are nearly big league ready. It’s interesting to me that in both of those scenarios, it it doesn’t sound like a Hunter Green type trade or or a or a Brian Woo or a you know, shooting for that frontline starter that that you and I have really focused our attention around in these conversations. It sounds more like I mean the Zack Ranky trade didn’t go well. I I don’t want to necessarily make a comparison to that, but more that format of trade where you’re getting back multiple players. Granted, the Grankkey trade, you were really getting prospects back. They weren’t really big league ready guys. Corbin Burns had a little bit of major league experience, but you know, you weren’t or Corbin, did I say Corbin Burns? Is that what I just said? Corbin Martin. Corbin Martin. The Diamondbacks, they have lots of Corbin. There are lots of Corbins to keep track of. Corbin Martin had a little bit of big league experience, but he was hurt. And so, you know, I I don’t think there’s any way the Dbacks trade could tell for a bunch of guys who are in double A, you know, who who really need more time to to Well, that was a salary dump. Yeah, that’s a salary dump. It was a different It was a different type of trade all the way around because of that. But just the larger picture of like are you shooting for that one bigname player or or you know maybe it’s that player plus one other guy or are you trying to spread the value around to receive a package of young big leaguers which is the the phrase that that Nick used. Would that be of interest to you Jack? Like if it if it’s a a few young players who have potential you know have some big-time prospect status maybe have played a little bit in the majors. Is that compelling or for you? Does it have to be that frontline starter that you know could could start for you on opening day? Um, it depends on what they’re actually trying to accomplish and what they’re actually trying to accomplish may not always align with what they say publicly because you’re talking about a rebuild, you know, retool, whatever. Yeah. Um, you know, you move Catel Marte, who’s an all-star caliber player, silver slugger at his position, you know, easily one of the top 15, 20 hitters at the worst in major leagues, right? Um, and if you move that for a package of young players that might be good, that aren’t proven. Um, forget about fan reaction and, you know, which they can’t, but I mean, setting aside, I should say, not forgetting, but setting aside fan reaction, which would be enormously negative. Um, you know, you’re just setting yourself up for a major disappointment because most of those guys aren’t going to work out. Yeah, that’s just the way that is. I mean, look, if you’re moving Catal Marte, you have to get if they do anything but that, they’re making a huge mistake. Look, he’s not going anywhere. He’s going to have 10 and five rights in April. They’re not going to be able to get the deal. And, you know, Catel Marte is probably going to finish out his contract at Diamondback. Yeah, that does seem that does seem like the most the most likely outcome. I’m just so intrigued at what, you know, what are those conversations looking like right now? We I know there was a report that at least seven teams have reached out to the Diamondbacks about Catel Marte. Uh yeah, I mean, what what what we got to address could be coming back. We we got to address the elephant in the room. They’re lowballing because everybody knows that the Diamondbacks were upset with Catel because of what happened during the season and the perception of Catel. I mean, look, he just finished what, 22nd, 23rd in the MVP voting. He got one ninth place vote. Okay, now that’s the media. Those that’s not the other teams. But yeah, you know, don’t kid yourself. What happened damaged Matt Marte’s value in the marketplace, the way he’s viewed, what teams are looking for, you know, um it it severely damaged. And so, uh you know, whether or not the Dbacks are going to be able to get all they can and should get out of him going forward, that’s up to them to figure it out. They made this bed, they got to sleep in it. Yeah. Yeah. Well said. The other the other little nugget that stands out to me from from Nick and his his final story from the GM meetings is that and this is Nick reporting that Mike Hazen and others in his front office sound cautiously optimistic they might be able to match up with another club in a prospect for prospect deal that would bring back a young starting pitcher. So that to me Jack sounds kind of like the Jazz Chisum Zack Ranki or Zack Gallon. Boy, I’m I’m getting all mixed up today with Diamondbacks of years past. the Jazz Chisum Zack Gallon trade that happened back in 2019. You know, you and I have tried to figure out like who is the Zack Gallon of today, like like who is that guy who has just a little bit of big league experience, but that a team might still be willing to to part with. I don’t know who the name is, but it’s interesting that Mike Hazen and others in his front office sound cautiously optimistic something like that could happen. Well, Jesse, it’s a great point. I think that if they’re able to pull off a similar type trade, that would be great. I mean, again, going back to what I said at the top of the show, this is why they get paid the big bucks. Uh, Zack Gallen produced 19.4 war baseball reference war, similar number by Fangraphs, uh, for the Diamondbacks. So, if they can do that again, if they can trade Jordan Lawler or Ryan Walshmid, um, somebody like that and bring back a pitcher that produces that much for the franchise over a five or six year period, that would be wonderful. I’m not counting on it. I think that that’s going to be very difficult to reproduce. Yeah, that is uh that is probably fair. These deals basically never happen. So, we’ll see if the Diamondbacks are able to find a way to pull something like that off. To finish things up for for this episode, Jack, we did want to revisit Haraldo Purdomo, his uh his MVP chase. Uh which frankly, Heraldo Purdomo was never going to win the NL MVP, but he did have a legitimate case for second place as we’ve talked about here on this show. Unfortunately, he did not get second place. He landed pretty much exactly where I thought he would, Jack. Finishing fourth place in fourth place behind Sho Otani, Kyle Schwarber, and then Juan Sodto. Purdomo slid in right behind those three guys. Yeah, I mean, he did get three second place votes. I um you know, and he was named on almost every ballot at least at somewhere along the lines. I think the total number of votes he got was 10, 21, 26, 27, 28, 29. So, um, you know, I think the only one that didn’t, um, include him, at least in the top 10, was the Colorado Rockies writer, uh, for MLB.com, Thomas Harding. U, the two Arizona BBWAA chapter voters, uh, in this case were, uh, Bob Nightingale and Barry Bloom, and they each gave him fifth place votes. Uh, but, you know, Padomo did really well. I mean, you know, three second place votes, seven third place votes, that’s 10 votes in the top three that he got. So, he wasn’t that far off. Um, you know, and I think that should he repeat this kind of season once again, I mean, then that would be phenomenal. Uh, it most likely is going to go down as far as war is concerned, his career year, but you never know with these things. Uh, but congratulations to Heraldo Ponomo. Truly fabulous season, the heart and soul of this team. Um I I think that he was more valuable in many many ways than Kyle Schwarber and Juan Sto. Um but I understand the voting for those players as well. Um and they each did some things that were fabulous this year too. So uh at the end of the day uh Heraldo Padomo’s got had a got a nice four-year $40 million contract or whatever it was. um you know and he’s going to be a well- paid but good bargain for the Diamondbacks player for at least another four years. One of my big questions going into this Jack was would there be any voters that had Corbin Carroll higher than Heraldo Purdomo and it did happen. There were two of them. Uh Tim Kirken uh the legendary Tim Kirken at ESPN. He had Corbin Carroll seventh on his ballot and Heraldo Purdomo eighth and then it was also Mark Bowman from MLB.com. He had Corbin Carroll eighth and then Heraldo Purdomo 10th on his ballot. As you said, there was also a voter out in Colorado who did not have either. He didn’t have Puromo on his ballot. He also did not have uh Corbin Carroll on his ballot, but he did have Catel Marte on his ballot. Uh go go figure with that one. But no surprises here from me on this Jack. I figured there’d be a couple of people who are just so much more familiar with Corbin Carroll’s game. And uh you know, if if you’re a little bit more traditional, then maybe you’re just looking at OPS. And Corbin Carroll did finish the year with an OPS a little bit higher than uh than Purdomo. Yeah, fair enough. Um and you know look the the recognition um the name recognition and you know I think sometimes there’s carryover whereas you know Carol’s been great in the past you had that great rookie year uh this is the first time Purdomo has been great. Uh so there’s that. Um and again it’s notable that you know the only vote that Catel got was one ninth place vote. Um which you know in strict value terms I mean there’s no way that he was that low down. Um you know whether or not he should have been top 10 is pretty debatable but he easily could have been top 15. Um he should have got a few more votes than just one ninth place vote as far as his performance is concerned. why nobody else pulled the lever for him even at a eighth or ninth or tenth spot um other than Thomas Harding. Uh well, I think we’ve kind of already addressed that issue. Yeah, I mean it’ll be fascinating to see moving forward like does this become a regular thing for Heraldo Purdomo? Are we going to be talking about Heraldo Purdomo on MVP ballots on a year-in yearout basis for the foreseeable future? or was this truly just the, you know, a a breakout season the likes of which we may never see before, we may never see again. It’s not to say that that Purdomo, you know, is never going to be a great player after this season, but the heights that he reached this year, Jack, I mean, even if he doesn’t get to this point ever again in his big league career, which I think is possible, I mean, that like he could still have an awesome career even if he doesn’t have another season like he did this year. I mean, it was a seven it was seven wins above replacement. He his defensive metrics at shortstop were great and obviously the the offensive numbers were there for him as well. Yeah. I mean, in 2024, he had three and a half war at baseball reference in 98 games, right? So, you know, had he played 150, then that’s a five war five plus war season. So, you know, I think the projections have him at four and change right now, which is about right. I mean, that’s that’s how projections work. Um, and you know, look, if if Heraldo Padama is a four or five war player, legitimately already he has been the last two years, right? Last year was five plus. This year he was seven. So, you know, that’s that’s easily uh you know, even when you regress to the mean and you know, take a little bump backwards, it’s easy to project him to being a four or five war player, which is really good. I mean, that’s borderline all-star right there. Um, you know, he’s been an all-star once, ironically, the year before that when he probably didn’t quite deserve it. Um, you know, but, um, he deserved to be in the top three of the MVP this year. That’s the se they were voting on this year. Um I think the voters missed but uh you know I wouldn’t be surprised to see him have a lesser season but place higher in the voting if the Dbacks make the postseason or something like that. Yeah, he’s the top position player. So, you know, these things can work around pretty funny. But, you know, bottom line, terrific player, terrific season, a joy to talk to, joy to be around, um a joy to watch play baseball. does everything pretty well. Um, and uh, you know, so just congrats again, Haraldo. Well, on that note, that is all that we have for this edition of Snakes Territory. We really appreciate all of you being here with us and being patient waiting for this next episode. As always, we’d really appreciate it if you’d subscribe to our channel here on YouTube. Uh, hit the bell so that you receive notifications and never miss an episode of the show. Drop a like on this video. Leave us a comment. We would love to hear from you. If you’re joining us over on an audio only platform, it also would really mean a lot to us if you would leave us a five-star review. You can find us over on social media as well. I am Jesse Freriedman on Twitter. Jack is at shoe wizard 59 and our show is at Snakes Territory. Um, and of course you can find all of Jack’s written work over at Arizona Diamondbacks on SI. If you go over to his Twitter account, you could find all of his stories there. um as well as a link just to just to the whole the whole website where you can find his work as well as uh the work of Alex Dagghastino, his partner in crime over there who also does an outstanding job. Jack, any uh any final thoughts before we say goodbye? I’m just really looking forward to the rest of the offseason. I mean, it’s fascinating what’s uh what’s ahead um and how Mike Hazen’s going to thread this needle and break out of his box. So, and you know, we’ll be here to chronicle that. There you go. Well, thank you again to all of you for being with us. We really appreciate it. And we’ll be back with another episode of Stinks Territory very, very soon.

With several key players hitting free agency and the Diamondbacks widely expected to cut payroll, can the club really field a contender in 2026? We discuss whether Diamondbacks general manager Mike Hazen is boxed in before the offseason even begins.

We also dive into all the D-backs reporting from the GM Meetings, including the latest on a potential Ketel Marte trade and why one of Jake McCarthy or Alek Thomas is likely to be moved. Plus, the voting for NL MVP was announced. Where did Geraldo Perdomo finish? Should he have done better?

And finally, what should fans expect from right-hander Corbin Burnes after he returns from Tommy John surgery next year? We discuss what history has to stay. Join Jesse Friedman and Jack Sommers on Snakes Territory.

Check out https://square.com/go/FOUL and go support your favorite neighborhood spot to see what Square has been up to in your neck of the woods.

00:00 Intro
01:05 Are the D-backs boxed in?
09:34 Mike Hazen addresses Ketel Marte rumors
19:50 Jake McCarthy or Alek Thomas likely to be traded
24:32 Expectations for Corbin Burnes
41:41 Geraldo Perdomo finishes 4th in NL MVP voting
47:52 Outro