Three months ago, it was in doubt whether Eugenio Suárez would finish the season with the Diamondbacks. Arizona's offseason acquisition of the veteran third baseman from the Mariners seemed like a bust. Suárez started the season horribly. He hit .241/.310/.357 through the end of April and fell into an even worse slump over the next two months. From the start of May through the end of June, Suárez posted a .165/.259/.280 line while striking out more than 30% of the time.
By the middle of June, the D-Backs were contemplating a change. On June 9, USA Today's Bob Nightengale wrote that the D-Backs were willing to consider what would've been a salary dump trade. Nightengale indicated that Suárez's hold on the third base job was tenuous and manager Torey Lovullo said a few days later that the Snakes would give more third base reps to rookie Blaze Alexander. That never really transpired, as Alexander scuffled in the limited playing time he did receive.
At the same time, Suárez began to find his footing. He reached base at a .391 clip between the time of Lovullo's comments and the end of the month. Once the calendar flipped to July, he transformed into an elite power threat.
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Another overly player-friendly piece. Doesn’t seem right…
Players are why we watch you know. It wouldn’t be much fun to watch a room full of baseball executives talking on the phone and eating donuts and sunflower seeds for 9 innings.
Payola from the agent.
As a diehard dbacks fan he did exactly what we need for his price. Hit for power. Played great defense and was amazing in the clubhouse. He never hit for average
Mariners could have used him.
Geno leaves good vibes wherever he goes. Nice guy with a good sense of humor. Good defensively and hits for power but will never hit .300 and will have his share of strikeouts.
So you’re saying they don’t have the horses to make it far in the postseason? They are just going to have to hit a ton. And hope their bullpen maintains (and not use Sewald.) Are they fundamentally better than the Mets? I would think so. Would they beat the Brewers in a short series? I’m thinking they very well could.
put down the bong
“I would have traded Zac Gallen for the needed additional bats.”
Yet doesn’t actually give even the hint of knowing who those bats would be… Gotta love mid-July Quarterbacking. Is that a phrase? It should be.
Brilliant idea: Just go get all the best players after you know they are going to be the best! Truly groundbreaking stuff.
Thank GOODNESS Mike Hazen is in charge and not you. With him they will actually have a window to complete that lasts longer than March.
How much $ is Suarez’s agent giving MLBTR to put this laudatory fluff out there, on a site that tons of MLB front office personnel read every day? Seems unethical, as others have suggested.
I can’t take it seriously that you’re advocating for mortgaging the future for one single hard push at the beginning of their contention window (even if it would’ve been nice to see Cease, Crochet, and/or Snell in Sedona Red); particularly with the upper end of the DBacks prospect pool struggling heavily (mostly due to time missed, but that still depresses trade value)
Even assuming that Suarez was left in Seattle, the DBacks are still one of the most stacked offenses in Baseball top-to-bottom (third in MLB by wRC+, and the two ahead of them have multiple MVP candidates and some of the highest payrolls in the sport); what additional bats would they need to trade Gallen for? And circling back to Geno: how would 3B be filled (other than a prospective Gallen trade)? Not much was given up to acquire him, and his salary isn’t egregious.
I can buy the “don’t sign Montgomery”, because it was a reactionary move to losing Rodriguez for an extended period of time; however, it’s incredibly easy to say that in retrospect. There wasn’t anything in his ’23 regular and Postseason numbers that suggested he would be THIS bad. Some hiccups were expected from missed ST; regularly having Chernobyl level meltdowns was not lol.
They’re built more similarly to the Royals offenses of the mid-2010’s than a prototypical slugging offense; pile up a bunch of balls in play and run the bases until the opposition makes them stop. And those Royals teams fielded their positions well enough to carry a mediocre rotation all the way (and the DBacks have a more than respectable defense; sans OF arms…. we don’t talk about those lol). It certainly helps that KC had a hydra at the back of their bullpen (sadly, SD is probably closest to that level of RP quality)
I’m inclined to agree with Ignorant; they’re capable of making it far, but in order to do that they’re going to need to sustain the level of offense that they’ve been showing Post-ASB (and need to also pray for some strong RP outings)
All due respect when I say that I’m sure that 29 MLB organizations would be happy with you at the the helm in the desert; it’s just that none of those 29 are located in AZ lol
Mike Hazen has done more than enough to earn the trust and patience of the DBacks community (both inside and outside of the Front Office). I fancy myself a roster nerd and follow the DBacks incredibly closely; even I wouldn’t think that I could handle it any better than Hazen has.