If they only had a decent bullpen, the Diamondbacks would have made the playoffs. If I had a dollar for every time I have seen or heard a Diamondbacks fan say those very words, I might have been able to beat Mat Ishbia’s offer to become the next owner of the Phoenix Suns. The claim is understandable. Diamondbacks relievers took a league-leading 41 losses in 2023. The average big-league bullpen lost 28 games. That’s a difference of 13 games — the exact number of games by which the Diamondbacks trailed the Philadelphia Phillies in the National League wild card race. But pitcher losses are a fickle stat for a number of reasons that I won’t detail now. Based on win…

February is here, pitchers and catchers report in less than two weeks and the Arizona Diamondbacks will start playing games later this month. Baseball is (almost) back. Shortly before the 2022 season, I undertook the disheartening task of asking Diamondbacks Twitter what it wanted to see from the team. I received over 100 replies and wrote a fun story consolidating those responses into general themes. If you didn’t see the story last year, it’s still worthwhile to go back and see how fan expectations have evolved. For the Diamondbacks, a lot has changed in the last year. Fans have gone from hoping for even the faintest glimmer of hope following a 112-loss season to doing an obligatory happy dance every…

I know I write about baseball for a living, but I am convinced that the Major League Baseball home run is the most awe-inspiring event that happens routinely in any sport. To hit a home run, a human being must (1) correctly identify the trajectory of a 2.9-inch-diameter spherical object traveling at nearly 100 MPH, (2) ensure that the bat...

Anyone who saw more than a few Diamondbacks games in the mid-2010s knows that Nick Ahmed diving for baseballs has been a fixture of the franchise for nearly a decade. Typically, in a matter of milliseconds, he gets up and delivers a strike to first base. But in 2020, during the second iteration of spring camp prior to a 60-game season, one particular dive didn’t feel right. “We had that new turf installed over at Chase Field, and I didn’t slide,” Ahmed said. “When you dive, you normally land and then slide a little bit. I dove and just stuck, and I felt my shoulder jam up really bad.” In retrospect, Ahmed now views that moment as the first chapter…

Entering 2022, Jake McCarthy was a promising depth piece for the Diamondbacks. He was lightning fast. He held his own at all three outfield positions. He was still only 24 years old. But even then, prospect evaluators made little mention of the University of Virginia product. It wasn’t that he wouldn’t be a big leaguer — he broke into the...

In many respects, the Los Angeles Dodgers are Major League Baseball’s powerhouse franchise. They have won nine of the last 10 NL West division titles, many of them by a mile. The only year they did not win it in that span was 2021. That season, the Dodgers finished second in the NL West behind the 107-win San Francisco Giants....

From 2008 to 2013, Evan Longoria was one of the 10 best position players in baseball. He got MVP votes in five of those seasons, he made three All-Star teams and won two Gold Gloves. He hit .275/.357/.512 in 3,419 plate appearances. And by the end of that stretch, he was still just 27. A decade has passed, and Longoria has fallen off the Hall-of-Fame trajectory of his early days in the league. Nonetheless, he’s still accumulated 7,500-plus plate appearances with a 120 OPS+, a feat that only eight third basemen in MLB history have accomplished. The Diamondbacks believe he still has something to offer, particularly for a team as young as theirs. “Evan was someone we pursued all offseason,”…

In some ways, the Arizona Diamondbacks will benefit from the rule changes coming to Major League Baseball in 2023. In others, the D-backs could be hurt significantly. What we know for sure is that baseball will be more fun. We also discuss takeaways from Mike Hazen and Evan Longoria’s press conference and the latest on Carlos Correa’s deal with the New York Mets.

According to John Gambadoro of Arizona Sports, the Arizona Diamondbacks made a “substantial offer” to shortstop Dansby Swanson that was not far off from the deal he ultimately signed with the Chicago Cubs. Should the Diamondbacks have pulled the trigger? Meanwhile, the D-backs reportedly brought back Zach Davies on a one-year contract.