Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across the MLB. Throughout the year we ask questions of the most plugged-in
Arizona Diamondbacks fans and fans across the country. Sign up here to participate in the weekly emailed surveys.Let’s get straight to the results, shall we?
“Good” was the overwhelming winner, getting more than twice the votes of any other category, and enough for an overall majority. In some respects, that’ quite surprising. After all, during the regular
season with Arizona, Sewald had an ERA of 4.95, enough only for an ERA+ of 86. His production in that time came in below replacement value by both metrics, at -0.6 bWAR or -0.4 fWAR. Bit of a stretch to call that “good”. In the post-season as a Diamondback? A 6.75 ERA across eight playoff appearances, is hardly the stuff of renown either. Meh trending to poor would arguably be a fair assessment.
And, yet… There are a couple of things in Sewald’s favor. The overall metrics conceal that he was basically the pitching equivalent of the little girl who had a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead. For when Sewald was good, he was very, very good, But when he was bad, he was horrid. the 2023 postseason illustrates this perfectly. Through the wild-card, division and championship series, he was literally unhittable. He faced thirty batters and allowed just three hits and a walk. But he then fell apart in the World Series, facing fifteen batters, who got on base against Sewald at a .600 clip (six hits, two walks and a hit batter).
The same goes for whenever he was closing in the regular season. In 2024, he had an 0.54 ERA through his first eighteen games, then a 10.80 ERA in July. The same was true this year. Despite some bumps in non-save situations, Sewald still had a 3.18 ERA in mid-June. But by the time he was DFA’d, it has more or less doubled (6.31), thanks to a fourteen game spell where he allowed seven home-runs to just 56 batters. It was very much a case of knowing how far you can ride him, getting off the horse (and probably taking it behind the woodshed for conversion into dog food) when the signs of the irredeemable meltdown showed up.
It also helps that Sewald seemed to be a genuinely good guy. I don’t think I’ve heard anyone have a bad word to say about him. He was active in the community until the very end, and was raising money for charity. Paul was always willing to fill any role the team needed, and did so without complaint. That goes a long way among fans, to help negate more objective measurements of a player’s performance! Consequently, Sewald’s career will likely be filed in the Tony Womack wing of the SnakePit Hall of Fame, alongside the likes of Ryan Roberts and Josh Collmenter…
