The D-backs 2025 outfield collectively took a step back from their previous performances, continuing what could be seen as a potentially worrying trend. In 2023, the three positions combined to be worth
2.4 bWAR Above Average (bWAA). In 2024, that figure dropped to 1.7 bWAA, and this year, it dropped below the average, coming it at -0.9 bWAA. That was despite an MVP level performance from Corbin Carroll, who improved his production last season by close to two and a half wins. Obviously, it’s safe to say that Carroll wasn’t the issue. But there were questions to be asked, even before Lourdes Gurriel blew his knee out in the first game of September.
Indeed, Gurriel himself was one of those issues – and his likely unavailability for the first half of 2026 makes things worse. The three-year, $42 million deal he signed after the team’s trip to the World Series is currently looking unlikely to be good value (and given he had never posted a three bWAR season, it did seem like a bit of an overpay at the time). The first season was acceptable, at 2.0 bWAR, but his offense slid to a career-low 95 OPS this year, and combined with a drop-off in his defensive value too, it led to a value not much above replacement level, at just 0.4 bWAR. He’ll certainly exercise his $14m player option for next year, following the injury,
That value was still better than Alek Thomas or Jake McCarthy though. Thomas was the marginally better of the pair, and certainly got the bulk of the playing time, appearing in 143 games, a number exceeded only by Geraldo Perdomo. While his OPS+ of 82 was a personal high, it still ranked Thomas 163rd of the 177 players to receive 450+ PA in 2025. With his defense also less impressive – there was no Gold Glove nomination for Thomas this season -he ended up basically at replacement level. Hopes for a breakout – or even a bounce-back – proved to be sadly optimistic.
At least Thomas does have age on his side to a degree: he will still only be 25 come Opening Day 2026. The same can’t really be said about McCarthy, who had already turned 28 years old. He had a deeply wretched start to the year. Before being sent down to Reno on April 21, he was batting .073. Only one other player in team history was hitting below a buck through the first 21 games (min 30 PA). Although Jake hit better when he returned in late June, a slash line of .236/.267/.406 after that was still only a .674 OPS – barely any better than the figure Thomas posted over the season as a whole.
Previous candidates
Corbin Carroll – MLB .259/.343/.541 = .883 OPS
10/10, no notes. I don’t even want to think about how bad our outfield performance might have been, if it hadn’t have been for Carroll carrying it. Startling to remember that almost at the All-Star break in 2024, Carroll’s OPS for the season was a feeble .613. But over the 209 games he has played since, Corbin’s OPS is over .900, with fifty home-runs. This is the player we expected when he was drafted, and again when he was signed to an eight-year deal after just 32 games in the majors. At 14.4 bWAR since, that $111 million is more or less paid off already, with the next five years gravy. Health permitting (pauses to touch every bit of wood nearby), anyway.
Lourdes Gurriel Jr. – MLB .248/.295/.418 = .713 OPS
I’m including him because the odds are he should return at some point in 2026. The exact date is uncertain, and we probably won’t get much of an idea before Opening Day. When he had the surgery on September 11, the estimated recovery time was “9-10 months”, which would be mid-June to mid-July. The team will want to use the remainder of the season to see if they want to exercise their $14 million option for 2027, though the $5 million buyout is definitely non-negligible there. Feels like between getting him, Corbin Burnes, A.J. Puk and Justin Martinez back, Arizona could potentially end up having quite the “trade deadline” next year.
Jake McCarthy – MLB .204/.247/.345 = .591 OPS. AAA .314/.401/.440 = .840 OPS
I note the gap between his MLB and Triple-A OPS, at 249 points, is pretty close to what we found as a normal “Reno adjustment” in 2017. Must get round to checking in on that again. Anyway, it does suggest that any improvement in Jake’s numbers were largely due to the hitter-friendly environment in Reno. Or maybe it’s just the proverbial “even year” situation: his numbers in 2022 and 2024 were clearly better than 2023 and 2025. I guess that offers some hope for next year? It’s certainly a far cry from where we were after his campaign in 2022, when he came fourth in Rookie of the Year, and seemed set to be an everyday member of our outfield for years.
Alek Thomas – MLB .249/.289/.370 = .659 OPS
Similarly, Thomas hasn’t shown the development for which one would have hoped. At one point, going into the 2022 season, he was seen by MLB Pipeline, not only as the team’s top prospect, but in the top twenty nationwide. But here we are, after four seasons and 420 major-league game games, and Alek has a career OPS+ so far of just 76. As noted, he is still relatively young, but his strikeout rate ballooned to a personal high of 26.0%, while his walk rate was a low, at 4.5%. That K:BB ratio puts him the bottom half-dozen of all hitters with 450+ PA this season, and does not augur well for any significant improvement next year.
New candidates
There is a chance that Thomas and McCarthy could become non-tender candidates when that decision has to be made, shortly after the World Series ends. However, the injury to Gurriel likely dropped those odds considerably, given the lack of credible alternatives in the outfield currently possessed by Arizona. Right now, the only other player beyond those four discussed above, who is listed on the 40-man roster as an outfielder, is Jorge Barrosa. With his OPS+ of [checks notes] 8 over 33 games last year, even the breakiest of breakout seasons for him would likely still leave his short of meriting an everyday spot in the line-up.
If the team does non-roster one or other (both seems a stretch), it suggests they are confident in converting an infielder to play that role, on an everyday basis (perhaps eventually, rather than initially). The two most likely candidates for that are Blaze Alexander and Jordan Lawlar. That decision may involve the performances of both players. For example, there’s not much point putting Alexander in the outfield, if Lawlar proves incapable of manning the hot corner. Blaze got a cup of coffee there this year, making three starts in center and four non-starts in left. Though with only eight chances all told, he was hardly tested excessively.
Lawlar is someone Mike Hazen has speculated about possibly trying out in center. He is going to be playing winter ball in the Dominican Republic over the off-season, and it will be interesting to see if he sees any time there. So far though, his team there, the Tigres Del Licey have seen three of their four games called off due to rain, and Lawlar didn’t appear in the one contest played. So we have no information to go on there, as yet. Of course, we remember the ill-fated attempt to convert Ketel Marte to a center-fielder in 2019, and then again in 2021. So we know this isn’t like playing MLB: The Show. These are actual people being shuffled around.
The outfield is an area where the team are fairly well-stocked in prospects. MLB Pipeline currently has the Diamondbacks’ top two prospects there, in Ryan Waldschmidt and Slade Caldwell, with Druw Jones and Gavin Conticello also ranked among the top thirty. We can likely cross Caldwell off as being any help next year, since he only turned 19 in June. The same goes for Jones, who was the #2 pick overall in the 2022 draft, but has struggled to live up to that ranking since. This year, he had an OPS of only .694 for High-A Hillsboro, though at 21 years old, he is still young for that level.
I would not be surprised to see Waldschmidt, and perhaps Conticello, in the big leagues this year. Ryan had a .921 OPS over 66 games in Double-A Amarillo, though it is worth noting that park is arguably even more hitter-friendly than Reno, as was discussed earlier this year. But considering his age, it’s still fairly impressive. I’d want to see this success at least sustained at Reno, and if so, then he could end up high on the list for a potential call-up in the second half of the season. Conticello spent the whole year in Amarillo, with an .804 OPS, so does seem a little less ready for prime-time.
Conclusions
It’s weird how quickly things change. Not so long ago, the D-backs seemed awash in everyday outfielders, to the point they could use them as trade chips. Remember dealing Daulton Varsho to Toronto? Or Dominic Canzone to the Mariners? Both trades “made sense” at the time, when we expected McCarthy and Thomas to become capable of holding down an everyday spot for the foreseeable future. That’s now a real question, while Varsho, and to a lesser extent Canzone, have become exactly that sort of player. While pitching may be getting all the column inches, I would not underestimate the potential for the Arizona outfield to become a real issue in 2026.
