Derrick Hall, Arizona Diamondbacks President

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gonzaga.edu slash leader. That's a great point, and so we're always trying to figure out ways to get those lines moving faster, but there's so much now offering wise where people can get their food in their seats, or they can place their order on their phone, go up to that location, they've got it waiting there, they just pick it up and go, but in-seat service is a big thing now. Grab and go, we have a lot of grab and go sections, you walk right up, grab exactly what you want, get back to your seat in time.

So making sure that people aren't missing anything, like you say, especially with the speed of game right now, it's important to get them to get their food, get their drink, and back into their seats as quickly as possible, because the action is moving. I know you mentioned the World Baseball Classic, it was right in your backyard. How do you kind of look back at the World Baseball Classic from what you were able to see in Arizona? Boy, it was big. I think that right now there is so much excitement for baseball, I think it's part of rules changes, the fact that it was our first normal spring, we didn't have a couple years of pandemic or the mess with the CBA, 1.7 million fans here watching Cactus League Baseball, and then it rolled right into WBC. It was huge. I mean, Zach, we had 250,000 tickets sold for those 10 games in five days. The Sunday night game, Mexico, USA, I have never seen this place so loud and energetic.

48,000 fans, it was the largest game of any of the pool games, which were Taiwan, Japan, Miami, Phoenix. And the feedback we got was great, where Mike Trout said he's never been in a stadium environment like that. And I think that the momentum hopefully is just carrying right over. There is excitement for WBC.

It was must-watch TV, it was great, it was perfect timing, and I think in three years it's going to be just as popular. But I also feel like the momentum is going right into the regular season, which we haven't had for a long time. I feel like our popularity is going back to the height it was before the strike back in the early 90s even. Derek Hall here with us, the president and CEO of the Arizona Diamondbacks. Now I preface this saying I'm a Mets fan, Derek, so I'm not in love with the World Baseball Classic after the Edwin Diaz injury. But you heard afterwards even Rob Manfred, the commissioner of Major League Baseball, say that we want more pitchers going, especially in the U.S. So you guys are on board. If your players come to you and say we want to play in the World Baseball Classic in a few years, no problem. We are.

I think you always hold your breath. We had Merrill Kelly pitching for USA. So we're on board. If a player wants to go, we're behind that player. But yeah, that was a heartbreaker, the Diaz, and it was such an accident, flukey accident.

But you hate to see that. There's also the other argument where guys are chanting if they're at risk of getting injured if they're in a spring game anyways, whether it's grapefruit or tactics league, yet you never want to see injury, especially when they're preparing for the season and especially when they're as highly touted and successful, and what a year he had the year before. Yeah, I've had two baseball players leading up to the season, the Hall of Famer Tom Glavine and then Will Middlebrooks, who does a great job covering baseball now and played for the Red Sox, and we both wondered, going back to the pitch clock, Derek Hall, how it was going to get called later on in the season. Do you still think, with the emphasis that it is now, that it will be that way and it won't be lenient when the games start to matter more down the stretch?

I think so. I think they're going to be consistent. But then again, I think guys are going to be so used to it. When we talk to our minor leaders, in fact, they're used to it because they already went through it in the minors.

So they come up here and it's not an issue. Some of our veteran guys, you can tell it's in between their ears a little bit. But I think by the end of the year, when games are so important, I think it's going to be fine. Now, there was the argument where, when you had that classic matchup between Otani and Trout, would you really want a pitch clock?

And I can understand both sides of that argument, yet again, I think it's going to be tough to say when you do it and when you don't. Is the eighth inning any more important than the seventh inning? Is the ninth inning just the most important meeting between pitcher and hitter?

I'm not sure that you can really differentiate, and if guys are used to it and it becomes a big part of the game, stick to it. You have a young team, and I just wonder, because for years people talk about pace of play, and I do think the pitch clock is enormous, but I've always argued baseball has to do a better job of marketing their stars. Now, I understand it also takes the player to tango in this situation as well, but as a president and CEO, how do you look to really market your stars to grow the game that way? That is a great one, and so we're encouraging our guys to get out there as much as possible. When you do have a younger team, especially from your own farm system that you developed, you start telling them at a very early age, not only to get out in the community, go to hospitals, visit kids, not with a camera, but because it's the right thing to do, go to schools and read books, but in addition to that, go out and do your interviews, get some media training, be comfortable on a camera, show your face out there as much as possible, so that by the time they get up here, they're doing the same thing, but it is tougher with a younger team. I think in our case, our fans are finally excited about our young team, and you tell them, as you're rebuilding this thing for three, four years, wait till these guys get up here.

You're really going to fall in love with them, and they think, yeah, right, we'll believe it when we see it. The style of baseball they saw at the end of last year, they did get excited. They couldn't wait to see these guys back up here this year, and now as a result, our fans, not the rest of the nation necessarily, but they're watching. They know that it's also Jordan Lawler coming up, it's Drew Jones coming up, it's going to be Walston and Faught, and all these guys, they already know who they are.

They already know what they look like, but we have to do a better job, as you say, of getting those guys out there and bringing them prominence from a national perspective too. I know that a lot of baseball beat writers aren't going to like this, but I've said this for years, I sometimes think there's too much media availability, like before the game, after the game. You have 162 games of this. I also think that makes it why a lot of these players sometimes don't take the extra opportunities. I get that, and I also think, someone like yourself, because you embrace it, you understand it, you're active on it, social media too, where we used to, you and I, a long time ago, used to only focus on the media attention or what was written or what was said on TV and radio, whereas now, there's that whole other aspect of social media, and I think we were scared as executives or owners for years saying, hey, let's limit it, they're going to make mistakes, they say the wrong things. You've got to set them free, because that is so important, and so much of their following comes in that regard rather than just seeing them post-game or their comments or the period post-game show.

So yeah, there is a lot of attention, but I think we need to do a better job of letting them be even more free and creative and be themselves on social media and not monitor and police that too much where we put, you know, cups on them. Derek Hall here with us, president and CEO of the Diamondbacks. I was at the Super Bowl this year, and a buddy of mine said, you pay all this money for the ticket, and then all you do is you just get a ticket on your phone. You guys have been doing something since 2021, the commemorative ticket.

Tell me about that process. Great question, yeah, and especially, here we are at our 25th anniversary, so we've had a lot of fans say, hey, you're only giving us digital tickets, I want something commemorative, I want a collectible. And in fact, since 21 and before that, when we did go more digital, and it makes sense, I mean, I prefer to have on my phone my airline ticket, my movie ticket, my theme park ticket, even sports events, but some people want that handheld ticket as a commemorative, and if it's their kid's first game or if it's a no-hitter or it's a post-season game or, you know, the 25th anniversary weekend that we're celebrating, they're probably going to want something, so we did it with, we partnered with a company called WW&L, and you're exactly right.

They do the Super Bowl, they do the Final Four, I believe, and the Olympics, big, big tickets, they do a great job, and so now our fans have the ability, they'll go through the ballpark app, which is also where you get your tickets today, and there's an experience where you can actually purchase the ticket itself, or you can scan a code when you go into the ballpark, some other teams are doing it as well, and then the fan can go on after the game and select what ticket, there's like four different to choose from, do you want the A with the red logo, do you want one of our players, Marte, Galen, Christian Walker, they're available, and then they actually get to have that ticket delivered to their home, first class, like within seven to ten days. Wrapping up with the President and CEO of the Arizona Diamondbacks, Derek Call, what's going on with Chase Field? Do you guys stay and you're moving, what's going on, Derek?

You're good, Zach. Yeah, I want to know soon, you know, we do have some interested parties in Maricopa County for a new build, we have a lot of reasons to stay right here at Chase Field, we're still talking to all the municipalities, the city, the county, the state, whether it makes sense for us to stay at Chase Field, but I really need to know soon because our lease expires at the end of 27, and if we're going to be here, we're going to have to schedule it out with all of our concerts and bowl games and, you know, non-baseball events, and there's a lot to do. This is now the fourth-oldest stadium in all of the league, and, you know, which is hard to believe, but in order to do all of that, it's like, it's go time, and it really needs a facelift. But I'm hoping to know, Zach, in the next, say, two or three months, and here we go, you know, it gets shoveled and ground. Does it make sense to renovate at this point or just build a whole new thing? I think it makes sense if we can partner with the municipalities around us and have access to some mixed use. You see that today. When you have a new ballpark, so much of it is also the 365-day activation.

You've got to have hotels, restaurants, retail, office space. We don't have any of that. We're just a standalone stadium.

I think those days are really outnumbered. But for us to do that, we're going to really have to do fan-facing, experiential upgrades, and that's everything from LED lights to new scoreboard to new LED ribbons to new sound system, new premium areas. It's really outdated. New seats.

This is a very big cavernous place. I don't know that we'll ever fix that, but we can make it more intimate in different ways and bring up some of the quality offerings that you have in some of the newer ballparks. We've seen the Braves do this a lot. Before this year started, you gave Corbin Cowell, one of your young players, an eight-year, $111 million contract. I know every team in the NL West besides you guys are top 15 in payroll. Is this just the future, what the Diamondbacks will do?

It makes sense. That's in our market who we should be and need to be, but it really comes down to scouting and development. If we're going to do it and we're going to stick to it, we have to do a good job.

And so far, so good. We went from a bottom five farm system to a top five. Three of the top 15 prospects are DBACs. So as long as we have that pipeline like the guys I mentioned earlier, you can build around someone like a Corbin Carroll. And if you've got guys who are under control through their six arbitration years and two or three, as is the case with Carroll, of their free agency years, it's smart.

But then you have to keep those guys coming. Like the Braves have done such a good job. The A's have done such a good job.

You can compete that way, but again, you've got to draft and sign the right guys to do it. Well, what did you see in his 32 games and then even before that that made you guys feel confident that you could give him a contract like that? Yeah, you know, he the year before was named the overall minor league player of the year in all of baseball, and the scouts have all loved him.

I mean, we're relying really on those eyes that have seen him for years. But he's such a good kid, smart kid, focused kid, committed. He is a five-tool player, you hear that.

But he does have the defense and the arm and the speed, obviously, and he can hit, and he can hit for power. He's just a very important cornerstone piece for us. And it also, I mean, Zach, the message that it sends to the clubhouse, like we're committed to you guys, we're going to invest in you guys, and we want to win.

And we want someone like this to be around for a very long time because we know he's going to be a very special player. You're in a brutal division, and you have a bunch of youngsters, so you never know how that's going to go, especially in a sport like this. What are your expectations for the group this year?

It's tough to say whether this is going to be the year or next year. I know a lot of people are saying that we're going to compete for a wildcard spot. It might be too soon for that, especially when you look around the league, and as you said in our division, the Dodgers, the Padres, the Giants got better. Central, you've got the Cardinals, and the Brewers are so good, and you also have the Cubs much improved. Your Mets, the Phillies, the Braves. So it could be tough, but I look at our first road trip, and you've got these young guys that are going to have to open up four games in L.A. and then the next two in San Diego. And you go to Dodger Stadium, you've got four decks all full and loud. We ended up leaving that. We didn't even play our best baseball.

We came back home, and we were three and three. And then we have to play four more with the Dodgers again, so it doesn't get any easier. You've got the Brewers, and you're going on the road, the Cardinals.

But a really tough month. If we can hold our head above water, then anything can happen. But what they showed me is they're scrappy, they're fast, get on base, and anything can happen. And I don't think teams love playing a style like that against a style like that. But again, we can't have a pitcher like Dustin May just run up and down the lineup and go 13 innings and allow one run. You've got to get on base to be that type of team.

But they have confidence, they have focus, and I think they're going to be fine. Well, Derek, really do appreciate the time. He's Derek Hall, the president and CEO of the Arizona Diamondbacks. Thanks for doing this. Zach, I enjoyed it anytime. Look forward to coming back.