So how we feeling?
James Attwood: Well, my allergies have been flaring up like nobody’s business as the season change and high winds blow through. But other than that – oh, you mean about the team, don’t you? In that case, I tend to be content with where they are at right now. They had a grueling start to the season. Now, they just finished the nice, soft, cushy part of the schedule. They remain over .500 as the calendar flips to June. There is a lot of baseball left to be played, but this team is starting to look
like they are at least going to make a show of being competitive until the break. That should make this season’s trade deadline “interesting”.
Makakilo: Friday’s 1-run loss to the Mariners left me conflicted. FELT GOOD. Six runs scored. Perdomo’s homer showed resurgence of his power. The bullpen allowed 1 earned run in 4 innings (before extra innings). FELT BAD. Batters were 3 for 17 with RISP, with 13 runners LOB. Gallen allowed 5 runs in 5 innings.
1AZFan1: Pretty good. We’ve closed the gap with the Padres and are in the middle of the Wild Card race at the end of May. Can’t complain there. I’m answering before the Saturday and Sunday games so I’m hoping that the D-backs don’t fall flat in the next 2 days, but Friday was a good close game in which we played a hot team in a raucous environment right down to the wire.
Spencer: Fine. Games one and half of two against Seattle have tempered my excitement. A great reminder that we beat up on the second worst run team in MLB and probably the third worst as well.
ISH95: I’m with James on the allergies, but other than that I’m alright. This has been a great, very fun, and satisfying couple of weeks, but I can’t shake the knowledge that it’s been against the Rockies and Giants. Nor have the first two games against the Mariners done much to convince me those concerns were invalid. But winning is winning, and every win you get against sub-.500 teams counts the same as the ones against the Dodgers come October, so I can’t be mad about it.
Obviously, the team’s hot streak has been helped by facing lower caliber opponents, but given that, what has been the biggest cause for optimism during the streak?
James Attwood: The trio of Marte, Carroll, and Perdomo being big contributors to the success. My first instinct was to point at the pitching being so dominant during that spell. But I am discounting those successes a bit because of the opponents. But this team needs the trio at the top of the order to keep doing special things if the team is going to remain in contention for October baseball. Those three finally coming around can only spell good things for Arizona. Marte’s streak may have come to an end last night, but Perdomo had three knocks, including a home run. The key is for those three to keep the production up.
Makakilo: Starting 12 May, there were two simultaneous streaks.
BATTING. Diamondbacks scored at least 2 runs per game. 16 game streak is ongoing.
ROTATION. 11 of 16 games were quality starts.
1AZFan1: Ketel going white hot and the continued excellence from the starting rotation has been great. Those two are obvious but perhaps the less obvious piece I’m excited about is the reemergence of Kevin Ginkel as a weapon out of the bullpen.
Spencer: Ketel Marte. He wasn’t hitting before this easy schedule, and confidence can do a lot when you’re talking about a top tier MLB hitter. That feels sustainable (at a lower level) in a way that nothing else about the streak does.
ISH95: Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but Ketel Marte. It started with that walk-off home run and just snowballed from there. It’s been a long time coming this season, and thankfully, Marte has finally shown up.
And what red flags are you seeing that might suggest it won’t be sustainable when they resume playing playoff-caliber teams?
James Attwood: Zac Gallen struggled again last night, this time against the Mariners. The offense, despite the comeback and despite scoring six, missed out on some opportunities to tally another win. Zac Gallen is not the only Arizona pitcher who started looking better against weak opponents. The pitching staff is going to need to continue to grind and the offense is going to need to be deeper than the top-three hitters. That’s an awful lot to ask of a team with precious little in the way of depth and some close injury scares of late.
Makakilo: The Diamondbacks defense is often among the top teams. Currently it has 11 DRS, which ranks only 11th. Great defense will be needed against playoff caliber teams.
1AZFan1: Ketel won’t be white hot forever. I’m sure Ketel will still be productive after this streak ends, but we’ll need a couple guys clicking beside Marte and Corbin.
Spencer: No true red flags for me, but the rotation is no where close to being as good as they’ve looked against the Rockies and Giants.
I will take this time to discuss the defensive miscues or Jose Fernandez though. Rookies will rookie, but he needs time in Reno and a “main” defensive spot. His decisions to not step on first before throwing to second cost Ryne Nelson a shot at a complete game…. It’s normal and fine when the team is doing well, but it’s a sign showing his lack of high end minor league experience.
ISH95: The starting pitching has been fine during this run, but there have been more chinks in the armor with them than the offense or the bullpen. Gallen especially.
The initial salvos of the CBA battle have been sent out. What are your initial reactions?
James Attwood: I still think that both sides kicked the can down the road a few too many times and that a lockout seems inevitable. The MLBPA proposal does little to help the sport get any healthier while the ownership side of things isn’t even listening to what the players are saying. Oh, and Rob Manfred is still completely out of touch with anything resembling reality.
Makakilo: Although the two proposals are very far apart, one aspect is not so different. The initial proposals seem to agree on a new requirement for teams to spend a minimum of $150 Million on player salaries. Links follow for MLBTR articles about the two initial proposals (form may delete them): [Ed. note] form did not delete them! https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2026/05/mlb-submits-initial-counterproposal-to-mlbpa.html https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2026/05/mlbpa-releases-details-of-collective-bargaining-proposal.html
1AZFan1:This is my favorite non-Diamondbacks baseball story to follow this year. The owners officially threw down the salary cap proposal, but most everything they laid out was very hypothetical with no real details or mechanisms about how we would get to our current system to this new salary cap era. The owners proposal throws out a salary cap number that is $100m+ less than what the Dodgers are scheduled to spend next year; how do we get them there?
The Players’ proposal is good for what it is; asking for younger players to make money earlier and revamping the QO are good items for them, but it’s essentially more of the same system. The owners didn’t put anything about that in their proposal because they genuinely don’t care how the Players want to divvy up the pie as long as the owners can establish that there is only one size of pie. The Players do propose a salary floor, but it’s lower than what the owners suggested so that’s kind of a bad look if you ask me.
I’m very hopeful that some sort meaningful change can come through this CBA. Major League Baseball is an entertainment product, so at the end of the day, the fans should be happy with the outcome. Every poll I’ve seen has shown the majority of fans want some sort of cap. Talking heads will say a cap only helps the owners, but it’s not like the Players are some sort of righteous martyrs playing for scraps. They’re in it for themselves, too. So yeah, give us what we want! Sorry for the long response.
Spencer: That neither side deserves my sympathy. They make more money in 6 months than I will in half my career (if not far, far more). Argue and complain all you want, but I am embarrassed watching it play out.
ISH95: The last lock out was a long time ago, but I remember being far more supportive of the ideas and proposals put out by the MLBPA than this first round. The MLBPA comes off as not really being serious about the issues facing the sport and while the basic plan the Owners put forward seems a bit too simplistic to actually fix the problem as well, it seems closer to the right track. A cap is the way to go at this point. Taxes and penalties clearly don’t work, and the sport is suffering for it.
A random thought/aside that’s been bouncing around in my head related to this is that a lot of people point to say, the Mets, as an example that money doesn’t win by default. But the flip side of that is that now we’ve got a bunch of high value players that are off the market, can’t be used by anyone and are still losing. It’s better for the sport of those top tier free agents get spread out more.
If you became God Emperor of MLB, what would your salary cap/competitive balance tax solution look like?
James Attwood: For starters, all television revenue is split evenly among the 30 (preferably an expanded 32) teams. That will require taking a few years to implement, as the various RSN deals and other smaller deals expire on staggered schedules. I do like the notion of a competitive integrity floor, probably one tied to penalties to the MLB revenue sharing, so that teams not spending enough forfeit money for doing so. Essentially, they spend the same either way, so might as well spend on players instead of funding an “exceptional rookies fund” (or whatever purposes the forfeiture goes toward). Maybe even make the penalty hit harder (by a small number) than having spent enough to begin with. Then, deferrals, even under this revised escrow-based funding model, need to be eliminated to avoid gaming AAV and to keep teams from reaping interest payments on unpaid salaries, giving them more money to sign premium talent. There are plenty of other, smaller tweaks I would like to see made as well. But for me, as long as there is massive disparity in media revenue and no disincentive to extreme frugality, there really is nothing else to discuss.
Makakilo: I keep the current system, which results in high revenue teams sharing with low revenue teams, like the Diamondbacks. An alternative could be that all 30 teams equally share all broadcast revenues, but the complexities and contractual restrictions could make that alternative unworkable.
1AZFan1: If I were God Emperor, the teams in New York and LA would get half the cap space of every other team. Just because.
Spencer: I’m in a mood, so imma tear it all down. They want to be a State-sponsored illegal monopoly, they deserve true equality. Pool all money made by all teams and divide equally into 31 pools (each team and the big business), then divide that into 2 50% buckets. One pays the players equally regardless, and the other is used to pay the rest of the franchise employees/owners.
The big business section will be divided in half an additional time. Half is put into savings for future needs or miscellaneous expenses and the other half pays league employees.
Since they want special treatment to be a “legal” monopoly, they also don’t deserve hidden books. All financials for the league and each team should be fully public so fans/taxpayers know exactly how the money is being used.
None of this is realistic in the corrupt world we live in, but it’d be fair to all involved parties. I know, I know, imagine talking about “fairness” in the 2026 iteration of the USA
ISH95: There has to be a cap. There has to be a floor. The cap needs to be a hard number. I’m less sure how the floor could be a hard number. What happens if a team doesn’t meet that floor, but Paul Sewald is the only FA left? Does he get a 1 year, $20, $30 million contract to make it up? Given that, I think the soft floor that the MLBPA suggested is probably more feasible. Beyond that, equal sharing of media. Other sports do it, MLB can figure it out, and probably easier since they’re moving towards all of them being produced by MLB Advanced Media/ESPN anyway.
