Diamondbacks News
D-backs Under Review 2025 Top Prospect Awards by Michael McDermott [D-backs Under Review]
The minor league season is officially over for the Diamondbacks system in 2025. Here at D-backs Under Review, we
not only do deep dives of D-backs players but also focus on Arizona’s top prospects.
It was obvious by the end of July who the Minor League Player and Pitcher of the Year would be. Both our Pitcher and Hitter of the Year come from Arizona’s 2024 draft class, which has produced strong returns in their first year.
D-backs Face Dodgers Pitching Gauntlet in Playoff Push by Jack Sommers [SI]
Shohei Ohtani has taken some time to get stretched out, but he’s mostly throwing four or five innings at this point in the season.
He is coming off five no-hit, scoreless innings in his last start, and has allowed just one run in his last 13.2 innings pitched. He’s struck out 19, walked only four and given up five hits in that span. He’s dominating.
Diamondbacks’ All-Star Named Best in MLB at his Position by Alex D’Agostino [SI]
Marte has had a difficult year, to say the least. He’s been in the midst of fan heckling, internal unrest, a home robbery and injuries — and yet, he’s still put together an extremely productive 2025 season.
In fact, his recent stretch of play has been encouraging. He’d been in a deep slump, and suffered a right foot contusion on September 10. His swing had looked off for some time, and the results weren’t falling.
But Marte stepped up in a critical series with the Phillies. He hit 6-for-13 (.461)in three games against Philadelphia, homering for the first time in two weeks and knocking in four runs.
MLB playoffs: Here’s what needs to happen for Diamondbacks to reach October by Nick Piecoro [AZ Central]
Even as the Diamondbacks enter the final week of the season — they sit one game back of the New York Mets and Cincinnati Reds with six games to play — Carroll’s outlook hasn’t changed much.
“I still think,” he said, “that a lot has to go right for us.”
Around the League
Shout Out to Whichever Team Wins the AL Central – You Know Who You Are by Kiri Oler [FanGraphs]
On July 8, the Tigers had 59 wins, while the Guardians had just 42. With one week remaining in the regular season, the Tigers have 85 wins and the Guardians have 84. A single game separates the two teams in the race for the AL Central title, a division that seemed all but sewn up for the Tigers as recently as September 13, when Detroit’s odds to win the Central sat at 98.2%, putting Cleveland’s odds at 1.8%. As of this writing, the Tigers are still favorites to win it, at 62.7%, but given that three of Detroit’s last six games are against Cleveland, the error bars on those odds are huge.
MLB owners OK sale of Rays to group headed by Patrick Zalupski [ESPN]
Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred said last week that he expects under Zalupski the Rays will start a new search for a new ballpark site in the Tampa and St. Petersburg area. Under Sternberg, the Rays announced plans for and then failed to move ahead with proposed ballparks at the Al Lang Stadium site in St. Petersburg (2007), Ybor City in Tampa (2018) and the site adjacent to the Trop in downtown St. Petersburg (2023 ).
Tampa Bay started this season with an $81.9 million payroll, ahead of only the Athletics and Miami.
Playing at a 10,046-capacity ballpark, Tampa Bay had 61 sellouts and drew 786,750, down from 1,337,739 in 2024, when they were 28th among the 30 teams and ahead of only Miami and Oakland.
Could Weaver be a starter again? ‘The door is open’ by David Adler [MLB]
Other pitchers have also successfully made the reliever-to-starter transition recently, like Garrett Crochet for the White Sox, Seth Lugo for the Royals and Michael King for the Padres (another former Yankee).
“It’s cool to see that it’s possible, too,” Weaver said. “We see it’s happening from time to time now. Teams are being a little more strategic. And yes, I’m very much open to it. But I also am not just like, ‘Yeah, I want to go do that,’ or ‘Yeah, I want to go do this.’ Let’s sit at the table, let’s have a conversation and see what that looks like, what best [positions] me to be the most successful. I would like to have those options if they are there.”
Reds Notes: Hays, De La Cruz, Lowder by Anthony Franco [MLB Trade Rumors]
As they enter that critical stretch, the Reds are facing a potential absence from their left fielder. Austin Hays made an early exit from Saturday’s game with back spasms. He sat out yesterday’s series finale. Manager Terry Francona said on Saturday the team is hopeful that Hays will be ready for the start of the Pittsburgh series tomorrow (via the MLB.com injury tracker). The off day gives him a little extra rest.
If Hays is unable to go, Cincinnati could kick Will Benson to left field and plug Noelvi Marte in right. Pittsburgh is set to run a trio of right-handed starting pitchers — Johan Oviedo, Paul Skenes and Braxton Ashcraft — against Cincinnati. Hays hits in the middle of the lineup regardless of handedness, but he does most of his damage against left-handers.
Padres walk off into October, return to playoffs for 4th time in 6 years by AJ Cassavell [MLB]
