With just six games to go, the Diamondbacks have a record of 82-74. While not technically eliminated from post-season contention yet, their playoff hopes would require a spectacular confluence of events in the first half of the week, probably followed by a sweep of the Padres in San Diego next weekend. Obviously, that’s disappointing. But on the other hand, the D-backs have, albeit in a small way, actually done better than what most neutral expectations were for team at the beginning of the year.
Let’s start off by reviewing what various parties predicted Arizona would do before Opening Day.
The metrics
- Baseball Prospectus (PECOTA): 78.4 wins. Our friends over at Purple Row captured this prediction in their preview of the division. They (and not BP) said, “The D-Backs still have some question marks and might not emerge as one of MLB’s top teams, but they certainly are positioned to push for the playoffs if they see a return to form for Gallen and some improvements to their pitching numbers overall. However, an uptick in pitching could unfortunately pair with a regression in batting, threatening those chances.”
- Fangraphs: 81-81. These came out in late January, once Dan Szymborski had finished running ZIPS for all thirty teams. We’ll get more into those later, as we look at which individuals out- or under-performed their projections. But there isn’t much said about them at the overall level, except for “ZIPS remains unsure of Arizona’s rotation.” However, at the end of spring training, the expected tally was still basically 81-81, with a 31% chance of making the post-season.
The pundits
- George Castillo, ESPN: 81-81. “Will the pitching staff sink Arizona’s playoff chances again? The Diamondbacks can score. Two years ago, they paced the majors in runs scored. Last year, they finished sixth… And yet, the Diamondbacks have not reached the postseason since their surprise run to the World Series in 2023, largely because their pitching staff ranked 27th in ERA in 2024 and 23rd last season.”
- Tim Kelly, Bleacher Report: 82-80. “Lovullo has shown an ability to get the most out of his teams, and with Corbin Caroll, Ketel Marte and Gerlado Perdomo anchoring his lineup, this is going to be a competitive team. They just have too much working against them in terms of pitching injuries.”
- Gabe Lacques, USA Today: 81-81. “In coming weeks, Arizona Diamondbacks (80-82) corner infielders Nolan Arenado and Carlos Santana will turn 35 and 40, respectively. They’ll need some gulps from the fountain of youth to ensure the bottom of the lineup isn’t an arid wasteland.”
- Ryan Phillips, Sports Illustrated: 77-85. “The Diamondbacks signed several late-career veterans, searching for the magic of 2023. But Arizona’s roster doesn’t look anywhere near pennant-worthy. Manager Torey Lovullo has just two playoff appearances in nine seasons.”
- Fred Zinkle, Yahoo! Sports: 82-80. “This figures to be a retooling year in Arizona, while the organization waits to get Burnes back in 2027. Success this season might look like determining which players, particularly among Del Castillo, Lawlar, Pfaadt, Nelson and Thomas, can be part of the next wave of success. There will also be more trade rumors around Marte in July, and the front office will have to decide whether to recoup a package of prospects or keep Marte in hopes of competing in 2027.”
The group exercises
- Sports books: 79.5 wins. This was more or less the consensus across the board, with the line being drawn here by Caesar’s, Draft Kings and BetMGM.
- Arizona Sports roundtable: 81.8 wins. The radio station polled 14 of their staff, with numbers ranging from 75 to 86 wins. They also asked if the team would make the playoffs, and “No” won that vote, ten of the fourteen polled saying there’d be no post-season.
- AZ SnakePit writers: 84.2 wins. The highest prediction and not unexpectedly, the usual optimism prevailing. This is in line with history over the last couple of years, the 2025 prediction being a (now somewhat embarrassing!) 91.3 wins, and the 2024 prediction also being higher than reality could deliver, at 86.7 wins. And that 2024 figure was before we signed Jordan Montgomery, which seemed like a big deal at the time…
- Fan vote: 84 wins. This answer is based off the median – half above, half below – for SnakePit voters in our poll. The most popular category was actually higher, at 86-88 wins. But that only got 21%, barely edging out the 83-85 win group, at 20%. The “tail” below that was also longer, bringing the median down.
A straight average of the eleven predictions above comes in at 81 wins – an expectation of just one more victory than the previous season. As we head into the final week of the season, the Diamondbacks are already above that. There is even a significant chance of reaching 85 wins, which would be better than any of the 11 pre-season projections mentioned above. Taking two of three in Colorado and one in San Diego would get us there. Get one less, and 84 wins is certainly very plausible. That would only be (very narrowly) surpassed by the SnakePit writers’ poll. But what are the individual contributors to the moderate over-performance?
Winners and losers
When it comes to looking at individual players, we are mostly going off the 2026 ZIPS projections for Arizona. [I had to chase down some players not present on that page, no longer with AZ] As with any projection system, these are expectations, not guarantees. Inevitably, reality will differ, and that’s no mark at all against the effort Dan Szymborski puts in to them. Don’t worry about the playing time numbers, especially for those we didn’t see. Cristofer Torin did not quite make 129 appearances. We’re looking only at the fWAR expected tallies, compared to the actual ones. Those are through Saturday night’s game, although with only about 4% of the schedule remaining, I didn’t bother pro-rating.
Hitters: Over- and under-performers
- Gabriel Moreno 4.9 vs. 3.3
- Nolan Arenado 2.7 vs. 1.9
- ———
- Carlos Santana 0.6 vs. -0.5
- Ketel Marte 2.3 vs 4.3
- Lourdes Gurriel 1.3 vs. -1.0
I’ve not listed on either side, players like Jordan Lawlar, whose playing time didn’t come close to the ZIPS figure, for reasons beyond their control. Though technically, Santana and Gurriel’s didn’t either. So yes, I am being very arbitrary about this. No question who the team’s MVP has been, and I’m sure Mike Hazen is regretting not being able to ink Moreno to a long-term contract last winter. The asking price will now be considerably higher, and a significant arbitration bump will be coming down Gaby Lane next year (lockout permitting). Arenado has also been everything we could have wanted, and more.
On the downside, hopes that Santana might be able to play a competent first-base proved wildly optimistic, and the team didn’t really have a Plan B. That’s why we have Ildemaro Vargas getting more at-bats at 1B than anyone else. This was a mistake by Hazen. The discovery Gurriel was now well below replacement level in left was also unpleasant, and Max Kepler wasn’t the answer either. Then there’s the whole Marte situation. Be very interesting to see what happens there over the winter, because if the sharp drop-off in production was not a blip, those four remaining guaranteed years might not be a lot of fun.
Pitchers: Over- and under-performers
- Eduardo Rodriguez: 3.1 vs. 1.5
- Michael Soroka: 2.5 vs. 0.9
- Juan Morillo: 1.5 vs. -0.1
- Brandyn Garcia: 1.3 vs. 0.0
- ———
- Zac Gallen: -0.1 vs. 1.8
- Merrill Kelly: -0.2 vs. 1.9
- Corbin Burnes: 0.0 vs. 2.6
Very much a rotation of two halves. ERod and Soroka have both performed much better than expected, while Gallen and Kelly have been sore disappointments. We should have let Zac just walk, and the lack of suitors for his services in 2026 turned out to be the reddest of red flags. Kelly will be around next year, and there is hope in that he has been better of late. Small sample-size, but over the four games since the spat with the Cubs, where he may have discovered he was pitch-tipping, Merrill has a 2.86 ERA and 3.55 FIP. Anything like those figures in the remaining year of his contract will be a huge improvement. But Burnes’ extremely belated arrival might have hurt most of all.
Previous years have seen mocking of Mike Hazen for his dumpster diving approach to building a bullpen. But it has worked very well. Discounting Gallen, the eight other current members of the bullpen are earning a total of less than $13 million this year. That’s several million less than the Dodgers are paying Edwin Diaz alone this year, for 15.2 innings of work and a 10.34 ERA. Morillo, Garcia and Jonathan Loaisiga have thrown 171.2 combined innings for an ERA of 2.15. That has been worth a total of 3.9 fWAR, while the trio are getting paid only about $3 million between them. After years of quiet desperation, this bullpen has been quite the refreshing change.
Conclusions
Projections are always going to be wrong. If you look at the Fangraphs totals, there are some big misses: most notably under-estimating the Padres, and over-estimating the Mets. But five of the six teams at the top of the NL will indeed (almost certainly, I guess I should caveat) be among the six teams representing the league in the post-season. While it’s obviously disappointing again not to be in the playoffs, I think it’s encouraging to see the team surpassing expectations. The sharp improvement in the pitching, especially the bullpen, is hopefully something which can be sustained. Get some improved offense and if there is a 2027 season, I expect the D-backs again to be playing meaningful baseball into September.
