It has been an eventful offseason, perhaps unexpectedly, in Arizona. The club stayed on the periphery of the NL Wild Card race much of last season, but they never had especially strong postseason odds. Ultimately, they did fall short, finishing four games back of the Brewers for the final playoff spot. They were certainly not a bad team, going 85-77, but they were hardly dominant.
Entering the offseason, the club looked positioned to be relatively active. They had some payroll flexibility already, and they freed up more room on the books by non-tendering Taijuan Walker and Steven Souza, Jr. Nevertheless, it came as a bit of a surprise to see the Snakes act as aggressively as they have this winter.
That activity started in mid-December, when they brought in Madison Bumgarner from the division-rival Giants on a backloaded five-year, $85MM contract. Shortly thereafter came the signing of Kole Calhoun on a two-year, $16MM deal (with a club option for a third year). Calhoun, the Angels’ decision to decline his team option for 2020 notwithstanding, had a productive bounceback effort in 2019, putting up a .232/.325/.467 slash (108 wRC+) with his customary solid defense. He’ll presumably line up alongside the recently-extended David Peralta as the Snakes’ top two corner outfielders.
Between Calhoun and Peralta will be a Marte, but not the one who manned center most often in the desert last offseason. Starling Marté was brought aboard in a trade with Pittsburgh this week, a move MLBTR readers generally approved of. That frees up star Ketel Marte to move back to second base, where the club got mediocre production last season and faced the free agent departure of Wilmer Flores.
Beyond Ketel Marte, there’s not a true star on the roster, but there are very few obvious weaknesses, either. Carson Kelly, Christian Walker, Eduardo Escobar, and Nick Ahmed round out the projected lineup. Bumgarner and Robbie Ray figure to front a rotation hoping for full seasons from midseason trade acquisition Zac Gallen and the returning Luke Weaver.
There’s probably not many more noteworthy moves coming this offseason. Per Roster Resource, the Starling Marté trade brought the club to an estimated $123MM payroll. That’s generally in line with their expenditures in recent seasons. Furthermore, GM Mike Hazen threw cold water on the idea of blowing past prior spending levels in December.
So, if this is indeed the team Arizona will head into the season with, just how good are they? Can they threaten the perennial powerhouse Dodgers in the NL West? Have they done enough to at least position themselves as a Wild Card favorite?
(poll link for app users)
How Many Games Will The Diamondbacks Win In 2020?
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88-90 35% (4,613)
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85-87 26% (3,530)
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91-94 19% (2,563)
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81-84 12% (1,596)
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Fewer than 81 4% (563)
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95+ 3% (464)
Total votes: 13,329
It’s 2020. Bring back the downvote!
*guillotine
youre sick
You want to give power to the trolls?
If you let a downvote on an internet chat board have power over you—you have far more problems than any troll.
Have you been on chatboard where half the comments half been downvoted deep into the negatives? Not a good place to be. Trolls are not your friends. They just go places and harass people. They love the downvote. It’s all they would do.
You watch someone get pounded into hell with downvotes (over a grammatical error or some other lame reason) a few times and they’ll leave. Anyone would. Downvotes are for the anti-social trolls. MLBTR is better off putting a governor on the trolls.
Whiny little MoMo can’t take a downvote! It hurts his confidence!
I don’t like seeing anyone get a pile of downvotes. It’s anti-social. It drives them from the site. That you clepto? Sure sounds like you. You would love the downvote. You’re a major troll. It’s ALL you do. You never talk baseball. You just troll.
Thumbs down.
Troll.
who cares
my downvote works fine and I just gave you a thumbs down
Guess twenty of us should downvote you for putting a k in Doc. No excuses now. Trolls don’t care about excuses. See how that works?
Ah, brain fart.
Thumbs down friend.
i am a giants fan so i hate the downvote, if i said anything that indicates that they aren’t a garbage heap I would get like a hundred down votes, even in the years they got rings
somewhere between 84 and 90
the safer bet is between 0 and 162
or 163. cant forget tie-breaker scenarios
Their pitching is bad and Ketel is highly probable to regress.. 500 team at best.
Love just making stuff up. It’s fun!
Bumgarner, Ray, Leake, Weaver , Kelly, Gallen, Young is a solid and deep rotation. Bradley, Lopez, Rondon, Chafin, Duplantier, Crichton and whoever is not in the rotation seems like a soleid bullpen too. What exactly are you basing your comment on? It seems to have no merit.
Who dis bumgana du??
it is an ok rotation, not short deep but if i had to guess right now somewhere in a .390-.410 era, slightly above average but they could surprise me
Anything below a 4.10 team SP ERA would make them a top 7 team. I would call that excellent.
i wouldn’t say that. thay may not have a lot of big arms, but they have a lot of depth. Gallen is a stud, Weaver looks pretty good, Ray is a great middle arm and MadBum is a solid workhorse (presumably) from there you have Leake, Clarke, Young, Duplantier and others, who are all solid options.
Kudos for using “Clarke” and “solid” in the same sentence. You are one naughty boy.
Who do you guys have this SuperBowl? Chiefs or 9ers?
Chiefs bud
Prediction? Pain.
I’ll take Shakira.
Please.
can’t argue with you on this.
Second best team in the division and if the other two divisions top four beat each other up, they should have a great chance at a wildcard.
Yeah, good chance Arizona will face off against the Reds in the WC game.
That depends on how bad SF and COL end up being. I don’t think they’re going to be on the same level of futility as MIA and PIT, but since there are 2 theoretically “bad” teams in the west there could be more opportunities to rack up wins.
The flip side is if SF/COL/SD are all close to .500 then their division is going to be the one beating itself up.
Probably not as good as the 94-win Rockies will be.
Just spit beer out of my nose on that one.
That’s why I voted 95+ – the D’backs have a better roster at the moment
ladies and gentlemen, your 2020 Colorado 94ers!!
They did a helk of a lot more that the Dodgers did. Easily winning the division over the billion dollar perennial losing Dodgers.
Gotta love those February Banners
Hahahahhahahah
They were also 21 wins behind LA to start. Just you know, context
Oh, and they won’t have Greinke this year, Bum is going from the biggest park in the NL West to the 2nd bandbox…
Yeah keep telling yourself they improved 21 games
…and it looks like Betts will end up in LA
Right about most of that…but Chase Field is a big ballpark with a Humidor now and actually plays neutral, or perhaps even pitcher friendly. Statcast park factors have it leaning towards pitcher’s park, the other park factors at Baseball Reference, ESPN, and Fanbgraphs have it fairly close to neutral in either direction.
The Twins improved by 23 wins from ’18-’19 and they didn’t do anything crazy that off-season.
You act like it’s an impossible task.
They will be good but because they are in the NL West they might not even make the playoffs. I can see the Pads and DBacks duking it out at the end of the season for a WC spot. Should be a fun year in the NL West.
I don’t know about the wins totals, but I think AZ will be 2nd in the NL West and a WC contender. Their pitching depth is a big strength. They’re slightly weaker on the position player side for depth but still better than most, except LAD.
Strong contender, but cant beat LA.
Not that good.
Knot too good, is it Chief,
The Diamondbacks deserve a lot of credit for walking a fine line in a stable fashion where most organizations have historically fallen apart. They faced a homegrown exodus, including trading arguably their greatest position player ever, and remained competitive while improving the outlook of their future through prospects acquired and draft picks gained. They’ve then used some of those acquired prospects to improve the major league club in the short term. Part of this process has also included unloading a majority of the Grienke contract for a return that’s, at the least, fairly talented. Most of those type of deals are money dumps only, yet they seemed to come at least respectable. That alone is not easy to do, however time and time again what they’ve been able to do after cleaning up and improving the Dave Stewart era is incredibly impressive. Most GM tenures that end with an atrocious amount of money paid to one aging player, a heavy load of homegrown starters hitting FA at the same time and a multi year international spending penalty leave the team face a pretty dark decade, but Hazen and co has skirted that gracefully and deserve a lot of respect for doing so.
That said, team has fallen off hard down the stretch two of the last three years and there are some expectations this year because of that. There are a lot of potential 85-90 win teams in the NL this year and AZ is one of them, however frankly this team needs to be better in September and clinch a playoff spot otherwise it will probably cost Lovullo his job.
They should still be in the NL wildcard race beginning of September. LAD will win their division again
If all goes well, I could see 90 wins and prolly in the WC hunt
But they’re relying on everything going well with pitching, S Marte’s defense rebounding, Bum being better in a hitters park. No Greinke, he helped quite a bit with those 85 wins. Remember they faded hard last year. So… I think 85 could also be a stretch if things go bad. Will be interesting
Wow. You never look at the actual stats do you?
The Diamondbacks went 31-22 after trading Greinke after being 54-55 when they traded him. They won at a much higher percentage without him. Their starting staff’s ERA went down.
Bumgarner has a 3.13 career ERA overall and a 3.13 career ERA in 20 games at Chase Field. Notice the similarity?
You must be a Dodgers fan.
D-
How doesn’t any seriously think they are a 88 win team?
A healthy padres team is still 81-85 wins. A healthy doyuers team is 90-100 wins.
They are 75-80 win team
… what?
How about the Padres get to 10 games under .500 before we call them a .500 team
I’m sorry but doyeurs sounds like an hispanic racial slur. I realize you’re not the only one to use it but that doesn’t make it right. Is this some form of lowtalkin’?
Shut up
Rude
the Padres are not a better team than the D-Backs, who were better in 2019 and had a better offseason.
Yeah they are. That’s a fact.
Explain how it’s a fact that the Padres are a better team? Because I can’t be the only one that doesn’t see it. The only positions the Padres have markedly better projected production are SS, LF, and 3B (and just last season Escobar was more valuable than Machado), whereas the DBacks have markedly better numbers for 2B, CF, 1B, and C (RF they have similar expected numbers). Add the fact that the Snakes have more current upside in their rotation (the gap closes a bit when the Pads prospects start making it to MLB), I think your proclamation couldn’t be further from the truth.
No real shot at catching the Dodgers, but they didn’t miss a WC spot by much last year. I think they have a good shot at one this year.
They certainly had a good offseason. Not sure they can catch the Dodgers. Even though i feel they improved….im not sure it will reflect in their record. I really like the Calhoun signing. Starling Marte was also a good get. The Dbacks…Reds and White Sox had the best offseasons. I honestly think the Reds have an outside shot at the Central. St.Loius didnt do much..Cubs did nothing and the Brewers didnt improve.
DBacks record—- 88-74
Not very
Bumgarner, Ray, Gallen, Weaver, Leake is a solid starting 5. Kelly and Young provide good depth.
Marte
Marte
Escobar
Peralta
Walker
Calhoun
Kelly
Ahmed…that’s a good starting 8.
Don’t forget Merrill Kelly as depth. He was the Dbacks #3 last season.
Dbacks pitching depth is way beyond the good start you made in describing it, throwinch.
Bumgarner, Ray, Weaver, Gallen, Leake and Kelly are the main 6 starters (Weaver’s innings will be monitored coming off his injury interrupted 2019 season, so the Dbacks need 6 starters minimum as they churn toward the playoffs this year.
4 of the next 5 have major league starting experience—Jon Duplantier, Alex Young, Taylor Clarke, Taylor Widener (no MLB experience) and Corbin Martin (rehabbing from TJS, not available until September). That’s 11 deep.
Then there are 4 more on the 40 man roster—Joel Payamps has MLB experience, Emilio Vargas, Bo Takahashi and Riley Smith, plus Top 30 prospects #10 J.B. Bukauskas, #19 Josh Green and #25 Jeremy Beasley. That’s 18 deep.
Their recent top prospect signees will be ready starting in 2022–#8 Levi Kelly, #9 Matt Tabor, #13 Blake Walston, #14 Luis Frias, #15 Drey Jameson, #20 Tommy Henry and #23 Ryne Nelson.
Make the playoffs and let MadBum dominate again.
Or get bombed and his legacy based on one postseason is ruined
Have you tried even looking at the stats?
baseball-reference.com/players/b/bumgama01.shtml#p…::none
Solid team that got better this offseason. There team while without a true star has one of the most balanced line ups out there. They have a combination of youth and upside coupled with cheap controlled vets. Should some of their prospects develop the should field a tough team next year and beyond. Should be interesting.
Wasn’t Ketel Marte a star last season?
7.1 WAR. A superstar.
They could become NL West champions if they build up there young starting pitching through the bullpen & look to acquire top SP at the trade deadline on an expiring contract or perhaps with another year of control.
Their offense is ready to compete with the best no doubt
Scratch that if dodgers acquire Mookie Betts of course
Everyone saying it is impossible for the Dbacks to make up 21 games they trailed the Dodgers at the end of last year. But many are saying the Padres will be better than the Dbacks this year? Huh? Everyone admits the Dbacks improved by about 5 wins with Bumgarner, Starling, Calhoun, Guerra, Rondon and Vogt added to an 85 win team. The Padres finished 15 games behind the Dbacks last year. So 15 plus 5 win improvement = 20 wins the Padres have to overcome to top the Dbacks this year. Therefore, either it is impossible for the Padres to overtake the Dbacks this year! Or, the Dbacks can overtake the Dodgers just as easily as the Padres can overtake the Dbacks!
I think Dodgers will regress but not that much unless something crazy happens. They have young pitchers ready and guys in bullpen that could start or follow a opener. If Padres are above 500 I will be surprised. They better get Betts.
Fortunately they don’t need to make up 21 games because the season starts back at zero.
That’s some special math
I voted mid to high 80s. I think Bum is a bigger name than talent these days. Love the Marte trade. Think he could be a 30 30 guy. Might have to project his stats if healthy all season to get there cause he will probably have some injury but no reason he can’t repeat last years numbers. 23 hr 25 sb and was on the IL. Big if but point is you got a good player. Now he is no Nimmo that is for sure but he should work out. Big question is if they have a good season will they just be happy with having good fan interest or will they aquire more talent?
The Dbacks ended the season only 4 games out of the Wild Card last year. They had a Better record in the 2nd half of the season, After they traded Greinke, than they did with Greinke in the first 1/2 of the season. There is zero truth to the idea that the Dbacks faded in September last year.
Well they kinda did. They had a 2-8 stretch from 9/8 to 8/17 that knocked them out of the race. After they were eliminated they ran off a 5 game win streak to end the season, which made their monthly record look respectable.
OK. I wouldn’t classify that as fading. Down 6 over a 10 game stretch and up 5 straight wins, is -1. I wouldn’t call -1 a “fade”. Dbacks closed to within 2 1/2 games of the 2nd wild card slot and finished 4 back.
The standings were set. Who cares. They killed their own chances
Think about it. They went 2-8 then finished 4 back. If they went 10-0, they won the 2WC..
Common sense, so by your definition if a team doesn’t go 10-0 in a given stretch of games, they are swooning/fading? That’s a standard I’ve never heard of. We better rewrite some dictionary definitions to accommodate your peculiar use of terms.
They played themselves out of the wild card. Stop lying to yourself. They won 2 games in 2 weeks in September
That’s almost Cubs-Ian collapse… if they had a playoff spot before they crashed, that is
The Diamondbacks were 54-55 on Jul;y 31st and went 31-22 from then through the end of the season. A .584 win percentage. They went 15-11 in September. A .577 win percentage, That is definitely not a collapse.
Hazen’s off-season goals were ALL met, plus the bonus of adding Bumgarner. It puts the Dbacks 2 years ahead of their goal to compete deep into the playoffs. Their top priority was a CF for 2 years, to move Ketel back to the infield to protect his health and to bridge the 2 year gap until their Top 3 prospects, all CF/OF were ready for the majors! Check! They needed a RF for 2 years. Calhoun! Check! They needed 2 more arms at the back end of the bullpen. Guerra and Rondon! Check! They needed a backup, left handed hitting catcher. Vogt! Check! They needed to reduce the volume of expiring contracts at the end of the year. Taijuan Walker and Steven Souza released and David Peralta extended! Check! Those were Hazen’s stated goals. All accomplished. The Bumgarner signing was the icing on the cake. Voila! Contender!
I picked the Dbacks for 95+ wins. They need to get off to a great start, and if they do, 95+ wins is very possible.
This team is balanced, has one of the best defenses, and has lots of pitching depth. Defense and pitching depth is the key to winning 90. They have 7 reliable starters (MadBum, Ray, Weaver, Gallen, Leake, Kelly, Young), and 5 very good young options (Duplantier, Clarke, Widner, Martin, and JB). That’s more depth than I can ever remember them having.
Few things with Zona….
1) They played .500 ball up until mid-August and aside from getting taken to the woodshed by a surging Mets team, they took care of business. Some of those teams had dumped assets at the deadline, some didn’t.
2) We can say they have improved this offseason.
3) They went 9-10 against Colorado, 8-11 vs. LA, 11-8 against SD and 10-9 against SF, most of the SD and Giants wins happened the last couple months. To nail a WC spot or division they have to play better against division opponents. SD might improve. They have to wipe out Colorado and SF. NL Central has some strong teams and the NL East has improved. Finding 90+ wins might prove difficult. In fact, this might be a year where WC teams need 88 or 89 wins to lock a WC spot.
Wereguests, on point 1…that’s exactly my point for people who say “but the Dbacks don’t have Greinke this year”. After the trade deadline when they traded Greinke and were about .500, without Greinke they finished with 85 wins. That means the non-Greinke team played better/won a higher percentage of games/were a better team than the team with Greinke in the starting rotation! On point 2…they improved upon that 2nd half team. And #3, remember, the Dbacks started Taijuan Walker in one of those late games, so all teams were in that mode.
They were 54-55 at the trade deadline. They sent Greinke to the Astros and added Leake, Gallen, and Young (to take the place of an injured Weaver) to the rotation in the 2nd half and went 31-22 from the trade deadline through the end of the season. They finished at 85-77. Obviously losing Greinke did not hurt the Diamondbacks at all.
In 2020 they get Bumgarner and a healthy Weaver back which means Merrill Kelly, their #3 last season, and Young move to the bullpen as depth. That is a stronger rotation than last year.
They added S Marte to CF, which allowed K Marte to move back to his best defensive position at 2B. S Marte is a couple of wins better than Flores, Vargas, and Escobar at 2B. 150 games of K Marte at 2B will improve infield defense which will improve pitching performance. That is a huge win for the Dbacks.
Calhoun is a couple wins better than the RF for the Diamondbacks they played in 2019.
A 6-7 win improvement in 2020 is almost a given for the Diamondbacks. .
Good thing these polls are never indicative of real life. We’d have about 9 playoff teams. Whew.
Dbacks should win the division.
85 wins in 2019. 39-32 in the 2nd half after trading Greinke. At the trading deadline in 2019 and in the offseason they added enough starting pitching that their #2 last season, Merrill Kelly, will not even make the rotation in 2020. Bumgarner, Leake, Ray, Gallen, Weaver is a much better rotation than they had to start 2019 even without Greinke at the top. Starling Marte in CF and Ketel Marte at 2B is much, much better than the 1.1 WAR they got in 115 starts from Flores, Escobar, and Vargas at 2B in 2019.. Calhoun is a 2 win improvement over the guys they ran out to RF in 2019.
91-94 wins is a very realistic win total for the Dbacks in 2020. Probably not enough to overtake the Dodgers unless some of the Dodgers over 30 players, (Kershaw, Jansen, Turner, Pollock, Kelly, Maeda, Treinen) see a big decline in 2020. 91-94 wins should be enough to put them in contention and a $127 million payroll should leave them room to add a piece or two at the deadline if they need it, I would be enthusiastic about 2020 if I was a Dbacks fan.
Kelly was the #3. not #2. Going to blame it on my phone. lol
Dbacks starters will be a major strength this year. Of the 6 starters, only Weaver’s innings will be monitored. He pitched only 64.1 innings last year, compared to 136.1 innings in 2018. He’ll probably pitch about 135 innings in 2020. That’s why the Dbacks have 6 solid starters, and another 5 starters with major league experience. That depth will come in handy.
Last year Bumgarner pitched 207.2 innings, Leake 197 innings, Kelly 183.1 innings, Ray 174.1 innings, Gallen 171.1 innings between the majors (2 teams) and minors. Clarke and Young pitched over 80 innings in the majors and another 42-55 innings each in the minors. Etc. so, there is quality and quantity in this starting staff. Young and Kelly will probably be on the opening day roster as bullpen pieces, so the Dbacks won’t have to go far to get replacements in case of injury, etc.