Baseball Isn’t Boring
There Are So Many Things To Learn From Diamondbacks Asst. GM Amiel Sawdaye
20 Oct 2025
Chapter 1: What insights does Amiel Sawdaye share about coming back from a 2-0 deficit in the LCS?
on you know how I know this I googled it
You'd rather have Drake May on right now. No, I know I wouldn't.
Are you kidding me? You could have said a million different names. I would have been like, oh, no, I'm going to lie and say yes. No, no, no, no. No, I would much rather have you on than Drake May.
Okay. Well, we should test that out. You should ask Drake May to come on one day and see if he'll trump my spot.
No, he actually would be interesting because he played baseball. But, yeah, I don't know. The youth, young athletes of today, they're so guarded. And this is where I like the ones who aren't. You guys actually have some good talkers, I feel like. Right? Yeah. Put him on. It's almost like you guys have some sort of bet that I'm not going to have Perdomo on the podcast.
Because every time I see you guys, you're like, have you had Perdomo on the podcast? You should put Perdomo on the podcast. Mookie had him on. I know. Well, yeah. I mean, and here's the thing. I don't even make you wear sunglasses. Like... It's true. It is true. I actually talked to, I saw Mookie out. Well, it actually was in Philadelphia, distant passing. He was talking about the podcast.
It's pretty interesting. It's in synopsis. It's podcasting. It's a lot, man. It's a lot. I do it every day. Yeah.
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Chapter 2: How do front offices operate during the World Series?
Yeah. I know that because you are an avid consumer of the baseballs and boring brand.
You want a hat? You like hats? You know what? I have enough stickers. I just put them on my head. I think I asked you if you had a hat.
There's someone riding the sticker train right now who openly asked for stickers throughout this postseason run. Who's that? I'll give you a hint. He works for the Dodgers. I mean, I know a lot of people that work for the Dodgers. All right. Well, he usually keeps a low profile unless he wants to stand around and talk during BP. Galen Carr. I was going to say Galen. Galen Carr.
Again, he went on the run just much like the Arizona Diamondbacks know the magic that lie within the stickers. Galen Carr used those stickers all the way to celebrating in the Yankee Stadium field last year. Congratulations. That's awesome. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations to you guys as well. It'll happen next year. Magical seep into your bones. So let's go. I'm very optimistic.
Ever since I put the baseball is boring sticker on my – water bottle, we haven't gotten to the playoffs. So there's a good chance I'm ripping that off next year.
I mean, in fairness, when did you do that? Like with a couple weeks left? In September, right?
No, probably in the world. I don't even know. Maybe after the World Series.
All I know is that you guys made a couple good runs at it. I feel the magic coming.
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Chapter 3: What makes the Dodgers a consistently successful team?
Anyway, all right. Okay, let's get to it. there's a few things I want to ask you. To ask you, who just... You didn't even tell me this. What a magical 2025 this has been. You were awarded the Distinguished Alumni Award by Pikesville High School. I mean...
i mean really nothing mattered after that that's right it was an it was the beginning of april and i i mean i could chalk the whole year up i was the distinguished alumni in pikesville high school although when you look up at the board i don't belong there i mean there are people that were like nobel peace prize really oh yeah like uh really a lot of very smart people hollywood producers uh like
I mean, there's an oncologist who's kind of one of the leading researchers in cancer research, and then me. So I'm not sure I belong there.
There's only one of those people who have a baseball is a boring sticker on their water bottle. That's right. Well, congratulations for that. And sincerely, I know that you guys had to bob and weave your way through this year. A lot of things, you know, injuries and everything else. But congratulations to a year. And I say this, like, and as I'm saying this, I can feel Mike Hazen, like...
Basically, he's almost going to appear on this podcast out of nowhere, and he'd be like, shut the F up.
Well, if you did this with him on the call right now, he'd probably just click leave meeting.
He absolutely would. But anyway, I'm here to build up, not tear down. So I do want to ask you about this time of year for you, for you guys. So you're obviously the next thing, when the World Series ends, it's like when you have to spring into action. What's it like now? Do you... Actually, I mean, you have one eye on the World Series, obviously.
But how busy are you leading into the GM meetings, leading into all these decisions that have to be made? Obviously, qualifying offers, contracts being tendered, all that. What is it like for you right now?
Yeah, it's actually incredibly busy. You don't realize how busy it can get. I mean... We obviously ended the season not where we wanted to be, so didn't make a ton of plans in October as far as where to travel or what to do. Um, but you know, I went right away, probably a few days afterwards, I went down to Dominican, spent some time. We built a new Academy down there.
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Chapter 4: What unique challenges do the Mariners face in trades?
You know, we have a meeting. We have actually some amateur scouting meetings coming up this week for three days. We've had some planning offseason planning meetings with our front office this past week. We have an ownership meeting at the end of the week. So there's a lot of kind of getting ready and getting prepared for when the World Series ends. And
whether it's free agents or trades or some of the guys that maybe you're trying to hold on to that were on your team, minor league free agents, there's a lot of stuff going on right now. And so we're trying to tackle everything at once in addition to trying to prepare for, let's just say, you know, I mean, it doesn't – it seems very far away, but for the amateur scouting season for next year.
And, you know, we do – we try to bring – our scouts in fall league and get a chance to kind of run around Arizona and see some of that too. So there's a lot going on. Um, I think that the biggest difference between now and, and, you know, a month ago is that, you know, it's not as time consuming, so to speak, you know, we, you're good. Yeah.
during the regular season, you're not getting home till 10, 11 o'clock. You have games to watch every night. And I think that's, it's just more consolidating everything in, in a day during, during the regular work hours. And then also trying to, you know, we have staff contracts and everything that we're trying to keep everybody here and a lot of conversations.
So it is incredibly busy, but not, not the same busy as you would have during the regular season.
So all that seems like a lot, all that, that, Do you look back at a couple of years ago? I'm like, how the world did we function? Why trying to win a world series? Why going all the way to the end of October?
It's crazy. I mean, I think like one of the challenges with, I mean, just in and of it in, in like, The most one of the most important things we do is to have conversation, whether it's like developmental conversation or contract conversation with our own internal people. And as as you probably know, most of the people in baseball, they're there.
Their work cycle is November 1st through October 31st. And so, you know, we are having a lot of those conversation while we're in the playoffs or while we're in the World Series. And it becomes very challenging to find time to do that. But it's very important because it's each person's livelihood and their development. And you don't want to. You don't want to kind of just keep pushing it back.
So those are that's actually one of the biggest challenges I think teams that play deep into October run into is just trying to, you know, and you get a lot of guys done a lot of scouts or coaches done in September.
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Chapter 5: Who are the Diamondbacks targeting for the offseason?
I mean, I still, like, I don't, I would have a hard time understanding how when you can get multiple pieces of information, you don't want to use the subjective view, the objective view, I think, and trying to marry it. So for me, yeah, I do think it's still very important.
I think it's extremely important when you talk about the international and the amateur world, for sure, where you're getting... you know, the information and the data you're getting is not as reliable as maybe in the major leagues or in the pro world. But I think it's important across all realms. I think it's, you know, I value, I mean, obviously I came up in a scouting department.
I value those resources. I value somebody's opinion. You know, obviously we layer in a lot of
objective data and we want and and especially scouts that are willing to conform um that understand that you know 20 years ago when you didn't have this data um it was probably you probably leaned on somebody's um just one look or two looks at a player more so than maybe you had you would do now where you do you are able to track a lot of the data and i say this all the time it's like
if branch Ricky had all this information, he would have used it, you know, like they just didn't have it. And I think, you know, the really smart baseball people would have definitely used it. So, um, Yeah, I mean, I don't think – I personally don't think scouting is going away. This has changed.
It's changed. Yeah, it's changed. And also, I think you hit on it. There has to be an acceptance from both sides too. I mean, there just has to be. Yeah. And that's the – as you know, I mean, I mentioned Moneyball, but it's amazing that we're talking about sort of the same stuff where Moneyball comes out and everyone took sides where the reality was it was somewhere in the middle.
You know, it wasn't – That's right. And so we're still kind of doing that. But I think that, you know, in our – honestly, Amiel, in the world of media, it's the same thing, man. It's the same thing. It's, hey, I'm going to write my story. I'm going to write this epic story. Well, okay. Is anyone going to read it? Because no one has an attention span anymore. So, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, look, I also think we've given scouts more tools and hopefully they use them to help kind of have more accurate or more informed, make more informed decisions.
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Chapter 6: What is the story behind Corbin Carroll's draft selection?
And I would imagine, obviously, even when you scout internationally, like in Dominican Republic or wherever it is, you're playing the same game and you're using analytics and you're using scouting. Japan must be a little bit different, right? I mean, because it is a little bit different. The game is a little bit different.
And that's almost why I'm mentioning that is because I almost feel like the eyes on the guy... maybe is even more important than maybe any other part of the world you're scouting. Is that stupid or no?
Well, I don't think it's stupid, but I also think we get data from Japan.
No, I know, but you're using a different ball, right? Correct? Okay. Yeah. So that's one. Strike zone's probably different, right? Correct? Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
All right. I mean, I, I mean, I don't, I, I'm, I, I, I think the ball is, is definitely different. Um, and that probably, you know, to some degree has a, has a, you know, has some, um, has, has some impact, but, but, you know, we've, we've gotten enough pictures, not, not like a ton, but like, we definitely have enough pictures over there. We have enough information.
I think we can help correlate, um, and try to, I guess, adjust from Japanese-based MPB baseball to Major League Baseball within each team has their own proprietary models that can help understand what the data looks like. But yeah, I still think when you're scouting those players, it is important. They're very... they play a different brand of baseball. Their swings are a little bit different.
Their deliveries are a little bit different. Everybody throws a splitter over there. We come over here and we're in all the splitters. There are definitely major stark differences that are hard to sometimes interpret in the data. So I think it's a mix. I still think you have to rely a lot on both.
Like, I don't, I have a hard time, again, like, I'm just, maybe I'm a little bit more old to middle school.
Well, you are a distinguished alum, so.
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Chapter 7: How do the Diamondbacks prepare for the offseason after a playoff run?
How do you get ready? So I asked you how you get ready or what you do now, but how does a front office in your position and even all of the entire front office get ready for a World Series? Because you did it a couple of years ago. What's that dynamic like as we approach the World Series?
God, it's... It's like such a whirlwind. You know, things are going so quick, moving so quick. I mean, I think, you know, you have...
depending on, you know, how many games you play in the, in the CS, you know, sometimes it could be such a quick turnaround that, you know, you're flying to another city and then that next day, even, even though you're dreary eyed and, and you're, you're pretty tired, you're getting together for a, you know, big advanced meeting with the coaching staff and the scouts that are on the road.
And obviously all the, R and D people and you're walking through, you know, the team you're going to play or the team you might play. And so there's a lot of kind of catching up really quickly. I think obviously the Dodgers being able to kind of get into the world series and four games and having a little bit of a, you know, kind of a time to breathe.
I mean, they don't know who they're playing yet, but it gives them the opportunity to kind of collect their thoughts a little bit. It'll probably be a little bit easier from a planning perspective. And then, you know, it just depends on, you know, your manager and who you're playing and You know, you try to obviously you're setting up the rotation, setting up the roster.
You know, there's a lot of discussion with your with with your manager and your pitching coaches, especially because, you know, a lot of it's, you know, geared around who you're carrying, what pitchers you might be carrying for that series. So there's a lot of different conversations that you would be having that you certainly might not be having as often during the regular season.
But it's a lot to crunch into two or three days before you play. And then once you play, obviously there's still conversation after the game, but then you just know it's... You're talking daily on what that game is going to bring and the strategy around the game tonight.
The front office must be jacked up. I don't know if you have that one. You said you're talking to a lot of people. I don't know if you have that one, everyone getting in a room moment before, whether it's two days before, a day before, whatever. But you guys must be like, okay, let's go. Yeah, I mean, you're jacked up because you got to the World Series. I know, but that's what I'm talking about.
I mean, you get to see each other in other meetings, but that meeting is like, okay, guys, let's go.
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Chapter 8: What factors influence trade decisions for the Diamondbacks?
So when the champagne is stinging your eyes after the NLCS, you're still thinking about, as your eyes are closed, as you're fighting through the pain, as you're feeling the burn, you're still thinking about, oh man, the Rangers, it's going to be tough.
I, uh, Yeah, I mean, I think during the celebration you're not thinking about that. The next day you are.
All right, okay. You know what I'm thinking about?
You're probably talking to the wrong person. You should talk to the people in the Dodgers. They're more used to getting a World Series than we are.
Usually I do this at the end, but since you reminded me, former Diamondback Anthony Banda –
latest latest to commit to baseball boring isn't oh baseball isn't boring tattoo if they win the world series that's awesome you you want to jump on that train for next year hazen's already in yeah i'm not sure i'm on that train i think i already asked you you said no that was like never know unless i ask anyway um but yeah my priorities in that situation is picking up the corks off the floor to give away for christmas presents
What a veteran move that is. There's no certification for it, but you're just going to have to trust me. This is a cork from the celebration. You guys were the last team to beat the Dodgers in the playoffs. You know that?
What do you mean? Didn't they lose a game in the wildcard series this year?
No, no. The last team to... Oh, beat the Dodgers. In a series.
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