The Diamondbacks are in agreement to bring Zach Davies back to the club on a one-year guarantee with a mutual option for the 2024 season, the team announced. Davies will reportedly be guaranteed $5MM with another $3MM in incentives available. The right-hander is represented by the Boras Corporation.
Davies, 30, has pitched in each of the past eight MLB seasons. Though he’s never been able to perform at the dominant level of an ace, he has been able to provide solid work over that stretch. In 182 career starts, he’s thrown 966 innings with a 4.14 ERA. Outside of the shortened 2020 season, he’s never been able to post a strikeout rate above 20% and has a 17.4% rate for his career overall. That’s a few ticks shy of typical league averages, with MLB starters striking out 21.6% of batters faced in 2022.
What Davies has been able to do, however, is limit hard contact in order to keep runs off the board. 45% of balls in play he’s allowed in his career have been on the ground. In 2022, Statcast put his average exit velocity allowed in the 75th percentile of qualified pitchers, along with a hard hit rate that’s in the 76th percentile.
The Diamondbacks signed Davies for the 2022 season on a one-year deal. He made 27 starts for the Snakes, logging 134 1/3 innings with a 4.09 ERA. Similar to his career overall, he paired a modest 17.9% strikeout rate with a solid 9.1% walk rate and 42.9% ground ball rate but kept runs off the board with the aforementioned weak contact. His fastball only averaged 89.6 mph but he also mixed in a changeup, cutter, curveball and slider in order to keep hitters off balance.
It may not be an exceptionally exciting move for fans of the Diamondbacks, but it’s one that has some sense to it. Zac Gallen figures to be the club’s ace with Merrill Kelly a pretty reliable bet for a mid-rotation role. Madison Bumgarner has struggled in recent year but will likely be serving as an innings-eating veteran at the back end.
Outside of those three, there’s a group of youngsters who showed promise in 2022 but haven’t cemented themselves at the big league level. Ryne Nelson and Drey Jameson both showed encouraging signs late last year, but Nelson only has three big league starts and Jameson just four. They will both be 25 in the upcoming season and still have options. Tommy Henry is also going into his age-25 season, though his nine-start debut was less impressive and he’s probably ticketed for more minor league development. The Diamondbacks also have a highly-touted pitching prospect in Brandon Pfaadt, who has yet to crack the 40-man roster. However, he did reach Triple-A last year and is generally considered one of the top 100 prospects in the league.
The Diamondbacks started to integrate that young talent into their rotation in 2022 and will surely be looking to continue down that path in 2023. However, prospect development rarely occurs in a strict linear fashion, especially when it comes to pitchers. As they try to figure out what they have in their young arms, Davies gives them a reliable veteran presence who can likely be counted on to provide some steady work when they need it.
Jon Heyman of the New York Post was first to report the agreement and contract terms.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
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I said we needed another veteran. He was really good last year. Always goes 5 1 or 2 runs most of the time. Nice number 4 or 5 starter
Scumbag that cheated on his wife and ghosted her!
That’s a real fine guy
Must have a hell of an out pitch
I’m not defending or saying it’s right, but do you know how many athletes cheat on their spouses? You’d be mad at half the league.
Or they swing
From both sides of the plate…
Just like Charlie Sheen in real life and with the Indians.
Hit the road Zach and dontcha come back no more, no more, no more
I learned long ago to seperate entertainment from reality. If you can’t seperate the actual person from their sports, movies, or music you will never enjoy anything
Good thing this guy is a trash pitcher too. If you like allowing hard contact and not striking anyone out, Davies is your guy.
You won’t catch me arguing that Davies is a strikeout pitcher (or a control pitcher for that matter), but limiting hard contact is one of the few things he’s done with some regularity throughout his career. He’s also a really strong defender.
He’s not a slam dunk signing, but he’s a decent enough #4/5. It’s highly unlikely that he returns to his early career form, but at 30 years old entering the season it’s unlikely that he’s already at the tail end of his career.
would have helped boston.. damn
Helped Boston finish in last place maybe, be grateful he didn’t sign there. He’s batting practice.
No thank u for Boston u kidding me?? We don’t want or need a Zach Davies
The Ghost is back! I liked having him in the rotation, was saying towards the end of the season that I wouldn’t be unhappy with him back on an affordable deal; this is exactly that. Good signing.
So now only one of Nelson, Jameson, or Pfaadt makes the rotation out of ST. What a disappointment. Such a Dbacks move.
I mean we still need relief help so any of those 3 that don’t make the rotation I bet make the club still so breath dude.
It’s a letdown to see three of your best rotation prospects possible relegated to the bullpen for someone like Davies though. It’s not like they’re making room for Rodon.
Shoot I’d love to see Nelson close myself.
I would think the better outcome is an eventual rotation of Gallen, Pfaadt, Jameson, Nelson, quality LH FA. Nelson looked great as a starter. I would only want a guy transitioned to the pen if it was clear that they didn’t have the chops to start.
That outcome is still not off the table, but there is some concern over whether Nelson’s ~70% 4S usage will maintain success in an extended rotation look. He could probably stand to introduce a Sinker or Cutter; just something that has more in zone utility (like Jameson’s Sinker).
In the meantime, this is pretty much the last season they have to rebuild Bumgarner’s value (not writing the entire contract off as a sunk cost is preferable) and maybe they can deal Davies at the deadline once the young guns are more ready (like they intended to do last season).
The plan is to not throw everyone in the deep end immediately, because we saw how well that worked out for guys like Perdomo, Herrera, Henry, and Uceta last season.
I would ordinarily agree that it isn’t a good idea to throw guys into the deep end. However, Nelson, Pfaadt, and Jameson are all far more talented and heralded prospects than Herrera, Henry, and Uceta (Perdomo being the exception). Since the team is not clearly playoff bound, it would seem better to have two of Nelson, Pfaadt, and/or Jameson learning and growing at the big league level instead of tallying ERA’s over 5 and 6 in their Triple A launch pad.
I agree that they’re more talented and would likely settle in more easily, but burning MLB service time for what essentially amounts to developmental reps is generally at its best as a proposal when you’re lacking for better options. Our current names on the 40-man that aren’t projected to make the active roster are: Herrera, Beer, Castillo, Rivera, Alexander, Thomas, Fletcher, Barrosa, Nelson, Henry, Frias, Martinez, Vargas, Holton, Uceta, and Bukauskas; and two of those guys have to go still after the Longoria and Davies deals. We’re getting towards the end of the list of “easy cuts”.
I’d love to see Pfaadt early as much as you would, but he’s “suffering from success”; he doesn’t HAVE to be added to the 40-man until after this season, and not having to commit a 40-man spot to a quality depth option is valuable in and of itself. We’re at a crossroads that we’ve never been at as DBacks fans; we (almost) have too many good to decent candidates for the rotation at the same time. It’s not a bad thing.
As far as ERAs in the 5-6 range at AAA, the recent willingness of the DBacks to send much more advanced prospects to Complex ball (or just lower A ball levels in general) suggests more of a developmental focus on process over results. It’s simply unreasonable to expect anyone to produce results like Pfaadt did at Reno (even Pfaadt), so as long as all of the peripherals are in the right places they’re still likely to nudge themselves into the MLB conversation.
Personally I think the best arms will pitch. We can never have enough depth. Wouldn’t surprise me too if Madbum gets put into a mop up roll as the long man out of the pen.
Wow what a take the best arms will pitch how did you figure this mystery out??
Maybe they’ll move MadBum to the pen? Would be interesting to see how he’d do there.
If so, then I’d understand the signing.
For sure I’d love to see that. MadBum might just have to pull a smoltz.
O u want mad bum closing lmao
I think he should be a long-reliever, personally. He has no fastball, limited command/control, and doesn’t have an elite secondary pitch to rely on (Hoffman’s change-up, for example).
Arizona Diamondbacks
On March 24, 2022, Davies signed a one-year, $1.75 million contract with a mutual option with the Arizona Diamondbacks.[19]
Personal life
Davies married longtime girlfriend Megan White on December 3, 2016.[20] They were divorced on May 16, 2022, with his wife citing in an Instagram post her husband’s alleged affair with a male bartender aboard a Carnival Cruise ship as one of the main reasons.[21]
“A male bartender? Sound like a good time!” – MannyBeingMVP
Those must’ve been some really good drinks.
It’s not true btw. We don’t know who Davies cheated with but it’s funny that the line about the male bartender stayed up for over a month
And why do we care about his marriage life ??
try reading about what happened and not guess, ever hear of the internet? its this really cool new thing that the kids are doing.
yipee
Zack and his 87 MPH fastball, MadBum and his 89 MPH fastball will keep long relievers busy
This helps The rookies not have to pitch a whole season. Nelson and Jameson will be in the rotation soon. Pfaadt will be the main one soon. Bumgraner needs to go. Eat most of the salary and get a bullpen piece
Agree 100%
There’s no way that they are not willing to eat Bumgarner’s reduced contract going into ’24, but they may even be willing to eat some of his contract as soon as mid-season in ’23. He’s just not a great fit for anybody right now; he doesn’t help contending clubs and the only way acquiring him helps a rebuilding club is if they get a decent prospect along with.
Gallen, Kelly, Jameson, Davies, Bumgarner, Nelson, Henry, Pfaadt, Cecconi, and Walston is a pretty decent SP stable currently. There will inevitably be injuries, and plenty of opportunities for someone to get Wally Pipped. It’s gonna be a fun season at the very least.
They could manage their workload without resorting to this though.
One of the sad realities of being a lower payroll club is that it’s more practical to stagger call ups in efforts to manipulate payroll and service time; losing the smallest number of FAs in a single season is one of the better ways to extend a competitive window (and not having too many guys hit arb-eligibility at the same time makes payroll easier to manage).
It’s not a coincidence that Carroll, Jameson, and Nelson narrowly missed exhausting Rookie eligibility. Nor is it a coincidence that Rojas is just now Super-2 after debuting on ’19. Nor is it a coincidence that McCarthy was two days shy of collecting a full year of service time. It was definitely a coincidence that Pavin got injured while optioned to AAA, but you can bet the FO breathed a sigh of relief knowing that he wasn’t collecting service time during the IL stint (because he was on pace to be Super-2 this season).
It’s an ugly truth, but none of us should be confused by signings like this at this point.
its not entertainment, its off his player profile page on wiki , he cheated on his wife to screw a guy, get over it.
Ooh, now there’s a reliable source of personal information.
(insert face palm emoji)
MLB teams should probably start aiming higher than signing Zach Davies.
Oh yeah Dirty Davies is back in the desert.
Not a bad signing. You could get 140 innings with a better outcome than the Orioles will get from Gibson (or Lyles last year) got for 180 innings except that the Diamondbacks are only paying half as much. Even if the $ comes out to $8M it is still less and also means he hit incentives and had a good season.
The definition of an innings eater. Solid move to help their young arms develop more.
How dumb these gms are. This guy is a sold 4-5 and was signed at little money.
Putzberg signs rich hill. Yeah. At least the penguins are doing well