The team currently sits 3 games out at time of writing. Is this the end?
James: I think the end came a while ago. However, I have enjoyed their late push to make things “interesting”. The brutal gauntlet of a remaining schedule, combined with an exhausted bullpen just does not bode well for the club.
Preston: Mathematically, no. And the Mets (and karma) owe us one. However, karma never pays up when you want it to, and the Mets are unreliable in the extreme. While it would have been nice to be this
year’s Tigers team and go on a run to the postseason, the path is a lot harder. If the Diamondbacks are to somehow make the postseason, it would be a 2007 Rockies level effort, and as we all remember, the Rockies had the benefit of a tiebreaker game, something that will not happen this year. Justin: Realistically, yes. Considering where we were a month ago, I’ll take it. They managed to scratch and claw their way back to contention and make things interesting into late September.
Sam: A playoff run is now clearly in the “unrealistic but not impossible” territory, and will remain that way for probably one more series at least. Heck, the 74-80 Marlins aren’t eliminated yet. But the important thing while in this limbo is that we should forget about the playoffs and focus on what matters – young player development and having fun seeing how the team matches up against playoff-bound opponents.
Spencer: Yeah this last half week has killed my interest in the season. There’s no real path to the postseason. And the pivotal young players are hurt or too raw to enjoy.
Makakilo: It’s not over. To understand my view of what happened, and my view going forward, you will need to read my article that will post on Tuesday.
Ben: They haven’t been mathematically eliminated, but it was always going to be nearly impossible and they haven’t made it any easier on themselves. And the schedule makers made it even more difficult with an absolutely brutal end of the year. At the end of the day, the team deserves so much credit for even making it interesting at this point in the year considering where they were a month ago and the amount of talent they shipped out at the deadline.
Jordan Lawler now has had two cups of coffee in the Big Leagues and hasn’t brought much glory upon himself. How do you handle that this off season?
James: I guess it depends on what the coaches think Lawlar’s issue is with his glove. Is this just a matter of him taking a bit too long to settle in with the glove, not unlike Blaze Alexander? Or, is this the beginning of a longer-term problem? Lawlar’s arm was always going to be a bit of an issue at third. Perdomo is firmly ensconced at short. That leaves second or left for Lawlar if he cannot recover his hot corner form. Frankly, I have been advocating for leveraging Lawlar in a trade for a while now. If he isn’t going to be a regular 110-game/season starter, it’s time to explore what kind of pitching Lawlar++ can bring back. I’m still not sold on Alexander as the long-term solution at third. I’m still not sure what to make of Lawlar now that his bat has come around some. I think the bat is eventually going to be fine, though it might take another year or so to really work itself out, not unlike it took Perdomo time. I would not be sad to see the organization move Lawlar to left full-time to get his bat into the lineup and to cover over the issues he has had with his glove. If he has not yet done enough to work his way into the starting nine, then he needs to move on before his value crashes.
Justin: I don’t know, but for a top prospect I was maybe expecting more. Small sample size, etc. Maybe I was unrealistic.
Preston: I don’t think it needs to be “handled” in any particular way this offseason. We’re talking about a player who just reached 1000 minor league plate appearances this year. He’s moved around defensively. He has the physical skills to succeed, and needs health and time. While it would have been nice to see him come in and take over and lead the push towards a postseason spot this year, it was always unlikely. I think Lawlar will be fine in the long run; not the star we dreamed of, but a serviceable second baseman or possibly third baseman. (While I share James’s opinion of his arm, shortstop requires more arm strength than third in my opinion, and the team clearly does not value arm strength as highly as do I. So I wouldn’t be terribly shocked to see him at short some, and third is still more likely.) What I do not think should happen is moving him to the outfield. Ryan Waldschmidt is close to ready. The organization has A.J. Vukovich, Gavin Conticello, and Kristian Robinson (if they keep him) all of whom have various levels of upside and none of whom can play the infield (Conticello could handle first base, but that wastes his arm.) Unless the organization is convinced that Druw Jones can find a tiny measure of his father’s power, he should be placed on a fifth-outfielder/pinch runner track and be in the mix soon; he’d likely be the best all-around defensive outfielder on the team now. Slade Caldwell isn’t going to be up in the next year, and probably not the next two years, but they have to keep him in mind for the future.
I suspect that Lawlar will be given the offseason to work on third base, with Blaze Alexander set to cover left field until Gurriel is back or Waldschmidt (or Robinson, on the outside chance) is ready.
Sam: “Why are they signing Perdomo to an extension when their top prospect is also a shortstop?” Sure don’t hear much of that talk anymore, after how their respective seasons have gone. But I still wouldn’t read much into these two cups of coffee. Remember Perdomo’s first season? Lawlar is surely still developing. I hope they give both him and Blaze their chance next spring; don’t sign a free agent to play third.
Spencer: He’s just getting his footing. The injuries have hurt. It’s unfortunate. But he needs to play somehow someway. I hope he can get some serious winter work in. But good news! 2026 is essentially a lost season already (pending some sort of massive lucky break), so Lawlar learning on the job next year helps 2027.
Makakilo: Two points:
- Lawlar has time to develop. At 22.7 years old, Lawlar is about 3 years younger than Blaze and Perdomo, so comparing him is comparing apples and oranges.
- “It’s possible that the considerable amount of time Lawlar has missed means that his hit tool will develop late, and that he’ll improve enough in this regard to produce offense like Trevor Story or Willy Adames did during their years of team control.” – Eric Longenhagen and Travis Lee
Ben: It’s still too early to really have any definitive opinion on Lawlar. He only has 88 total at-bats at the major league level – that’s functionally nothing. That doesn’t excuse the poor offensive results obviously, but it does give some additional context to them. I think it’s also interesting that after going hitless through his first 11 games of this season, he’s had a .333/.367/.556 slash line in the next 11. That includes a .409 BABIP which suggests that he’s been getting lucky, but I think it could also indicate that he’s started to get better contact and starting to figure out what works for him.
What really rankles me though is the haphazard usage the team has deployed with him this year. Just as his offensive numbers started to improve, they’ve only given him five starts out of his next 10 appearances and multiple days between appearances. That kind of utilization confounds me. Baseball is inherently a sport that rewards consistency so minimizing that consistency – especially for a young player – makes no sense to me whatsoever. My hope is that he demonstrates enough promise that they can generate some coaching work and hit the ground running next year.
Kershaw has retired. Where does he rank as a pitcher all time?
James: Arguably the second-best left-handed starter ever. It is difficult to be definitive about that because of what various injuries did to ravage his career. With Kershaw retiring, Verlander likely to and Scherzer possibly on the outs as well, this is shaping up to be the end of the era of workhorse starters. Kershaw was a beast when he was healthy. He’s still good now. But, Father Time remains undefeated. Kershaw is the most recent example. One thing that is good about Kershaw retiring is that this means I no longer have a Dodger player that I am excited about and want to root for. Kershaw was just fun to watch, putting up first ballot Hall of Fame numbers, while also being a great, enjoyable human being.
Justin: I’ll agree with that. Though, one of my favorite memories of him is sitting in the dugout after being pulled in the 2023 NLDS….
Preston: Of pitchers with at least 1000 innings in integrated baseball, Kershaw ranks third by WHIP, trailing only Jacob deGrom and Mariano Rivera. His ERA+ of 154 trails only Rivera, and is tied with Pedro Martinez. His dominance was all-around in a sense that very few pitchers ever reached; he’s one of just seven pitchers in integrated baseball to allow fewer than 7 hits per nine innings. He’s top-ten in K/BB ratio, struck out more batters on a per inning basis than Nolan Ryan, and is top-five in terms of FIP. There’s a very real argument to be made that–on a per-inning basis–he’s the greatest pitcher of all time. Most impressive to me has been his “decline”—if one can fairly call it such. For from 2021 on, he’s posted an ERA+ of 138, a WHIP of 1.085, and struck out four times as many batters as he’s walked. All of those figures would place him in the top 15 pitchers of the integrated era, and that’s not taking into account everything he did before then. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that we’ve never seen a pitcher lose his stuff to the extent Kershaw did and still be as dominant as Kershaw has been, showing that he is great on the mental side as well as the physical.
But what I’ll always remember about him is that, were it not for the motley crew of the B lineup of 2014 Diamondbacks, he’d be the only pitcher since Bob Gibson with a sub-1.50 ERA in a season. Baseball is weird.
Sam: He’s a shoo-in first-ballot Hall of Famer. As for where he ranks within that pool of pitchers, I leave that to others with a longer general baseball memory to assess.
Spencer: Like many athletes, he’s a person with whom I don’t think I’d get along on a personal level. But his talent is undeniable. His career deserves enshrinement.
Makakilo: He could be ranked #2 or #3 for all-time left-handed pitchers. Two points:
- He is headed to the Hall Of Fame. His many awards include the Cy Young three times! Two stats from Baseball Reference are 224 HOF Monitor (with 100+ likely HOF), and 66 HOF Standards (with 50+ likely HOF).
- He should be compared to other left-handed pitchers. Three stats from Baseball Reference are career 154 ERA+ (ranks #2 for LHPs), career 4.2767 SO/W (ranks #2 for LHPs), and career 1.0183 WHIP (ranks #1 for LHPs).
Ben: It’s hard to put into words just how good he was. He’s an undeniably inner-circle Hall of Famer whose only major blemish is a spotty postseason record – helped by the D-Backs of course. But I’ll always love the story of disappointed fans missing out on a Greg Maddux-Randy Johnson matchup only to have a Clayton Kershaw-Max Scherzer matchup instead. He seems like a genuinely nice person, at least parasocially, and I think baseball will be worse off without him pitching. Of course, as a fan, I won’t miss watching the D-Backs struggle against him!
What is your favorite baseball memory?
James: That one is easy – Arizona winning the World Series in 2001.
Preston: Memories are interesting. Winning the World Series is a great memory and has aged well, but also I was young at the time and probably didn’t assign it quite the level of value I should have done. To an extent, nothing can compare to playing baseball oneself, at any level; I was never a good baseball player, and I’m certainly not a good baseball player now, but nothing compares to the satisfaction of knowing that you did your job to help your team win. As far as fan memories, taking my kids to games is a completely different class of memory. Daniel Descalso hit an inside-the-park home run at my oldest’s first MLB game, and Alek Thomas made an incredible catch at my youngest’s. I have balls from each of those games.
But as far as TV watching fandom, I’m going to go with clinching the pennant in 2023. I got married (to a baseball fan) in July of 2023, and getting to experience those final outs and the joy of victory with my wife was wonderful; I haven’t gotten to watch games with fellow fans for much of my life. Sharing the joy of the moment puts it over the relatively solitary viewing of Gonzo’s hit in 2001.
Justin: I think with this question lots of people can just say the WS (well, rightfully so). Mine would probably be going to Tucson Sidewinders games on a whim when I still lived at my parents house and my only bills were my phone and gas/car insurance. We went to a few original Tucson Toros games in the 90’s. I have no idea if this is still a thing anywhere, but with Pima County Libraries there was a summer reading program where you could read a certain amount of books, get your card stamped and then use that as a ticket to a Toros game. If the Dbacks never existed, I might have ended up being an Astros fan.
In hindsite, I think I liked and appreciated seeing the next generation of Dbacks/ Major Leaguers come through Tucson. I saw Anthony Rizzo as a Tucson Padre. I don’t remember any other details (like against whom, etc) but he hit a massive 3 run shot in one game I attended. He hit 26 home runs, 101 RBI and batted .331 in 413 plate appearances in 2011 for Tucson.
I remember the first time I was ever at Bank One Ballpark. It was probably the 1999 season, so I would have been almost 14. My first glimpse of the field where I had seen the team play on tv was amazing.
Sam: It’s the same moment as everyone else, but I can share my personal perspective. I was 11 years old at the time, and had just foregone trick-or-treating on Halloween a few days prior just to be devastatingly let down by Byung-Hyun Kim. The nightmare repeated itself the next night, and I wore all of the emotions on my sleeve. The Soriano homer in the 8th off Schilling was a gut punch, but something about seeing “Randy Pitcher”, as my then-5-year-old brother called him, pitch those last 4 outs gave me hope entering the bottom of the ninth. Every moment from the Womack double onwards just seemed inevitable.
Makakilo: So many memories, each with much to recommend them. Perhaps my latest visit to Chase was my favorite memory, although my visits to Cartwright Field and Koshien Stadium rank high.
Ben: That’s such a difficult question. Being a lifelong baseball fan means that I have too many memories to recount in this space. That 2001 World Series will always hold a special place obviously, but from seeing so many University of Arizona baseball games to countless times at Camden Yards, I don’t know if I could pinpoint a single one above all the others.
