The majority of the National League is tightly bunched in the middle of the standings. The defending pennant winners are right among that group, carrying a 41-43 record that has them two and a half games back of the Cardinals for the final Wild Card spot. The Mets are a half-game ahead of Arizona as the NL’s top non-playoff team, while another five clubs sit fewer than three games behind them.
As with most of those borderline contenders, Arizona’s deadline approach is going to be heavily determined by how they play over the next four weeks. General manager Mike Hazen made that clear in a chat with reporters this afternoon, saying he’s hopeful that the team puts itself in a position to add before July 30.
“My desire is for us to be in a position to buy at the deadline and improve this team to push to the playoffs,” Hazen said (link via Steve Gilbert of MLB.com). “It’s obviously been a struggle here for the first half of the season. We haven’t played consistent enough.” The GM qualified that some of that underperformance is attributable to injuries (especially on the pitching staff), but he also noted that the lineup hasn’t been as consistent as he believes it to be capable of.
The offense has been solid but not overwhelming. The D-Backs rank ninth in the majors in scoring. They’re hitting .250/.321/.398 as a team. Arizona is in the back half of the top 10 in both batting average and on-base percentage and sits 14th in slugging. Ketel Marte, Christian Walker and Joc Pederson have driven most of that offense. Jake McCarthy and Randal Grichuk have been solid, while Lourdes Gurriel Jr. has rebounded from a rough May with an excellent performance over the past few weeks.
That said, it’s easy to understand why Hazen feels there’s untapped upside. Corbin Carroll picked things up in June after a terrible first couple months, but he still hasn’t played to the massive potential he showed as a rookie. Arizona was without shortstop Geraldo Perdomo for a few weeks, pressing Kevin Newman into action there. Third baseman Eugenio Suárez hasn’t played up to expectations after coming over from the Mariners in an offseason trade.
A good but not great performance from the lineup hasn’t been enough to overcome a rotation that has the fourth-worst ERA in the majors. That’s largely because the group hasn’t been at full strength. Eduardo Rodriguez still hasn’t made his team debut after sustaining a Spring Training lat strain. Zac Gallen missed a month because of a hamstring strain before returning over the weekend. Merrill Kelly will be out into August thanks to a mid-April shoulder injury.
Any team would have a hard time weathering the loss of arguably its three best starting pitchers. The problems can’t be entirely chalked up to injury though. Signing Jordan Montgomery just before Opening Day hasn’t worked out, as the southpaw has allowed 6.03 earned runs per nine across 13 starts. Arizona’s lack of upper minors rotation depth has again been exposed with Ryne Nelson, Slade Cecconi and Tommy Henry all getting hit hard. Presumptive fourth starter Brandon Pfaadt has been the only consistent presence, working to a 4.28 ERA over a team-leading 103 innings.
The D-Backs invested heavily over the offseason on the heels of their surprising run to the World Series. They brought back Gurriel and added Rodriguez, Montgomery and Pederson. They’d clearly prefer to make another playoff push rather than move veteran pieces. Should they remain within a team or two of the final postseason spot, they’d be positioned to do that. Things would become more questionable if the Snakes stumble this month and are jumped by a few of the teams that are narrowly behind them at the moment.
“It’s going to be where are we down relative to how many teams are above us,” Hazen said of deciding whether to buy or sell. “Like last year, as we slipped down around the deadline, I think we got to like two or three out and we had two or three teams above us. That’s a dynamic you can overcome. If you start getting too far down and buried behind and needing three, four or five teams to lose and you win, that’s not a good spot to be in. I think if we have a glimmer of where it’s at, my gut will be to continue to add to this team.”
If they’re in position to buy, strengthening the pitching staff would probably be the priority for a second straight summer. The D-Backs are hopeful of Rodriguez and Kelly contributing in the second half, though both pitchers will be coming off extended absences. Even if they’re each healthy and join Gallen and Pfaadt in the rotation, the front office could look for an upgrade over Montgomery. The D-Backs came up empty in their search for rotation help at last year’s deadline. Without a reliable fourth starter during their playoff run, Hazen conceded in October that he regretted not landing rotation help.
The front office did pull off one major pitching acquisition at the ’23 deadline, landing Paul Sewald to lock down the ninth inning. Sewald is again pitching well. Like virtually every contender, Arizona could try to deepen the middle relief group in front of their veteran closer and the setup trio of Justin Martinez, Kevin Ginkel and Ryan Thompson. Bringing in another left-hander to nudge Joe Mantiply down the leverage hierarchy would be ideal.
Why not give Deyvision De Los Santos a shot?
Where would they put him? His primary position is first but Walker has played well there. Pederson has DH covered well. He’s a platoon so DDLS could fit there but I don’t think a team should be calling up a young guy to the majors to be on the short side of a DH platoon.
3B is the only other place he’s played, and they have a need there, but he’s only played 61 and a third innings there this season. He played there more last year but had a bunch of errors. Not sure you should bring a kid up and throw him in the deep end at a tricky position he hasn’t played much or well at.
For sure, the bat looks ready for the majors, but it’s a tough fit
He should have been up with Cleveland to start the year. Now they’ve revolved the lineup to find power to the point Noel has been called upon.
With De Los Santos It’s the Mark Vientos Conundrum. Except De Los Santos is off the 40. So not only do you have to justify taking solid abs away from a guy that you want to just plug and play into your lineup on the major league roster you’ve got to justify it at available positioning on top of 40 man roster limits/restrictions. He’s played mostly 1b since coming back from Cleveland and is likely a long term dh. He just reminds me a ton of Yandy Diaz right now but with the actual power to match the frame.
For me you play the guy with what he’s doing/done. While not a perfect roster fit he makes your roster better going forward today. Plugs and plays potentially across the board at 1b 3b DH COF. He knows what it’s going to get and stay back he’s hungry as well as motivated and has made the adjustments and then some to knock a lot of the rust on him.
I think it’s just a matter of having an injury to immediately make the move if need be. Because now you’ve got the 40 man move that doesn’t need to happen for the organizations benefit on a 21 year old today.
I hope it’s soon though because it’s been a pleasure watching both vientos and de Los santos develop to the point they’ve both gotten to already and makes me really excited to see both of them get full seasons next year.
Last year, they were 50-34 after July 1st. Given how weak the NL Wild Card is this year, I guess they don’t need to work too much harder to get into the playoffs, but they better not go on a losing 2nd half as they did last year when they finished the second half 32-39.. Not sure if 73 wins will get them into the playoffs.
No chance . But a healthy rotation will net enough. Playing near .500 without them is a good sign to me.
I think it takes between 85 and 90 wins to get into the playoffs this year. Hard to sell after such a good run last year but the Dbacks have been snake bit this year pun intended. I liked their offseason but they have had a lot of bad luck and some unexpected poor performances as the article suggests. They might he better off selling. Sewald would be popular.
I’m holding till it doesn’t make any sense to. This month will be telling.
Let’s go snake bit snakes!
Yeah I think of they do sell it won’t be until the last minute. They gotta start winning at some point but they will take as long as they can.
Getting Gallen and Moreno back is a start but obviously that’s not all.
Who is the best MLB player of all time?
Trevor Bauer.
Rob Refsnyder
I would like to see the Cardinals trade with the DBacks Matz for Montgomery. I think the DBacks wouldn’t mind the salary relief and the Cardinals would bet he bounces back.
I don’t think Matz has anything left. Seemed like batters rake whenever he’s on the mound, otherwise he’s hurt. I guess the same can be said for Monte lately.
Matz has some potential but I wouldn’t count on him. The big thing for the Diamondbacks would be the salary relief. That would be their motivation.
The 5 Dback fans have gone away after their fluke went poof
Are you serious! I am a diehard dbacks fan since the start. Fluke what? The top 3 starters who can win 16-20 are out all year pretty much. Things change. All we need to do is get in. Sorry we aren’t the dodgers who lose guys and buy more and more. I bet you see arozarena or robert on their team next.
Dbacks are 5 games behind where they should have been at this point in the season. Top 3 pitchers out with injuries and #5 starter (Montgomery) under performing. Plus Carroll significantly underperforming, and Suarez underperforming even our modest expectations.
The last 2 weeks before the All-Star break will tell whether to buy or sell at the Trade Deadline. Series against the Dodgers, Padres, Braves and Blue Jays. Without Kelly and Rodriguez for these games, the Dbacks have an uphill battle to even finish this gauntlet at .500. Frankly, I don’t see it happening. I now see the Dbacks as minor sellers at the Trade Deadline. I hope they prove me wrong.
Yeah no disrespect to the Diamondbacks or their decision making which I think was sound things simply haven’t worked out well for them in 2024. Future is still bright and they clearly are willing to spend just been a tough year.
Snakes are surviving the injuries and spectacular nosedive by Carrol. However they just don’t have the organizational depth to thrive without some of the breaks going their way.
Rodriguez gets a MRI on 7/6 and it wouldn’t surprise me if his debut gets pushed back further. Even if/when Kelly & Rodriguez return, expecting them to produce at their typical levels might not be realistic.
The underlying metrics seem to indicate that Geno Suarez probably isn’t underperforming, but rather he’s washed and should be DFAed after they discover they couldn’t move him for a bag of balls at the deadline.
If Carrol doesn’t play at an elite level it’s hard to see the snakes as a pennant threat. It seems that the organization is trying to convince themselves that Carrol’s power outage and overall decline is swing mechanics related. Data & timing of decline suggests a possible lingering shoulder injury (again) he’s trying to play through. I expect news on that front in the offseason or when/if eliminated from playoff contention (hope I’m wrong).
Good news is that right now the current wildcard contenders look quite weak. Might not be much heavy lifting to sneak in:)
It’s been a long time since the D-backs had a reliable 3B for a full season.
I don’t know if they need to add much, maybe another solid starter/bullpen piece. As we’ve been seeing, I believe they will play better each month. July will be better than June. August even better, and they will end the season on a hot streak like last year.
That fluke World Series actually tricked them into thinking they could be good this year lol
fluke? Dodgers got their ass beat. No fluke. Now cause we are injured and didn’t buy ohtani Yamamoto glassnow teoscar we are a fluke? Let’s see what happens soon.
I wouldn’t call it a fluke, but their Py W/L was 80-82. They played well in the playoffs, but you might be over-estimating their overall talent level.
They barely — and I mean BARELY — made the playoffs. Beauty of baseball, and also its biggest weakness, is that anyone can get hot for a few weeks.
While the NL wild card has been mainly a battle of the mids. The Padres, cardinals, mets and even the giants have been playing better of late.
The issue is there aren’t many easy games. This is about as balanced of a season as I’ve seen in the league in a while (at least feels that way).
It will be interesting to see what teams value just trying to make the playoffs vs continuing to build the future depth for a better chance of winning it all down the road.
Simm
On the topic of “easy games” for the Dbacks. From the last week of May through the month of June, the Dbacks played the easy part of their schedule. As I commented above, they should have won 5 more games than they did, during that stretch. With better pitching they could have/should have swept several of those 3 game series. But they just won 2 of 3 games. It wasn’t good enough to just win series in that stretch. Now they face a much tougher stretch leading up to the All-Star break, and there is no easy stretch in the 2nd half of the season schedule. So that opportunity of easy games is behind them, and they really didn’t take advantage of that opportunity.
Unfortunately, with Montgomery underperforming and the inconsistency of the youngsters – Ceconni, Henry and Nelson – the Dbacks just couldn’t string together enough well pitched games to go on a run.
Grab Jack Flaherty from Detroit. Cerda (C), Torin (SS) and Barrosa (OF) are all players who fill needs for Detroit and fit the hitting profile that they look for.
Every team has injuries to their starting pitchers …the Dodgers have had a revolving door with their starting rotation and don’t have Kershaw, May and Yamamoto. The Padres have been without Darvish and Musgrove and Machado is still recovering from elbow surgery and Tatis is out,the Rockies don’t have a pitching staff and the Giants are getting zero out of Snell. Bottom line is that they need to score runs.
For the love of god Can we just sign Trevor Bauer. Even for this one year. One year is not going to kill team chemistry. for league min he will be better then monty.
Andrew
What an incredibly terrible idea!
He won’t just kill team chemistry, he’ll destroy the team’s reputation and cause attendance to absolutely crater. A few macho men like you might still attend, but the vast majority of decent fans will never forgive him.
So drop this terribly stupid idea and never speak of it again.
So a guy that was falsely accused shouldt get another chance?