Introduction
There’s no real way to sugarcoat it, it was another disappointing season for the D-Backs. They narrowly missed the playoffs for a consecutive season and even failed to extend their streak of winning seasons.
I am eternally grateful and amazed that the team was able to pick themselves up after the gutting that the Trade Deadline represented to give us meaningful baseball through most of September, but that feeling is poor consolation for the expectations this team had at the beginning of the season. There’s plenty of consternation going around the fanbase and the blame game is in full effect. We’ll obviously never have a definitive answer why this season resulted the way it did, but we have to hope that people with more information and wherewithal are currently examining the results and exploring ways to avoid a third consecutive disappointing season. I digress though, there will be plenty of time (like an entire cold offseason) to complete a postmortem on the 2025 season. For now, I’d rather focus on some of the individual accomplishments we got to witness this season with the D-Backs and complete the series I started way back at the beginning of the year.
Eugenio Suarez’s 300th-Plus Home run
What, you thought I’d stop keeping count just because he switched teams? And miss out on one of the reasons I’ll be rooting for a Seattle World Series? No, like so many D-Back fans, I found myself sincerely sad about the seemingly inevitable departure of a player who brought a level of genuine joy to the clubhouse and game on a nightly basis. There is some comfort in knowing that the return from Seattle in Tyler Locklear and Juan Burgos have demonstrated enough potential to be part of the team’s plans as early as next season while the final piece, Hunter Cranton is still too far away to know. And while Suarez was not able to put up the same kind of offensive numbers with Seattle as he did with the D-Backs, he still had an excellent overall season as he matched a career-high for a season homer total with 49 on the year. Those results pushed him over the 300 career-homer total and his 325 currently puts him alongside luminaries like Hank Greenberg and Andrew McCutchen on the all-time list of career homers. He’ll almost certainly not reach the 500 mark, but he has a decent chance at reaching 400 before he hangs up his cleats. I’ll assuredly be rooting for him – wherever he lands for next season.
Zac Gallen Gets Over 1,000 Career Innings Pitched
Another pending free agent, another career milestone. There’s a bit more intrigue to Gallen’s free agency however. The team is virtually guaranteed to extend Gallen a qualifying offer – likely in the $22 million range for next season – but it’s an open question on whether he’d accept it. He would obviously prefer a long-term contract, but I’m not convinced that’s necessarily in the cards for the young righty. This season clearly could not have gone much worse for Gallen (outside of a injury), but he took several steps backwards, particularly in his walk and home run rate along with a career-worst ERA. But he has a long enough track record that combined with the constant need for starting pitching, a team somewhere will likely give him a multi-year contract to try and figure out his struggles. The other point in his favor: his ability to absolutely munch innings. Since becoming a full-time member of the starting rotation in 2021, he’s eclipsed 120 innings pitched every season so it shouldn’t be a surprise that he ran over 1,000 career innings pitched this season. Ironically, that mark doesn’t mean as much as it might have at one time given that Gallen still doesn’t even come close to reaching the all-time list, but it’s a good barometer for whatever team eventually signs him for next season.
Corbin Carroll Comes Close to 500th Career Hit
For me, the developmental steps that both Carroll and Geraldo Perdomo took this year represent some of the brightest spots in otherwise lost season. The latter demonstrated that he can play at an MVP-caliber level while the former definitively put his struggles from last season in the rearview mirror. It was especially heartening to see that Carroll could balance both power and contact as he easily posted a new career-high for home runs while still nearly collecting 150 hits on the season. As a result, he put himself in excellent position to exceed 500 career hits early next season on an impressive career trajectory. The kind of development he displayed over this past offseason makes me genuinely excited to see what he can do next season.
Conclusion
I’ll admit, this was a fun series to watch and keep track of throughout the season. It’s a good reminder that even in the midst of a disappointing season for the team, the individuals who make up the team are still grinding away on their individual careers at the same time. What did you think of this type of career accounting? Are there specific players or statistical categories that you’d like to see in a future version? Let me know in the comments below how I can improve or extend this concept for next season!
