If not for the Baltimore Orioles, the Arizona Diamondbacks would have been viewed as baseball's breakout young team in 2022. Granted, their 74-88 record doesn't impress, but that same D-Backs team lost 110 games in 2021. Arizona improved by 22 wins from 2021 to 2022, the third most in baseball behind the Orioles (31 wins) and big-spending New York Mets (24 wins).
"In some ways, you need to walk before you can run. I feel like that happened this year to some degree," D-Backs GM Mike Hazen told KPNX at the end of last season."... Finishing with 74 wins and not playing October, I don't look at it like, 'Congratulations, we stunk less than we did last year.' I don't have that mindset. I'll never have that mindset."
Now, a little more than 40% of the way through the 2023 season, the D-Backs are again one of the most improved teams in baseball, and they entered Tuesday in first place in the NL West at 41-25. They are 21-7 in their last 28 games, and that includes an improbable ninth-inning comeback against the Detroit Tigers on Sunday and a wild 9-8 win over the Phillies on Monday.
Arizona is on pace to win 101 games, which would be a 27-win improvement over last season, when the D-Backs improved by 22 wins from the year before. Adding nearly 50 wins to the ledger in two years would be a remarkable turnaround. There is still a lot of season to be played. No doubt. Early on though, the D-Backs have continued last year's ascent, and are still improving.
The Los Angeles Dodgers of course will not go quietly -- I would bet a shiny nickel Los Angeles spends at least one day in sole possession of first place in the NL West between now and the end of the season -- but the D-Backs are for real. Here are three reasons to believe Arizona has what it takes to outlast the Dodgers and win their first division title since 2011.
1. The young players have arrived
Entering the season, D-Backs outfielder Corbin Carroll was ranked the No. 2 prospect in baseball, and he's been the instant star the D-Backs expected when they signed him to an eight-year extension worth $111 million in spring training. "We're trying to anchor down around the players that are here, that have come up through our system," Hazen said about the contract (video).
The 22-year-old Carroll has used his power/speed skill set to hit .313/.397/.589 with 13 home runs and 19 stolen bases, and he ranks fourth among all players (hitters and pitchers) with 3.4 WAR. Adjusted for ballpark and the league's run-scoring environment, Carroll has been a top-five hitter in baseball in 2023. He's an MVP candidate, not just the NL Rookie of the Year favorite.
"Getting to watch Corbin Carroll these last couple of months has been pretty impressive," D-Backs righty Merrill Kelly told MLB.com after Carroll hit his first career grand slam over the weekend. "Everybody probably had some questions as far as, 'Was the extension worth it?' I think he's proven to everybody that he's worth every penny."
The D-Backs have not had a player this dynamic since peak Paul Goldschmidt (Goldschmidt's baserunning ability has always been underrated) and, as good as Carroll's been, it still feels like there's another level here. This is his first full big-league season. Once he gets more familiar with the league and opposing pitchers, Carroll will only grow more comfortable and more dangerous.
Also, Carroll is not the only young player making an impact for the D-Backs. Shortstop Geraldo Perdomo is having a breakout season one year after being one of the worst hitters in baseball. Gabriel Moreno, who came over in the Daulton Varsho trade with the Toronto Blue Jays, has wielded an above-average bat for a catcher while throwing out 50% (!) of base stealers.
Teams with a boatload of young talent can show rapid improvement. We saw what the Orioles did last season. Not too long ago the Atlanta Braves made the jump from 72 wins in 2017 to 90 wins in 2018. The Chicago Cubs won 97 games in 2015 after winning 73 in 2014. The D-Backs are following the similar path. All their young talent is figuring things out at once.
In Carroll, the D-Backs have a bona fide franchise player to build around, and in Perdomo and Moreno, they have other talented young players with considerable upside at crucial up-the-middle positions. Add in ace Zac Gallen, one of the sport's very best starters, and few teams in the game boast an up-and-coming core as exciting, talented, and productive as Arizona's.
(Although he made his MLB debut late last year, Carroll retained his rookie-eligibility, meaning he will net the D-Backs a Prospect Promotion Incentive draft pick should he win NL Rookie of the Year. Those are extra draft picks MLB gives teams who do not manipulate the service time of their top prospects. The Seattle Mariners received a PPI pick for Julio Rodríguez last season.)
2. Hazen seems motivated to improve the team
A few years ago Hazen rankled some folks when he essentially admitted he didn't believe in his team enough to add short-term help at the trade deadline. Here's what Hazen said a week before the 2019 trade deadline, when Arizona was 2.5 games out of a wild-card spot (in the old Wild Card Game format):
Mike Hazen doesn't sound convinced into buying: "The belief that a .500 team is going to win the World Series, get through the wild-card format that we have and win the World Series is, I don’t think objectively that’s a position we should be staking ourselves to."
— Zach Buchanan (@ZHBuchanan) July 22, 2019
Yikes! Hazen was active at the 2019 deadline, most notably swapping Jazz Chisholm Jr. for Gallen and sending Zack Greinke to the Houston Astros in a trade that, to date, has netted super utility guy Josh Rojas and salary relief. The D-Backs didn't reinforce the bullpen or add an outfield bat, however, and finished the season four games out of a postseason spot at 85-77.
It seems things will be different this season. For starters, the D-Backs are currently in first place, and first-place teams should always be reinforced. Arizona has a seven-game lead on a wild-card spot and Sportsline puts the club's postseason odds at 76.6%. FanGraphs has them at 74.2%. It will take quite a collapse for the D-Backs to miss the postseason, so yeah, add at the deadline.
"Being in the position to be aggressive at the deadline to buy and play meaningful baseball games in September, that's what I would constitute to be a successful season this year," Hazen told the Arizona Republic in spring training. "I don't know what's going to happen after that. Nobody does. The competition in the National League is pretty stiff. There's a lot of teams that improved quite a bit. I think we improved, but I believe those are the markers that I want us to, at least, from a long-term standpoint, put down."
Words only matter so much. Actions speak louder and, on April 20, the D-Backs designated Madison Bumgarner for assignment, and released him a week later. Arizona, a team with a $116.2 million Opening Day payroll, ate approximately $34 million through 2024 to cut ties with Bumgarner, who allowed 20 runs in 16 2/3 innings before being dropped from the roster.
Hazen saying he wants to improve the roster is one thing. Cutting Bumgarner and convincing ownership to eat all that money shows Hazen and the D-Backs are serious about getting better. In the grand scheme of things, releasing Bumgarner was a simple addition by subtraction move, but no owner likes eating that much cash. It was a true indication the D-Backs are serious about improving.
Starting pitching is one area where the D-Backs clearly need help. As R.J. Anderson wrote last month, Arizona's rotation other than Gallen and Kelly has been pretty terrible. Here are the updated numbers:
| GS | IP | ERA | WHIP | K/BB | WAR | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Gallen + Kelly | 17 | 161 1/3 | 2.45 | 1.13 | 3.57 | 3.4 |
All other D-Backs SP | 48 | 185 1/3 | 5.73 | 1.55 | 1.52 | -1.2 |
It's not just about performance either. Arizona's young starters -- Tommy Henry, Ryne Nelson, Brandon Pfaadt -- all figure to have some sort of workload limit this season. The D-Backs don't want to run into a situation later this year where they're postseason-bound and their young arms are running on fumes. A quality veteran starter who can lighten the load on the young pitches and also start Game 3 of a postseason series feels like a must.
Rentals like Chicago White Sox righties Lucas Giolito and Lance Lynn figure to dominate the starting pitcher trade market, though Arizona is primed to go after a pitcher with longer term control. Dylan Cease would be an obvious target. Would the Miami Marlins move Jesús Luzardo? The Marlins are in the postseason race, but might as well ask, right? A pitcher like that would be ideal.
We have to expect the Dodgers to make moves of their own at the deadline. The D-Backs don't have to answer whatever moves the Dodgers make, necessarily, though it's likely the best version of the Dodgers isn't on the field yet. Los Angeles will address their needs at the deadline. The D-Backs needs to do the same to have their best chance to win the division and advance in October.
3. The Dodgers have problems of their own
Specifically a leaky bullpen that ranks 22nd among the 30 teams in win probability added. If not for the Mets (😬), we would have spent last week talking about what a bad week the Dodgers had. They went 2-4 on their six-game road trip through Cincinnati and Philadelphia and got walked off three times. Ouch.
The Dodgers will be without Dustin May for the foreseeable future and Julio Urías was unable to return as expected this past weekend because his hamstring still isn't 100%. There are days the bottom of the lineup is a black hole. Add in the shaky bullpen and you get a team that is merely very good rather than truly great. This is the most vulnerable Dodgers team in quite some time.
Arizona is 5-3 against the Dodgers this season and they have two series remaining: Aug. 8-9 at Chase Field (two games) and Aug. 28-30 at Dodger Stadium (three games). It's a shame these two division rivals won't play in September. The NL West race could come down to the wire, and, if it does, it will feature a lot of scoreboard watching. A bit lame, but what can you do?
Point is, the Dodgers do not appear to be a true powerhouse this season, and other NL West rivals like the San Diego Padres and San Francisco Giants have yet to assert themselves in the division race. Arizona is in the driver's seat. The D-Backs are playing very well, have for a few weeks now, and they have an enviable young talent base. With a little more pitching, this D-Backs team is primed to reach the postseason, if not take the division.
