Diamondbacks have plenty of reasons to believe gloomy forecasts are off base
PHOENIX -- It happens every spring. With the season right around the corner, the naysayers are out, neighing again. The new-look Diamondbacks are a prime target this time around, in large part because of their struggles a season ago.
One thing about predictions: It is always easier to look backward than forward.
One ESPN reporter already has ranked the D-backs last in his rankings of the 30 teams. Two Las Vegas odds-makers have set their projected win total at 71 1/2 and 72 1/2. FanGraphs.com is in the same ballpark with its projection of 74 wins -- third worst in baseball.
On the flip side, a raft of reasons exist to believe that the Glooms-day Scenario needn't come to pass -- that the projections are buoyed by so much hot air, as they turned out to be in 2011, when the D-backs made a 29-game improvement from the previous season and won the National League West with a new manager and a remade roster.
It is easy to find a starting point.
Health matters. The D-backs had a 100-year flood of hurt in 2014. It started before opening day and lasted through to the season's final out. Players missed 1,417 games games due to injury, the most in the National League and second-most in the majors to Texas. (In case you missed it, the Rangers suffered mightily in the standings, too.)
More than that, the D-backs' injuries came to an indispensable group, and lasted for a huge swath of the season. All-Star Paul Goldschmidt, arguably the best first baseman in the league, missed the final two months. A.J. Pollock missed three months. Mark Trumbo missed 11 weeks. Chris Owings missed 10 weeks. Patrick Corbin and David Hernandez missed the season after undergoing Tommy John surgeries a week apart in March. Bronson Arroyo missed three months after Tommy John. That is four mainstays in the lineup, two members of the rotation -- including the projected opening day starter -- and a top setup man. Some teams might be able to overcome that. Most could not.
It is no coincidence that the D-backs' free fall over the final two months occurred after Goldschmidt was lost for the season with a fractured right hand on July 31. He had a major league-leading 39 doubles at the time of the injury.
Those 72-victory predictions? Perhaps they assume another impossible-to-anticipate year of catastrophic injuries.
The D-backs scored 615 runs last season, 25 below the league average while playing in a hitter's park. Logic dictates that more playing time from the offensive core cannot help but create more offense.
Catcher Miguel Montero's bat will be missed, but Cuban third baseman Yasmany Tomas could be able to pick up the slack. No one expects the 24-year-old Tomas to be the next incarnation of recent Cuban imports Yasiel Puig or Jose Abreu this season. But no one expected Puig to be the hottest hitter in baseball when he arrived, or Abreu to be Abreu last year, when he hit 36 home runs and was the unanimous winner of the AL Rookie of the Year Award with the Chicago White Sox at age 27.
There is reason to believe the starting pitching should improve after being unable to overcome the loss of Corbin and Arroyo and a dismal year from Trevor Cahill last season. Corbin may not be back until June and Arroyo after that, but the D-backs made a priority to add young arms to a system that was in need. Wade Miley was traded in the offseason, but what the D-backs lack from his loss they will make up in quantity.
Jeremy Hellickson, Rubby De La Rosa, Robbie Ray and Allen Webster were acquired in trades, and Cuban free agent Yoan Lopez showed enough potential to merit an $8.5 million signing bonus this winter. Add minor league prospects Archie Bradley, Aaron Blair, Braden Shipley and Jeferson Mejia to the mix, and the team has plentiful options. Will one or two step up? Who knows? But it has happened before. It is the safe to say that no one foresaw the breakout seasons by Ian Kennedy and Daniel Hudson in 2011. Kennedy had 21 victories and finished fourth in the NL Cy Young race.
The D-backs did not play particularly well in spring training in 2011 while working to grasp new manager Kirk Gibson's points of emphasis, but they coalesced behind Gibson and first year general manager Kevin Towers to make the playoffs. Kennedy, Hudson, J.J. Putz, Hernandez, Miguel Montero, Justin Upton and Ryan Roberts had career years, and Goldschmidt made a heroic entrance on Aug. 1. Who could have foreseen that?
The D-backs could feel a similar spark this season with a new leadership group that starts with chief baseball officer Tony La Russa and includes general manager Dave Stewart, vice president of baseball operations De Jon Watson and manager Chip Hale. All have a track record of winning, including Hale, who won a national college championship at Arizona and led the Tucson Sidewinders to the Class AAA title. Hale's upbeat personality seems to bring the best out of his teammates and the players he manages, and that can go a long way.
How it all translates, we will see.
The safest prediction is no one knows.
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