The Diamondbacks are considering having left fielder David Peralta and right fielder Yasmany Tomas switch positions, Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic writes. The idea is that, given the departure of Ender Inciarte in the Shelby Miller trade, the Diamondbacks stand to take a step back in right field, the corner outfield position those within the game generally consider to require a higher degree of skill. Peralta isn’t the defender that Inciarte is, but he’s better than Tomas. Tomas has said he’s more comfortable in right, but if the Diamondbacks do have him switch with Peralta, Tomas will get all of Spring Training to adjust to his new position. Here’s more from the National League.
- The Cardinals are the best fit for Dexter Fowler, MLB.com’s Anthony Castrovince writes. Fowler tops Castrovince’s list of this offseason’s top remaining free agents (which also includes names like Yovani Gallardo, Ian Desmond and Tyler Clippard). Randal Grichuk had sports hernia surgery in December, Castrovince points out, and the Cards can use a veteran outfielder to help compensate for the inexperience of players like Stephen Piscotty and Tommy Pham.
- If the Dodgers can stay healthy, they won’t have many roster decisions to make in Spring Training, writes Steve Dilbeck of the Los Angeles Times. They will have to decide whether Hyun-jin Ryu, who’s returning from surgery, is healthy enough to take the ball every fifth day. There’s also the issue of how to handle Alex Guerrero, who lacks a defensive position, hit very poorly in the second half of the 2015 season and who can’t be optioned without his permission. In general, though, the Dodgers don’t figure to have many position battles.
Highly doubt Cards sign Fowler, he’d cost them the draft pick, and wants more money than they’re wiling to spend.
I agree they probably won’t sign Fowler even though we could use him and really need a proven leadoff man to move Marp down in the order. Just odd that they were willing to fork over $200 mill (plus 600 plus AB’s each year) for Heyward and now won’t give a fraction of that to anyone else. Fowler is underated and seems like he always kills us, whether it was with the cubs or astros. Prob could get him on a two year deal for not much money. More power than Heyward plus solid defense. Hope our young outfielders are ready to step up and stay healthy.
Oh absolutely, Cards could use him. He’s always a ballplayer Ive kept my eye on from his time with the Rockies to now. However, if Grichuk and Piscotty can produce, then the Cards don’t need him. But right now it’s an “if”.
I think in their minds Heyward is a game changer. Is Fowler that much better than Piscotty and Gurcheck? It makes sense, OFs will be available at the deadline if they truly feel they want one or Adams and or Holliday don’t produce.
It’s not really surprising at all. Heyward was young enough to merit a long, big money contract and wouldn’t have cost them a pick. Keeping in mind how ridiculously good the Cardinals are at drafting, each pick is worth “more” to them compared to another team. Besides, Fowler doesn’t really give the team anything over much cheaper, younger guys like Grichuk.
I feel the D’Backs really missed their chance to go for it this year, I understand that ey are working under a large financial restraint, but if that is the case, why sign Greinke. Why not take the money they plowed into Greinke and sign something like:
Kendrick
Desmond
Cespedes (okay, that’s a little more money than the others but my point stands)
Gallardo
Quite frankly even after the Greinke signing, I can’t see why they didn’t do that anyway. Once you have decided, as a team to “go for it” (Greinke and the Miller trade seemed to indicate that), you shouldn’t begin the season with Nick Ahmed, Jean Segura, Chris Owings and Yasmani Tomas in key positions on the team.
Extend the starting rotation and solidify the offense. Now you have the team that can compete in 2016 and 2017. Who cares about 2019. By then, you might be in full tear down mode but the here and now needs to be committed to fully or not at all. It was a mistake for them to do this half assed. I think the weaknesses on this team will draw them towards .500.
You’re assuming every one of those players wanted to play for the D’Backs.
For sure they could have had Kendrick.
If we played hindsight he would have definitely taken the QO
No hindsight required. Apparently the D-Backs decided that they weren’t going to surrender another draft pick. Had they been wiling to take that hit and offered Kendrick three years, little question about whether they would have signed him.
One would think the Dbacks would be better off with Kendrick than, say, Segura…
Why not?
I mean of course Cespedes might have been difficult but right now Desmond and Gallardo are STILL out there plus Kendrick was in negotiations with the DBacks prior to taking a below market contract with the Dodgers. Maybe the DBacks give Cespedes the Washington contract only back in December and without deferments.
Admittedly, Cespedes is the most difficult to shoehorn into this theory but either way, I think the DBacks half assed their offseason and in so doing, they are going to have spent all their owners cash and gutted their farm system for nothing.
I could be wrong but I just don’t see this team being that good and they had real holes to fill. Adding Desmond/Kendrick/Gallardo and maybe Cespedes adds around 10-11 wins to their total projection and gets them right up with or past the Dodgers and Giants. As is, they are going to be wasting 1500 plate appearances on Ahmed, Owings, Segura and Tomas. Plus they are going to lose around 180 IP that could have gone to a league average SP like Yovani Gallardo. We’ll see how the season plays out, but I think this is opportunity missed by them.
First of all, please leave Nick Ahmed off your list of incompetent players. The dude is a defensive genius and that alone warrants his inclusion in the starting lineup. If you want to criticize Tomas or Owings, that’s fine, you’d have a fair point.
Also, their offense was a strength last year while their pitching was a weakness. So are you suggesting that Gallardo alone would’ve been a sufficient upgrade to the rotation? Perhaps you could elaborate.
Hear, hear. With Simmons out of the NL, NIck Ahmed has a great chance at a gold glove. I actually believe his bat will come around enough to be a positive contributor at the plate as well. Unless you have the privilege of watching this guy play regularly, it’s hard to have a full appreciation of how good he is.
What he’s suggesting is that upgrading moderately at several positions would have been better than upgrading significantly at two while staying the same or getting worse everywhere else. And that makes sense. I am sure I could have built a better Dbacks team than the front office did without trading Ender Inciarte or acquiring Greinke.
They weren’t going to get Kendrick, Gallardo, or Desmond because they didn’t wanna give up their 2nd round pick. They have up their 1st rounder for Greinke. No way they were going to give up their 2nd rounder too.
Not true. Dave Stewart was either lying or an idiot. Once you’ve already given your 1, there is no reason not to give up more. In fact, it’s a good way to add talent. I mean if you pick up 1 QO FA every year, every year you give up your first round but if you stack them, you are hurting one season’s draft but the district every extra free agent is less.
So if Stewart stopped buying Free Agents because of the 2nd round draft pick, he’s an idiot. I think they just ran out of money and didn’t have the intestinal fortitude to actually go through with the plan.
No one goes all in with that bad of a middle infield.
Again, please explain what makes Ahmed a bad player. Unless you ignore a SS defensive contributions you can’t possibly support that statement.
He can’t hit yet.
Don’t need him to hit. Preventing runs is just as important as scoring them. And if you check out his babip you’ll notice that he suffered from unsustainable bad luck. He’ll hit better this year by default.
It would be their Comp A pick. After trading away pretty much every first and second pick other than Shipley since 2013 I’m pretty sure they arent sweating another pick. They just traded Diaz their second rd pick from 2014 to get segura(dump hill), yet DS states they REALLY dont want to give up the 2nd pick for this year…kinda funny. If they’re all in for the next few years then who cares at this point about one more pick. That being said, I think they add one more bullpen piece before the season. By the all-star break they should know where they are going and what they have in Segura,Owings, Ahmed, Drury, Gosselin in the Middle and Tomas/Brito in the OF. If they are doing well they will have the payroll flexibility and still some prospects to add to the team to make a run.
they should of got Mike Leake
That’s completely, 100% illogical, dwhitt3 – if a team sacrifices their first rounder, it makes more sense to sacrifice the 2nd rounder, too, since at that point, they’re already punting their best chance at talent acquisition in the draft.
See I feel like that’s illogical because now you’re saying that there’s essentially no chance to acquire talent just because it comes in the 2nd round.
I think the Dbacks would of been better off signing Mike Leake over trading for miller.
….and Leake WANTED to go there…..would have given a discount probably……I was stunned to hear they “weren’t interested”…..smh
The Dbacks should be all in at this point. They have mortgaged their near future already. I think they made a big mistake by not signing Kendrick. That is the Dbacks front office, though. They do not seem to have much of a plan.