Zach Buchanan of The Athletic recently took an interesting look at the Diamondbacks’ recently concluded experience with big-money starter Zack Greinke. While you’ll want to read the entire piece (subscription link), a few comments from team president Derrick Hall are worth highlighting here in particular. “If you’re going to make that kind of commitment, you have to be sure that it’s going to push you over the top,” said Hall of the Greinke signing. “That was clearly a lesson learned.” Though the contract didn’t exactly sink the club — Greinke generally performed to his pay grade and the Snakes were able to get some value out of the tail end — it did make it difficult for the organization to put together a complete roster that was truly competitive and surely shaped the team’s decisionmaking when it came to retaining (or not) core talent. Hall did not rule out any major future splashes, but did suggest a somewhat different strategy is likelier going forward. The Arizona org will “probably prefer spreading and balancing out those salaries more evenly,” he says, thus “making sure you have that flexibility so that, when the time comes, if you want to add more significantly, you can.”
Let’s catch up on a few notes from around the National League …
- The Pirates welcomed prized righty Mitch Keller back to the big leagues yesterday. It was a long-anticipated return after a rough showing in his initial promotion earlier this year. Keller was effective through five innings, allowing one earned run on five hits while recording four strikeouts and a pair of walks. He is now in line to get a full trial down the stretch. Before the game, the team created roster space by placing reliever Richard Rodriguez on the 10-day injured list. Rodriguez is said to be dealing with shoulder inflammation. The 29-year-old has certainly not been in top form this year, turning south after a breakout 2018 showing. While his velocity has held steady, his swinging-strike rate has plummeted from 13.8% to 9.6%. Though Rodriguez has maintained a solid 3.72 ERA, it has come in spite of his poor peripherals (7.6 K/9, 3.5 BB/9, 1.9 HR/9).
- The Cardinals announced yesterday that they have relieved assistant hitting coach Mark Budaska of his duties. He’ll be replaced by Jobel Jimenez, who had served as the club’s Triple-A hitting coach prior to his promotion. Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Twitter link) interprets the decision as one that “underscores [the] commitment to hitting coach Jeff Albert.” Indeed, the organization is working to spread Albert’s “comprehensive offensive strategy throughout [its] system.” Albert, who has spent time in the Cardinals and Astros organizations prior to taking on the current role in the fall of 2018, discussed his philosophies with David Laurila of Fangraphs not long after getting the gig. Goold had previously examined Budaska’s importance to the Cards’ developmental system before the hiring of Albert. As for Jimenez, he’s a well-known commodity to the St. Louis front office, having spent more than a decade working on the Cardinals farm.
- Finally, the Nationals appear optimistic on the health outlooks of two superstars. The club believes it has dodged a bullet with outfielder Juan Soto, as Britt Ghiroli of The Athletic was among those to cover (Twitter links). Soto was able to participate in baseball activities yesterday after initially fearing he had suffered a significant ankle injury in his latest contest. Meanwhile, ace Max Scherzer continues to make steady progress in his quest to move past a back issue. He remains slated for a sim game and is said to be feeling well, but the team still isn’t confident of a particular timeline. ***Update: Soto is in today’s lineup, while Scherzer threw his sim game as scheduled.
Yesterday’s start was encouraging for Keller. I’m eager to see how he pitches down the stretch and I think he should be kept on the major league roster
Huge move by STL. This should launch them to a title now.
I could not agree more. This will not only turn the season around it will likely turn the franchise around for many years to come. Look at the idiots now- all those that said ending August trades would end major moves in August. We might not see a move this big until next offseason.
Allknowingone, is this sarcasm, because my comment was HUGE sarcasm. Or were you responding to the other guy?
Having watched the start, Keller was more than “effective.” He was impressive. Fastball sitting 96-97 with an 80-81 mph curveball.
Agreed. I saw him hit 98. If Taillon comes back and Keller pans out, the Pirates might have something next year.
They still need a manager.
And they still need a GM who does not think that Rookie Davis and the like constitute depth.
Injuries happen,and players do not match previous levels of competence.Look at Crick this year,and the first take of Rodriguez to see how quickly relief pitchers can go south.
By the way,the writer’s take on Rodriguez is not complete as Bucco fans know.He was Jekyll and Hyde this year,either awful or almost perfect.
Arizona was basically a .500 team for the 3.5 years Greinke was on their team. They lost Corbin, Pollack and Goldschmidt amongst others because of financial considerations. The signing was a big time mistake.
I don’t think it was that bad.
They had some good young cheap players.
They just couldn’t take
the next step for whatever
reason.
And wasted 4 seasons…….
Signing Greinke was supposed to hurt the Dodgers and put Arizona over the top. Apparently it did neither.
And it gave the Dodgers their long term starting catcher
I don’t think they’re losing any sleep over letting Pollack walk….he’s already 30 and can’t stay healthy….but they probably should have dealt both Pollack and Corbin
55-29. 3.40 ERA. 1.093 WHIP. 4.5/1 KK to BB ratio. Looks like Greinke held up his end of the bargain, in a hitter’s park.
Probable Hall of Famer.
Not if it came at the expense of loosing other vital assets.
They gagged last year after being in 1st place in Mid June. They made a bad move by getting Jon Jay and using him in stupid spots. Souza never got healthy. They had chances and nothing prevented them from spending. They made the decision this off season to re-boot. Simple as that. They had the talent to make a playoff spot. Greinke was not the problem.
Derek Hall needed that experience in order to arrive at that brilliant conclusion?
Yup, looks like the Diamondbacks are in good hands…..
Good for Arizona. They traded Greinke for a decent haul and didn’t let themselves get cheated in a Robbie Ray trade with NY. Seems like they’ve gotten smarter.
The D-Backs are probably the poor relations in that division; the Dodgers have a gazillion dollars, the Giants only a few less. They’ve never “stunk”, and are in it, at least tangentially, every year.
Ya, the Zack deal was probably a mistake, but it was far from debilitating; Chris Davis anyone (and many, many others)?. They came up a little short. At least they’re trying.
I’m always kind of amazed when people with supposed baseball smarts use reasoning such as “you have to be sure” in connection with a signing or a trade. Since when is “sure” a concept in baseball? Like at any time, in anything, ever?
Everyone knew at the time Arizona overplayed for Greinke and 4 years later they finally admit it.
Though in reality nobody knew. If the D’backs hadn’t been ripped up by injuries and if the Shelby Miller trade had worked out the team would have been competitive for at least one of those years. If that happens what is the meaning of the “overpaid” concept? Nothing unless the purpose of the game has changed to something other than winning.
Of course trading Grienke makes sense now. The competitive window for the D’backs has closed. That doesn’t mean it was dumb somehow to play for it while it was open.
But the bottom line is, nobody can be sure of anything in advance in baseball. Never has worked that way, never will.
Nobody else lined up to offer him such a contract including the team that he had just had an amazing season for. No matter how he performed is was a bad decision because their window closed within a season or two because they couldn’t afford to keep franchise players.
The Dodgers came very close to the D’backs offer to Grienke. The difference was small, about a million a year or something like that IIRC. They were signing him to put them over the top for a season or two, and it might have worked had the injuries hadn’t not piled up the way they did, and had Miller not flamed out. The smaller-market teams are always faced with working this way if they are going to have much of a chance. From a fan perspective I think it’s always better for a team to take a chance at winning when it’s actually possible. Teams that never take a chance never win. Just because a decision doesn’t pay off doesn’t mean it was a bad decision.
They should have kept Tommy Pham….and he’s playing with a broken hand refusing to go on the IL….something the Cardinals forgot he played injured for St. Lo to help the team! Old School!