On Thursday night, an article published by long-time Diamondbacks beat writer Nick Piecoro set the D-backs fanbase into a frenzy. I’m sure everyone is aware of the article and its contents at this point, but on the off chance you haven’t, please read it here before reading further.
Nick Piecoro is an Arizona State University alum and has covered the Diamondbacks for the Arizona Republic since 2007. For the better part of 2 decades, he has been plugged into the organization like few others have. He isn’t some newcomer to the game, trying to build an audience. He has an audience earned through years of producing content for one of the largest platforms in Arizona sports. He doesn’t have to “get clicks”. He doesn’t need to write anything outrageous to build up his platform. In all those years, I can’t think of any reason to distrust anything he puts into print or says on the airwaves. Coming from that perspective, I have to admit that I fully believe everything he wrote in that article was true.
While some may hold the fact that he doesn’t name any sources in this article against him, I don’t believe Piecoro has to. Not crediting specific sources is not a black mark against a reporter or evidence that there is no evidence. Regardless of naming sources or not, a reporter with Nick’s standing and reputation isn’t going to publish something that is mostly fabricated or based on nothing more than a one-off conversation. It’s not like there hasn’t been bits and pieces about this in the ether prior to this article. I won’t name names, but reading between the lines of a certain Diamondbacks reporter for the last year or so, I’ve got the sense that Ketel is not respected, at least not in the way a leader would/should be in the Diamondbacks clubhouse. It’s never been something that has been directly reported on until now, but this reporting by Piecoro hardly comes as a shock.
Regarding Piecoro’s nameless sources, I have to believe that there have been conversations off the record about this for years, and these conversations picked up momentum after the All Star Break incidents where Ketel took a leave of absence while the Snakes were in the middle of fighting for their playoff lives. Immediately following his return from that absence, the team had their worst stretch of the whole season and it resulted in multiple high-caliber players being shipped off rather than bringing in players to patch holes, or at the very least keeping the roster together. If the team hadn’t fallen apart in the second half of July, maybe the whispers in the background would’ve stayed in the background, but after the season was shot, the whispers became more than whispers and it’s firmly out of the background.
Now that I’ve said I absolutely believe the article is factually based, I still have a quibble with Mr. Piecoro’s story. Specifically, I don’t understand why this story was released now. As jeffern51 alluded to in his post-game recap immediately following this story’s release, the timing seems very poor. While a postseason berth is LOOONGshot at this point, the team had been playing much better and they were at least somewhat in the running for the final wild card spot thanks to an epically bad run by the Mets at the same time as our recent surge. Why couldn’t this wait for the offseason? Torey Lovullo said just as much when asked about it during his interview with MLB Network Radio on Friday. Wouldn’t Nick see this could possibly cause (further) grumblings in the clubhouse and derail our momentum? Surely, if someone needs clicks anytime, it’s during the offseason.
Piecoro had to have a reason for publishing this now, but unfortunately, we can only speculate as to what that reason was. Did the groundswell of grumbling become too great for Nick to ignore? Does Nick have an axe to grind against someone within the organization? Does Nick place greater blame on Ketel Marte or Torey Lovullo for this season’s disappointment than the rash of injuries? An article like this, especially from someone with the platform Nick has, isn’t released without motive. He had to have carefully weighed out the expected reactions, not only within the clubhouse, but also within the fanbase and with the ownership group, before deciding to push forward with it.
What does this say about Lovullo? About Marte?
“While some blame manager Torey Lovullo for giving too much leeway, those who know Marte best say the alternative approach would risk him sulking or shutting down if Lovullo tried to be too firm.”
I believe this quote from Piecoro’s article about the line that Lovullo has to walk with regard to Ketel Marte is key to Torey Lovullo’s job security. Ketel is a unique talent. While Corbin Carroll has to maximize his physical abilities through 110% effort, Ketel is such a physically gifted talent that he can seemingly ‘turn it on and off’ at will. During Torey’s interview with MLB Network Radio following this article’s release, Lovullo said that while some players can push themselves to play through pain or when they aren’t necessarily feeling fully engaged, Ketel prefers to take the day to try and get himself right. Is that ok?
Piecoro contrasted Ketel in his article with Corbin Carroll who came back early to play through a fracture in his hand. Was that good for the team? On one hand, it showed Corbin’s heart to the fans, but also to his teammates. His teammates no doubt respect that he’s willing to do that! On the other hand, though, Corbin had his worst stretch of the season playing through that injury. Was Corbin Carroll at 50% better than 100% Jake McCarthy or Randal Grichuk? Maybe, maybe not. Through the quotes from Torey in response to this article, it’s clear that Ketel doesn’t want to be out there just to be out there. If he’s not engaged or physically capable, he must feel he isn’t doing justice to the team or to himself. Sure, he could be forced to go out there, but then Torey runs the risk of losing his most impactful talent. Sure, Ketel could force himself out there, but then he could hurt the team’s product on the field if he fails in a big spot because he’s not feeling himself. You can fall on either side of the fence with this argument about which is a better way to handle this, and you’d have a plethora of evidence to back you up no matter which side you choose, but at the end of the day, when Ketel is out on the field, he has provided All-MLB caliber impact and you can’t just wave that away.
In decades past, an attitude like Ketel’s would not be tolerated. To go along with that, it’s probable that Ketel would never have become the player he has become without getting the leeway he has been allowed. Torey has engaged with different players in different ways and it’s led to a clubhouse that has seemed incredibly tight (at least until this article was published). If Torey was extremely rigid, Ketel likely never becomes the player who sets the Major League record for postseason hitting streak or the guy who single-handedly won the series we just played in Texas by hitting 2 go-ahead bombs in the 9th inning. I’ve posted this before, but it bears repeating here: managing a team where your most talented individual is also a ‘diva’ or is more about ‘self’ than the leader would prefer is extremely difficult. Torey created a culture where Ketel didn’t have to feel like he had to be someone he didn’t feel comfortable being, instead, Geraldo Perdomo could step into that leadership role, even as a below average Major Leaguer (at the time) and allow Ketel to be the ultra-talented baseball player that he is.
There’s bound to be some reaction from this. The question is only what that reaction happens to be. Perhaps, the reaction is one of galvanization within the clubhouse and they go on a run to end the season. It’s possible that the bulk of the complaining about Ketel to Piecoro came from sources who are now outside the organization. Maybe everyone left on the team still holds Ketel in high esteem and doesn’t have any grumblings regarding his days off because the days that he’s on are a sight to behold. Whether this team has the talent remaining to go on a truly epic run is questionable, but if the team can play competent baseball, win some series against teams that they otherwise shouldn’t, and be general pests to the big boys down the stretch run, I could absolutely see them crediting this time period as a point where they were tested and didn’t flinch, but instead banded together. It would also likely ensure Torey Lovullo returns as manager in 2026.
What if the team doesn’t come together, but falls apart and the rest of the season is a dumpster fire of incompetence? That reaction would likely result in Torey’s dismissal from the team during the offseason, and I can absolutely say it would be deserved for him to lose his job at that point. My entire defense of Torey as manager was that we never had clubhouse drama and he was able to manage personalities well and be a good face for this franchise. If this article sends the team into a death spiral, Torey’s most redeeming quality is no longer there. I didn’t have Torey on the hot seat, more like a warm seat, but after this article, Torey’s job hinges on how the team plays out the next six weeks.
Finally, maybe the reaction is that Ketel is traded during the offseason. Ketel would have seemed to be an untradeable player, but during this last deadline, there seemed to be more smoke on Ketel’s availability than there should have been. With Marte having just been signed to a healthy extension at the beginning of the season, it would seem odd that there was any possibility of trading him at all. Piecoro’s article was titled “Trade Ketel Marte?” for goodness sake! There has to be some high-level conversations going on about that possibility, and it all seemed to start after the All-Star break incident. Ketel, as has been laid out in this article and throughout his body of work during the last several years, is a singular talent. He is not someone teams can move on from lightly. You’re almost assuredly not ‘winning’ any trade in which he’s the player leaving your team. Maybe, however, the grumblings are coming from somewhere in the front office and they feel that with this season being lost, maybe it’s time to turn the page and move forward with Perdomo’s leadership and Corbin and his leadership style – playing through a fracture because he “felt like I owed it to everyone in here.” – as the main voices in the room when they bring up the young fellas in the minors for the latter half of this decade.
Whatever happens next, this article may well be the defining point of this season and it could be the punctuation mark on Torey and Ketel’s tenures with the Diamondbacks. Ketel and Torey have never been without each other in a Diamondbacks uniform. How these two navigate the aftermath of this article will determine if their time together is coming to a close. For the first time in a decade, there’s a possibility that neither will be here next season.