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The trade deadline is Monday, and at time of writing this (Friday afternoon), the D-backs have not made any moves. They are hardly alone there though. It feels like all of baseball is looking around at each other, waiting for someone else to make the first move. Probably
doesn’t help that those looking to buy are likely far in excess of those wanting to sell. Right now, 21 teams (11 in the NL, 10 in the AL) are either in a playoff spot, or within three games of the last wild-card position in their league. The other nine? Well, with odd exceptions (Tarik Skubal), there are generally reasons those teams are out of contention already. So the pickings off their bones are slim.
Arizona’s advantage is, for most of the spots they want to strengthen, you don’t need to be an MVP. Despite a recent “surge”, Arizona’s first-base is still under a .600 OPS, going into the first game against Cleveland on Friday night at .599. DH (.633) and CF (.610) are hardly any better. Meanwhile, we have two very raw rookies in the starting pitching rotation, and just fired our closer. Really, the number of obvious flaws in the current D-backs roster, make it all the more remarkable the team starts play on Friday, tied for the second wild-card spot. So where do we think Mike Hazen will look to improve the team? Here are the results…
The need for a starting pitcher is certainly obvious. I’m not sure where Mitch Bratt and Kohl Drake were on the overall team’s depth chart before the season started. But I’d be surprised if the 22-year-old Bratt in particular was in single digits. The team should be getting Michael Soroka back soonish. He’s scheduled to pitch Tuesday in Reno and throw 50-60 pitches. Maybe one more rehab start after that? Or maybe the team would prefer 75 pitches from him over whatever Bratt can give the team. Of course, there’s still also Corbin Burnes, but it may be best to have no expectations there – either for a return date or performance level.
There will be limitations, however, with the team apparently strongly averse to hitting the luxury tax. They are reportedly less than $10 million below the point where that’ll apply, which limits their ability to add salaty. Although the actual tax would be trivial, the problem is if a team exceeds it in consecutive years, revenue sharing starts to shift. For a team with limited revenue like the Diamondbacks, that risk is likely not worth the reward, in a season where it’s not as if the team is one player away from legitimate World Series contention. This may explain why “Something else or note” received a significant minority of the votes.
