Merry baseball Christmas to all who celebrate.
It is opening day in the major leagues, and some of baseball's most prominent pundits are saying that the Arizona Diamondbacks are poised to be one of the top teams in the league this year.
Nick Piecoro, who covers the team for the Arizona Republic, joins The Show to preview the season.
Conversation highlights
DINGMAN: So Nick, the, the Dbacks made a big splash this offseason with the signing of Corbin Burnes, ace starting pitcher, and as an Orioles fan, I have to tell you I was very depressed about that, because he pitched for us last year.
But the thing I wanted to ask you is, you have this amazing report in the Republic recently about Burnes and his routine, which he's very devoted to, and it made me remember that when Burnes came to pitch for the Orioles, he sort of became the main character in the season, and that seems to have happened with the Diamondbacks where Burnes was resistant to pitching on the second day of the season because that would have meant he would have had to disrupt his routine.
What, what can you tell us about this mysterious routine?
PIECORO: Well, he's a creature of habit. He's a guy who had a really bad year, early in his, in his big league career and wound up kind of restructuring everything in his life to kind of, you know, just focus on the things that he can control.
It starts with waking up every day at a particular time, making the bed every day, like driving to the ballpark and, you know, every, everything is kind of structured and scripted as, as best as, as he can. Obviously he has kids and that can change a person's routine a little bit, so he, he does have some room for adjusting but he just doesn't like to stray from it.
So when Torey Lovullo, the Dbacks manager, was a little bit late in naming Zac Gallen as his opening day starter instead of Burnes, it meant that Burnes was gonna have to potentially pitch on a couple of extra days of rest, which meant that between start routine that he had, that he has, was gonna have to be altered and. And rather than do that, he just felt like it'd be better to, to stay on his schedule and pitch in the fifth game of the season, which is kind of weird that Corbin Burnes is a $210 million number 5 starter.
But you know, it, it's probably doesn't really, it probably isn't gonna make a difference, you know what I mean? It's once, once opening day passes, the number one pitchers don't match up against each other very often. There's off days and scheduling quirks and stuff that, that interrupts that. And it probably is just a, a little interesting story for the first week of the season and, and, you know, as you mentioned, I mean, it really sheds light on just kind of the way that that he, you know, you know, the, the things that he believes make him a great pitcher and it gives a whole insight into his character.
DINGMAN: Well, it conjured this memory for me of, there was this game last year for the Orioles where he went out to to start pitching, and there was no cleat scraper on the mound, which is, I guess, also a big part of his routine, and he started screaming into the dugout demanding that this thing be put out and then he didn't pitch well in that game and then he went on this slide where he, you know, his ERA went to 8 for like a whole month.
Is there any sense based on what you observed that this level of intensity from him has an impact like on the clubhouse or the other players?
PIECORO: I don't know yet. that, that's an interesting, that's an interesting anecdote. I, I just, I just know that these guys, they're, they're very particular, you know, I mean, they, they, they play a sport where a lot of stuff is out of their control.
If you're the pitcher, you can control where your pitches go. You can't really control what happens when a batter swings or, or, or, you know, whether they're on time and, and all that stuff. So, or, or if a ball, you know, is, is fielded cleanly by a defender. So it winds up being a, a, a sport, I mean, you hear it talked about all the time, just how much failure there is in baseball and how being able to handle all of that stuff, you know, the game is as much mental as anything.
And so I think for a lot of these guys, the, the way that they, that they sort of combat that is by just having these, these, I mean, it's, it's part of why guys are so superstitious too, right? I mean, it, it just leads to to guys doing whatever they can to control what they know they can control. So it, I don't know, it's interesting to watch.
I, I, I hadn't heard, or I don't remember that happening last year, so that will be a thing to look for. I'll, I'll see if he's got a scraper out there on the mound every game.
DINGMAN: I mean, I'll say that what he seemed to be saying if I was reading his lips correctly, we, we couldn't say on public radio.
Let me ask you this. You know, speaking of storylines and narratives, there is so much talk about the Dodgers juggernaut, just on CNN this morning. They ran a story about the Dodgers. It's like a national story. But a lot of pundits are also really bullish on the Diamondbacks. Ken Rosenthal at the Athletic this morning called them one of the top 5 teams in baseball. How much of that narrative trickles down to the backfields during spring training and the and, the clubhouse? Are the players aware of this, this whole dynamic?
PIECORO: Yeah, for sure. I mean, these guys, these guys aren't denying what, what seems obvious to everybody, and that's that the Dodgers have constructed a, a super team, a super roster. I mean, you look at their, you look everywhere that, that they, you know, whether it's the bullpen, the position players, the starting rotation, it just feels like there's stars everywhere.
It's a team that's, that's, I mean, they're spending almost $400 million on salary, which is twice what the Diamondbacks are spending, and the Diamondbacks are in an area financially that I don't know that anyone would have really predicted them being in. It's a, it's a club record payroll of almost $200 million and yet they're dwarfed significantly by the Dodgers.
I do think though that, you know, these guys know that like they're a good team and, and that they have a lot of talent in this room, and they also know, you know, from experience that just because a team might have the most talent doesn't mean that they're going to, you know, win at all.
I mean, the Diamondbacks knocked off a Phillies team two years ago in the postseason that, you know, even the Dbacks guys would admit had more talent on it. It's just baseball's a, baseball is a funny sport, you know, anything can happen.
And, you know, they think that they're, you know, maybe they're not on paper as talented, but that doesn't mean they're not a really good team. That doesn't mean that they can't compete with them on a nightly basis.
