The Diamondbacks and Marlins had worked out a trade that would have sent Shelby Miller to Miami in exchange for three starting pitchers, only for Arizona ownership to shoot down the deal, a Marlins executive tells USA Today’s Bob Nightengale. The two sides had been linked in talks about Miller, with Miami right-handed pitching prospect Luis Castillo reportedly mentioned as a trade chip before Castillo was dealt to San Diego as part of the Marlins’ deal for Andrew Cashner.
As Nightengale writes (semi-facetiously), the reason given by D’Backs ownership was that such a trade “just wouldn’t look good,” considering the stunningly big trade package the Snakes gave up last winter to acquire Miller from the Braves. The same “wouldn’t look good” reasoning also impacted another ownership decision, as D’Backs chief baseball officer Tony La Russa and GM Dave Stewart were considering replacing manager Chip Hale with Triple-A skipper Phil Nevin before being told that a managerial change wouldn’t happen.
Nightengale uses these ownership interventions to argue that La Russa, Stewart and senior VP of baseball operations De Jon Watson shouldn’t be blamed for the Diamondbacks’ struggles this season, nor should the trio be fired after less than two years on the job. The fate of Arizona’s front office is yet to be decided, as 2017 options for Stewart and Watson are up on August 31 and La Russa’s option is up after the season. As Fan Rag Sports’ Jon Heyman noted earlier this week and Nightengale reiterates here, D’Backs upper management is hoping to let August 31 pass without a decision so they can delay their choice until after the season.
Without knowing what exactly the Marlins were offering for Miller, it’s hard to say that ownership necessarily made the wrong move in nixing the trade. Obviously, Miami’s offer wouldn’t have come close to matching Dansby Swanson/Ender Inciarte/Aaron Blair, though the feeling could have been that La Russa and Stewart were selling low on Miller. The three pitchers on Miami’s end of the deal would have almost certainly been prospects, and there wouldn’t have been any blue chip arms in the group given the Marlins’ low-rated farm system.
Hale’s name has been on the hot seat for weeks, and a managerial change would’ve been less surprising than the D’Backs cutting bait on Miller after less than a season. It’s unknown if La Russa and Stewart were specifically planning to fire Hale or if they were still discussing the idea. Hale has a 130-156 record as Arizona’s manager and is is under contract for the 2017 season.
Worst team in MLB right now
Angels say…. Hello
D-Backs not as bad as the Angels, but not better by much. I’ll give the Angels a pass because their starting pitching has been decimated with injuries. I think Arizona’s management is to blame.
“Doesn’t look good” well your rep doesn’t look too hot after that trade either. Could’ve gotten some value out of Miller, rather than not.
The thing is though is that they’re planning on trying to be competitive next year. Most if not all of their core are under contract in 2017 & they paid a ton of money for Greinke… Selling low on Miller probably just wasn’t appealing enough considering how much effort they’ve sunk into that roster. If ownership wasn’t happy with the potential return, might as well just make a run for it next year also with Pollock back, and the rest of the core, along with Miller hopefully bouncing back.
Garbage team, Ugly jerseys, Greinke, weird stadium issues, “and they want a new one’ bad fanbase , horrible front office and farm system,, is this team trying to contract themselves.
Honestly though, what made them think that a jersey with teal accents on it was a good idea?
For real .. There is just ugly and then there’s butte ugly… Snakes uni’s qualify for latter!
I like the teal accents, it’s the two tone I dislike. the dark grey would be sweet if it was all one shade
Lmmfao. . Real talk
Honestly, if you removed Greinke’s name from this comment, you could literally be talking about either team…
If the information I read elsewhere is correct here some interesting facts about this organization. Jerry Colangelo owned this team for 8 years and he had one GM. In eleven years since, under new ownership there have been 5 GM’s (including an interim GM). So for me this is simple……the problem lies with the ownership group. Sure LaRussa and Stewart may not be the answer but there is a reason there has been that much turn over. That reason is ownership and ironically……it appears that group of individuals are “snake bitten”.
And the reason the ownership group kicked Jerry out was he wanted to spend money to keep good ball players, attract good ball players and continue winning. They then made the brilliant decision to replace him with Jeff Moorad.
The only problem with ownership in this case is that they even hired Stewart and LaRussa to begin with. Stewart seems to be doing everything in his power to destroy the franchise for years to come.
You gotta pick a guy and run with it for a few seasons, let draft picks develop, etc. There’s such thing as too long of a leash but you can’t overhaul an organization every three hours either.
This is “How to Not Run a Baseball Team 101”. You make a mistake and instead of accepting you made a mistake you further the problem and instead of getting something back for your mistake, you get nothing.
Sure their reasoning is bad, but I’m not willing to say holding on to him is a bad idea. We do know what the DBacks gave up and yes, that was an ugly overpay. But we don’t know what the Marlins were willing to give. And just getting rid of him and getting anything doesn’t mean it’s the smart move. I don’t think it’s crazy to believe he can return to being a pretty good pitcher. And maybe they want to see what they can do if he bounces back into being solid and they add AJ Pollock back into the mix.
+1
But if the sell low and Miller turns into 2015 Miller, the dbacks look even worse
I th jk ownership did the right thing in nixing the Miller trade, but also doesn’t show much faith in Stewart and LaRussa. Not that I think either deserves a lot of credit, but give them another season and see what they can savage.
From ownership on down, the incompetence of the dbacks organization is breathtaking. Kendrick, Hall, LaRussa, Stewart, Watson.
As a Dbacks follower, it makes no sense that TLR/Stewart would trade Shelby Miller for unproven minor league prospects of which 70% fail in the big leagues. You also have to wonder, if Miller is that bad why would the Marlins want him at any cost?
No, I don’t believe the ownership vetoed the trade. If anything, TLR stood up to the inept and mostly unpredictable ownership. Lets not forget, the Greinke signing was not engineered by TLR or Stewart.
Shelby Miller is in the minors right now. I don’t know what Arizona did to him but his mechanics went to hell while he has been there and this is a last place team. If you can even get any return on a guy like Miller you should take it. Sure, a lot of prospects don’t pan out. But a lot of them do. Arizona isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. They have a dreadful pitching staff and three really good position players…and that’s about it. Plus their refusal to even acknowledge modern analytics puts them behind basically every team in baseball now, an approach that has put them 20 games under .500 this season.
And the ineptness that accompanied the Yoan Lopez signing (neither Stewart or LaRussa understood the rules regarding international signings and so got shut out of the pool for two years) should be a fireable offense. These guys are paid to know how to do this stuff.
Sonny Gray is having a Horrible year so should have they traded him to Marlins for 3 prospects
There you go. These boards are full of comments that sound like the stock market pickers who always know the best time to buy or sell, after the fact.
Outstanding comment! No sarcasm here. You just made the best post on this entire thread. So many fans commenting as though their hindsight is 20/20 vision.
Miami’s system is very weak ATM in their defense. They couldn’t have offered a fraction of what the Dback’s gave up.
I really do think Hale was the fall guy for Stewart and Larussa’s incompetence tho.. He was given the mess those 2 left him with from poor draft and deals. as so often happens in the game. Stewart especially. The game’s newest Minaya/Williams. How long until he’s figured out? Chisox still allow williams to blunder about, so no telling.
Based on comments made by Stewart, he clearly is inept
Why wouldn’t MIA want him? He’s a young, proven MLB pitcher with a high-ceiling. I would give up a few nice prospects even for the hope of someone like that. With all the pressure from that trade, I can understand how a change of scenery is a necessity at this point for all involved – let’s hope ARZ swallows their pride and admits defeat.
If the “pressure from that trade” contributed in any significant way to his rapid decline, would you want him pitching in the pressure of a playoff game:?
Agreed on the other points though, definitely.
If Miller had put out an era of around 4-4.5 then I could see the point of him caving to pressure. But his collapse tells me there is a significant mechanical issue involved and mechanics can be fixed easier than mental issues a lot of times.
Established big leaguers from other teams are great but you can’t build an organization on them. That 70% number is cute but a team that can’t scout and develop their own major leaguers is gonna be in serious trouble eventually.
I would take Eppler over Stewart any day. Eppler inherited a ticking time bomb and I like his use of the waiver wire to see if he can catch a breakout. But he just has no system, limited trade chips and expensive players as well as a hard nosed owner who doesn’t allow progress. .
Stewart inherited a rising team with a solid system and totally messed it all up. He traded Swanson, Ender, Touissant and a few draft picks plus some other things in deals that didn’t even look remotely good for them at any time. He’s wasting Goldy, Pollock and Peralta’s prime. The only good move he’s made was the Clippard trade- but he even got fleeced for Ziegler.
Stewart has proven in just 2 years that he’s not a GM.
So many opinions and so little fact to base it on. We just cant know whether ownership or management was right. The DBacks almost certainly wouldn’t have gotten a package with Garret but maybe Kolek? Still, that’s a rebuild move which doesn’t seem to fit but maybe they were simply making a move for value returned for what they lost.
In any event, we don’t know who and how many would have been involved to make a rational assessment. Don’t be that person who says let’s dump Miller for a bag of balls. He is better than what he has done this year. You one of those people saying his metrics insist he is not as good as his 2015 performance than fine, you have a legitimate case. But none of you baseball seers and prognosticators were predicting an era over 5 let alone 7.