D-Backs GM seeks more improvement in ’23
Meeting with reporters for the first time since camp opened, Diamondbacks General Manager Mike Hazen sounded satisfied with what his club was able to accomplish in the offseason and hopeful about its chances in the upcoming season, but he remained tempered in terms of expectations for his young team.
Coming off a 74-win season that represented a significant step forward from the previous year, the Diamondbacks are hoping to continue moving in the right direction.
In hopes of doing that, the club addressed its bullpen issues by adding a number of relievers on both major- and minor-league deals. It acquired a frontline catching prospect in Gabriel Moreno and a veteran outfielder in Lourdes Gurriel Jr. in exchange for Daulton Varsho, trading from a position of depth from its well-stocked outfield. It signed veteran third baseman Evan Longoria and brought back veteran right-hander Zach Davies.
But as much as anything the Diamondbacks are hoping that both their collection of young talent can continue to make strides and that some of their veterans can bounce back from down years.
Here is what Hazen had to say on a variety of topics, his comments edited lightly for brevity and clarity.
What are reasonable expectations for this team?
“Being in the position to be aggressive at the (trade) deadline to buy and play meaningful baseball games in September — that's what I would constitute to be a successful season this year. I don't know what’s going to happen after that. Nobody does. The competition in the National League is pretty stiff. There’s a lot of teams that improved quite a bit. I think we improved. But I believe those are the markers that I want us to, at least, from a long-term standpoint, put down. … But we’re not thinking about that right now. We’re thinking about making sure that on Day 1, we play the best baseball that we can and then we’ll worry about Day 2.”
What do you like about your bullpen additions?
“I think we’ve added stuff. I think we’ve added some level of consistency to the floor of the bullpen, in terms of strikethrowing, in terms of guys that have pitched in these roles before, fully expecting a bounce back from Mark (Melancon). … I think we have maintained some of the strike-throwing capabilities that we valued. I think we’ve added some guys that have electric stuff that we're going to hope give to give to (our pitching coaches) that they can channel into the strike-throwing a little bit and end up with some power out there, too. We’ve lacked that, for sure. We’ve lacked strikeouts. Those are some things I'm hoping we’ve added to the bullpen. I don't really know exactly what's going to happen in terms of assessing bullpens. It’s a tough spot. It's the hardest thing for I think it’s the hardest thing we do in our job. I think it’s the most volatile thing we do in our job.”
How do you evaluate your team's offseason?
“We’re still 15 games below, on paper (i.e., projection systems), the best teams in the division. I don’t think it’s satisfactory until that gap gets closed to a much narrower band. Now, in 2017, we were sitting in the exact same situation with a high-70s projection. We won 93 games. So I don’t think there’s a ceiling on, with improvement, where our roster can go. I think there’s a lot of talent on this roster.
“… We set out to improve certain areas of our team, I think we probably did some of that. Some of that involved taking one of our better players (Varsho) off the team. So that’s not necessarily just adding wins to your club in a lot of ways. We subtracted some in some areas, too. But we need to overcome that. I think there’s talent and there’s some youth with some room to grow, fundamentally, in a lot of ways. I think there’s some real lockdown bounce-back candidates on our team that maybe didn’t have the best year last year that we strongly believe are going to be that much better. I think that’s where the upside for our team is, so there's room to push on the ceiling of that win total, in my mind.”
Does Madison Bumgarner have to pitch well this spring to maintain his rotation spot?
“He’s going to get the ball again. He's going to get the ball again this season. We’re penciling him to be in our rotation and he’s going to be in our rotation. Like with all the other veteran guys, I’d like to see him really step up and model — all the great things that the Longorias and the Melancons and the Bumgarners have done in this game, who have stood on the mound and won a World Series, I hope that that is going to really help propel our younger players.”
As for expectations for the young players?
“I try not to get trapped into having expectations for younger players that are all that specific. This game is extremely complicated and they’re going to learn and develop and grow. I think for us, we need to have options to be able to pivot to if it doesn’t necessarily happen on that timeframe. There’s a lot of great players in this league that it hasn’t happened for right away a lot. And yet, a year later, you look up and you say to yourself, ‘How did that guy ever get optioned?’”