Diamondbacks Notes: Miller, Sawdaye, Segura

Former Diamondbacks GM Dave Stewart recently expressed regret for trading a package headlined by Dansby Swanson for Shelby Miller. But the Snakes control Miller for three more years, and Miller is hoping to redeem himself this season, as FOX Sports’ Ken Rosenthal writes. Miller says he struggled with the pressure of being the marquee player in a high-profile trade. “I wasn’t using my stuff like I did in the years before. I wasn’t as confident in my pitches as I should have been. I really didn’t throw any sinkers. My cutter wasn’t good,” he says. Now, he says, he’s trying to “almost go back to being a Little Leaguer and have fun.” Here’s more out of Arizona.

• The Diamondbacks’ new braintrust contains a number of former employees of the Red Sox organization, including GM Mike Hazen, manager Torey Lovullo, and assistant GM Amiel Sawdaye and Jared Porter. The new D’backs front office wants to emulate the Red Sox’ in some respects, Sawdaye tells David Laurila of FanGraphs. “We’re trying to build a culture similar to the one we were used to in Boston,” Sawdaye says. “We want people to want to come to work. We want them to be open with each other and communicate well. A lot of good decisions are made that way — in conjunction with other’s opinions. … We’ve worked on implementing that. It’s something that was maybe not here in the past, or at least it was a little different.” In the same interview, Sawdaye also describes the way the front office has reshaped the Diamondbacks’ analytics and scouting departments.
• Interestingly, Sawdaye notes that one factor in the Diamondbacks’ big November trade involving Jean Segura and Taijuan Walker this offseason was that the D’backs’ front office was new and therefore didn’t directly experience Segura’s success last season. “[I]n some ways, not being here last year was probably a little helpful,” says Sawdaye. “[H]aving not been here to see how good Segura was, day in and day out, took any bias out. We were able to be more objective with our assessment.”