How ya feeling?
Preston Salisbury: Unsurprised and also disappointed. The best this team has will never be good enough. That’s unbelievably frustrating.
samath: The Diamondbacks’ Game 162 was scheduled for 3am here in Singapore. I wasn’t planning on waking up for it, but when I did wake up naturally at 5am, I couldn’t fall back asleep as I wondered what had transpired. I turned on my computer in time to watch the top of the 9th in Philadelphia and then the rest of the Diamondbacks’ last game of the season.
It’s now
6am and while those were both disappointing results, I’m glad I managed to see them live with you all, something I haven’t had the privilege to do too much this year. Feeling a sense of finality with it all. And exhaustion — I’m going back to bed after writing this.
Spencer: Fine. I projected 79 wins on the year. So I’m just pleased the team over performed.
James Attwood: Frustrated and somewhat disappointed. But, they took the season all the way to Game 162, which greatly exceeds the expectations I had for this team, given the injury concerns and the payroll issues.
Makakilo: Unhappy. My definition of success is black and white: Did the Diamondbacks reach the playoffs? Perhaps, missing on the last day fo the season feels worse than missing by a mile.
1AZfan1: Wish I was getting ready to watch the Diamondbacks in the playoffs, so a little disappointed.
Ben: Disappointed. Frustrated by my disappointment. This is the third straight season they’ve missed the postseason by an agonizing margin and it feels a little like we as fans are the proverbial Charlie Brown with the postseason as the football and the rest of the league acting as Lucy.
ISH95: Disappointed. A little numb. I drank the Koolaid a lot this season, for some reason, and really thought they had a shot, but ultimately, the deficiencies we knew they had at the beginning of the season turned out to be true.
The Diamondbacks outperformed almost everyone’s preseason expectations. What went right to make this happen?
Preston Salisbury: Actually, very little went right. Gabriel Moreno was great and became just the fifth catcher to win a batting title. The emergency signing starting pitching was good. E-Rod finally earned his keep. But Marte, Carroll, and Perdomo all fell short of expectations, and the entire medical staff across the entire organization needs to be shown the door.
samath: ERod and the bullpen were amazing, better than we could have ever hoped.
Spencer: Eduardo Rodriguez. Michael Soroka. Rookies like Waldy, Fernandez and Lawlar having month(ish) stretches of great production (and the team sitting then when necessary).
James Attwood: Mike Hazen’s haul of pitching from the last two seasons, plus a few savvy flyers being taken led to the Diamondbacks having a mostly dominant bullpen. As the season wore on, the cream rose to the top and they largely carried the team for two months.
Makakilo: During the preseason, my last prediction was 85.1 wins. Instead they had 86 wins. Their wins were very close to my preseason expectation.
1AZfan1: The buy-low, bullpen volatility strategy Hazen’s been chasing for a decade finally hit and we had a competent bullpen. That and E-Rod, Soroka and Pfaadt hit in a big way alongside the shrewd trade for future Hall of Famer Nolan Arenado.
Ben: Both Michael Soroka and Eduardo Rodriguez turning back the clock to look like co-aces, Gabriel Moreno having the best single-season performance as a catcher in franchise history (https://www.sports-reference.com/stathead/tiny/bzNwP), and having an excellent bullpen for probably only the second time in the Mike Hazen era.
ISH95: Well I think the biggest thing is that Eduardo Rodrgiuez got to talk to a different pitching coach at the WBC and figured some stuff out. Shout out Johan Santana. Beyond that, Soroka living up to the top of his expectations, and bullpen volatility bouncing our way for once.
On the flip side, the Diamondbacks missed the playoffs by a single game for the second time in three years. What went wrong?
Preston Salisbury: Nothing, really. They just aren’t good enough. They’ll never be good enough.
samath: Zac Gallen turned into a pumpkin. Merrill Kelly aged as we might have expected. Corbin Burnes didn’t manage to contribute positively in his return.
Spencer: Two games I think technically right? [Ed. Note this is correct. Left the question as was, however, as that is what people had answered] Gallen and Kelly. Carroll had a “down” year. Perdomo also wasn’t quite as impactful as you’d have hoped after 2025. Being forced to rely on the likes of Pavin, Tawa, Vargas, Fernandez and McCann for long stretches.
James Attwood: Unlike 2025, there is not one incident I would point at. Last year there was one decision that changed everything. This year, the team let plenty of games they should have won, slip away. On the flip side, they stole some games too. What went wrong? I would say the team’s health record for the season was a primary contributor to at least a dozen of their losses this year. Even bigger though, what went wrong for Arizona is that San Diego went 18-6 in September, with AZ hanging one of those losses on them. This was simply the Padres’ year for being hot down the stretch, not really any different than 2017’s Rocktober.
Makakilo: As an optimist, my article on Tuesday was a rare look at the dark side. It walked through 11 reasons, and concluded four reasons dominated. Link to the article follows: https://www.azsnakepit.com/e/98076
1AZfan1: Technically 2 games, but we were alive in Game 162 so point understood. This is a tough question because you could look at this at the micro-level or the macro-level. The micro view would zoom in on particular games that were given away. The failures of the last homestand against Texas/Miami stand out alongside that Boston series where we looked dead in the water after Ketel no-showed.
On the macro-level, our failure to field a replacement-level 1B through the ASB was fairly maddening. Not having a consistent 4th starter behind E-Rod/Soroka/Pfaadt was another fairly big failure. Gallen was downright awful, Merrill was inconsistent, and Ryne was nowhere near his previous levels of success (when he was even healthy). I think I mostly fall in line with the macro view of the roster construction/player failures than the singular failures of a certain game.
1AZfan1: No because we didn’t even make the playoffs. Still, I’d rather have 3 straight seasons like our ’24-’26 than the last 3 seasons that the Rockies or Giants have had.
Ben: There are plenty of reasons, ranging from the individual (Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly taking serious steps back) to the macro (going a terrible 1-5 against the mediocre Marlins). It doesn’t help that Corbin Carroll had a miserable second half, Geraldo Perdomo regressed from an unsustainable 2025, and there were injuries that severely hampered several players the team expected to get back in the latter half of the season.
ISH95: Injuries. That’s the biggest thing. I don’t think anyone expected Gallen to be an ace, and Kelly finally aging a little can’t exactly be a surprise, but the ongoing onslaught of injuries that this team faces year in and year out is eternally holding us back. Ken Crenshaw has been the Director of Sports Medicine and Performance for nine years now, and that’s after he held the role of Head Athletic Trainer for 12 before that. It seems pretty obvious to me that it’s time for a new voice in that role.
Was the season a success?
Preston Salisbury: No. Only one team get to succeed in a season, and that’s going to be the Dodgers yet again
samath: Yes. They gave us entertaining baseball (led all of MLB in comeback wins with 47), keeping playoff hopes alive right down to the wire (controlled their own destiny in game 161, eliminated while playing game 162).
Spencer: I am disappointed. But yes the season was a success. The team over performed more than they under performed. Moreno is now definitively the best catcher in baseball. For the first time in a few years we have a lot of money leaving the books (Gallen, Gurriel, Soroka) without the need to replace too many pricey positions. While that last part is a non-factor for fans, it helps Kendrick and/or his replacement.
James Attwood: Yes. By pretty much every measure, they exceeded expectations. They also exceeded the underlying numbers and beat their Pythagorean win number. The team should still be playing baseball in October this year, but they drew the short straw of odd circumstances.
Makakilo: No
Ben: Yes, as frustrating as it is to miss the playoffs again, there was some excellent development of several young players including Ryan Waldschmidt, Tommy Troy, and Jordan Lawlar. That doesn’t mean there aren’t holes in the roster that need to be addressed for next season, but it does give me some hope on player development moving forward.
ISH95: What even is success? Is it something that can be clearly defined, or in the words of a specific Supreme Court ruling “I’ll know it when I see it”? The goal for every team is to win the World Series. Yes. Obviously, only one team will do that though, so it seems a very absolutist way of looking at things, and I am no Sith. Red doesn’t go well with my complexion. So based on what this team actually set out to do this season, which was survive with a massacred pitching staff and a bullpen with enough question marks to make the Riddler jealous, I’d say the season was a massive success. However, next season, those will not be the starting points of the season, so success has to look different.
What will be your favorite moment from this season looking back?
Preston Salisbury: Right now I’m still in “what was the point?” mode. Maybe the Nootbaar slam in SF since it flew right over my head?
samath: Here are a few:
- Ryan Waldschmidt’s two walkoff homers in August, against the Dodgers on August 7 and the Cubs on August 25.
- Ildemaro Vargas’s blazing start to the season, capped off by going 4-for-4 on May 1 to push his batting average to .404.
- The two consecutive sweeps of the Giants in May, highlighted by Marte’s walkoff 3-run homer with 2 outs on May 19.
- Sweeping the Dodgers at Dodger Stadium to end the first half.
Spencer: I don’t have a single moment off the top of my head. So I’ll be generic and say having a meaningful game to watch at 162. It’s not common and it was fun!
James Attwood: In a season like this one, with so many come from behind victories, there are too many candidates to choose just one. But, if I am going to pick something that really stood out and changed the outlook of the season for a bit, it would be the debut of Jose Fernandez and his crushing two long balls after just arriving as an injury replacement.
Makakilo: With two games left in the season, I made a screen shot of the Wild Card race. The Diamondbacks had 86 wins and the Phillies had 87 wins. I imagined three paths to the playoffs for the Diamondbacks. The Diamondbacks were riding a 6 game winning streak, while the Phillies had a 3-game losing streak. I felt optimistic!
1AZfan1: Jose Fernandez epic debut with a walk-off homer is the moment that sticks out the most to me right now.
Ben: I think I’ll choose the game on August 9th when the D-Backs won the series against the Dodgers to secure the season series against them. It’s their best record against the Dodgers since 2018.
ISH95: Sweeping the Dodgers was beautiful. I told a coworker that it was my world series, and it turns out it sadly was correct.
