Any thoughts about how the Diamondbacks actually played baseball this week?
DBacksEurope: Happy to see that the team still continues to battle, but didn’t expect less from them with the quality that is still around. However, it’s basically a 5-man batting lineup and they can’t bail pitching out in each game. One of the writers wrote that they can act perfectly as spoilers for teams with wild card aspirations and I am happy that they indeed tend to do so.
Spencer: It was perfectly fine ball. It was against middling to bad teams but the product was solid.
Sam: Seven games out of ten against the Rockies will make anyone look good. But it was nice to get a win in the Gallen vs. Kelly game without Kelly pitching poorly.
Makakilo: In the last 7 games, I liked that their baserunners per game improved and that the percentage of their baserunners who scored was better than last season. However, losing the games on Friday and Saturday left me a little bit in a down mood.
Dano: I‘m perfectly happy and quite pleased with the work that’s been done on the field this week. They’re still trying to win, they’re still playing hard, and it’s starting to seem like we may make the most of the remaining month and a half of low(ish) stakes “developmental baseball” that we’ve transitioned into since the Trade Deadline fire sale. I’m starting to see some small but notable improvement from both Locklear and ADC, and definitely from Blaze Alexander. For developing prospects and helping them to transition successfully to playing at the MLB level, I think it makes a difference knowing that, even if you rattle off an 0-for-12 stretch or something, that doesn’t mean you’re immediately on the bus back to Reno. The kids are starting to figure some stuff out, which we want and need to see as we prepare for 2026.
Now that we got that out of the way, Ketel Marte… how much stock do you personally put into Nick Piecoro’s report? (Follow up questions to follow, so spread the thoughts out!)
DBacksEurope: I don’t like these kinds of articles with anonymous sources. We don’t know if those sources are players on the active roster, injured ones, traded away…without knowing much about them it is plain gossip and everyone is giving Nick Piecoro too much credibility. He supposedly isn’t a click bait writer, but it is exactly that kind of an article he has published.
Spencer: I trust Nick. He’s not paid by clicks and it’s literally his job to report what he hears. However, I have zero first hand knowledge on the topic nor specifics. I think my biggest takeaway from all this is how much you can learn about someone’s opinion and thought process given their reaction. Good, bad, neutral, creative, none of us know anything about it, but we have no trouble projecting our own beliefs and expectations onto the situation. (I am not immune to this; I believe I had opinions on Devers and the Ohtani gambling scandal. But this one hits closer to home so I am doing my best to not formulate an opinion that’s undeserved because I only received one injection of evidence)
Sam: When I actually read it, it was a much more nuanced article than people here made me expect. Most of it was essentially players making the same criticisms of Marte that we make — that he sometimes seems like he isn’t trying, and that he’s not in the lineup as much as we would like. The thing that struck me most is how much players on the team think like fans — they really wanted to win and not have to sell at the trade deadline, for instance. For all the public-facing “it’s all part of the business” talk you hear around trades, that was refreshing.
Makakilo: Bottom line up front: It’s good to have Marte in the lineup because his performance makes a difference. In July, his RBIs per PA slumped, which is a reason to be unhappy. The deeper truth is the team slumped in July in two ways: 1) number of baserunners and 2) the percentage of baserunners who scored. Lastly, I trust what Torey Lovullo said and believe he will react in a way that is best for the team.
Point A. In one-point games, Marte’s RE24 result was correlated with whether the team won. Note that Marte played in 26 of the team’s 1-point games.
When Marte’s RE24 was negative, the team lost 5 out of 6 games.When Marte’s RE24 was positive, the team result was better (won 7 out of 20 games). In 4 wins, Marte’s RE24 exceeded 1; it could be argued that Marte won those four games. Marte is an impact player!
Point B. Marte’s RBIs per PA slumped in July.
May Marte’s RBIs per PA were at the Blaze/Tawa levelJune Marte’s RBIs per PA were at the All-Star LevelJuly Marte’s RBIs per PA were less than Blaze/Tawa level (5.9% PAs vs 7.0 % for Blaze)Aug thru 15th, Marte’s RBIs per PA were at the All-Star Level
Point C. In July, it was a team slump, not a Marte slump. Not enough baserunners and the percentage of baserunners who score was not high enough. (9.5 baserunners per game vs 11.2, 26% baserunners who scored vs 35%)
Point D. I trust Torey Lovullo’s view of the team: “…I don’t see a lot of the things that Nick had said… I think our guys are going to go out there and continue to play baseball on a level that I want them to. I don’t think there’s any underlying theme that was suggested in this piece…” — Torey Lovullo
Dano: I honestly thought it was an interesting article, and nothing like the near criminal backstabbing hit piece that a lot of folks seemed to read it as. Piecoro is a good reporter. I trust what he’s reporting, as far as that goes. All it really means to me is that I might have some different questions or might parse some future clubhouse reporting a bit differently.
Does this reporting change how you view Torey Lovullo as a manager?
DBacksEurope: If this story is true, then absolutely. He is supposedly a great people’s manager but if players are backstabbing him and their colleague, who is one of the best players on this team with a long term contract, then this clubhouse is out of control. In this stats-driven management of baseball by smart GMs who control almost everything but the players chemistry, that is a sad conclusion for a manager.
Spencer: No. I don’t know what his role is in all of this. All I’m privy to currently is what’s publicly released. I’m very glad it’s not my decision on whether or not he deserves to keep his current role. All signs point to him being great at his job, but sometimes you still lose despite your best efforts.
Sam: I think I previously blamed Torey more for resting our best players too much, and didn’t consider that those players, like Marte, might have been the ones requesting the time off. It’s a genuinely tricky trade off with injury risk, especially with Marge’s hamstring history.
Makakilo: No. How Torey reacted to the press was appropriate. The real test is whether he is strong enough to continue to successfully motivate his players when their playoff chances are nil? Is he skilled enough to turn this controversy into another way to help his players connect as a team? I think the answers to both questions are yes.
Dano: Not at all. Why should I? The job of a “player’s manager” isn’t to exhibit or exert perfect thought control over his players. Rather, it’s to create and allow for a space where all parties can speak their minds constructively and increase team cohesion by talking stuff through rather than stymie it through simmering unexpressed resentments. I kinda think that the fact that a story like this got reported demonstrates that while he’s achieved a lot of that, maybe he and some individual players have a bit more work to do to encourage folks to say what’s on their minds and listen to their colleagues within the clubhouse setting. But that sort of thing is always gonna be a work in progress.
Given our partial knowledge of the situation, do you think there is a course of action that should be taken?
DBacksEurope: Yes. Stop talking to Nick Piecoro and prevent him and the Arizona Republic from accessing the club’s facilities. If, however, there is truth in this, then the club should get rid of the backstabbers, Torey Lovullo and Ketel Marte. And also do the previous.
Spencer: If I were Mike Hazen or Derrick Hall, I’d be conducting an internal investigation. From there, decisions will be required. Whatever they are should be made with full education of what has happened. I doubt we ever get to see any part of this process and instead only get to (over)react to whatever decisions get made.
Sam: Maybe an internal team meeting that doesn’t leak to the press? But I lean towards nothing. In this age of players being more authentic, we’ll see more instances like this of players acting like fans of their own team. It’s the flipside of the energy we saw this team turn on in the 2023 playoffs. You can’t have a team riding the emotional high of an unexpected playoff run, feeding off of haters like Mad Dog, without those same players also being disappointed and looking for people to blame when the team is under .500 and sellers at the deadline.
Makakilo: Communications with players about the situation so 1) it is in the past and does not distract them, 2) they have a unified approach to the possibility that there will be attempts to elicit player reactions.
Dano: Nope, not really. Maybe what Mak suggests, if it turns out that such reminders actually turn out to be necessary. But mainly I’m with Sam on this one.
The Dodgers are no longer leading the NL West and have been supplanted by the Padres. Fluke, or could the Padres hold the line for the next six weeks?
DBacksEurope: Fluke. The Dodgers will end the regular season as division winners. That is what I want to believe so anything that prevents that from happening will be a terrific surprise.
Spencer: I also lean towards fluke. But if there’s a year for it, it’s this one. My main problem is I have no faith in SD to maintain. Whereas I do have faith in LAD to bounce and play to their potential. Ideally Arizona can sneak in and make it extra interesting!
ISH95: This honestly might be a question for the Diamondbacks. They have six games left against the Dodgers and three left against the Padres, with their two final series being against both of them. They could very easily be a deciding factor in that race and get to play kingmaker in the NL West this year
Sam: The Padres performing better is real; their trade deadline deals plugged some serious black holes on their roster, and lengthened an already strong bullpen. The Dodgers performing poorly is a fluke; their series against the Angels was quite unlucky, for instance. Which of those claims is stronger will be determined in the 7 games these two teams play head-to-head this weekend and next.
Makakilo: Padres are strongly contending because their trade deadline acquisitions greatly improved the team. The Padres are the underdogs and I like rooting for the underdogs. It would please me for the Padres to edge out the Dodgers to win the NL West.
Dano: My gut reaction is to say “fluke,” but when I think about it a little bit more, it’s really hard to say. My feeling all season, about both teams, is that each of them constructed a deeply flawed and problematic roster coming into 2025, and that both have been punching well above their weight for basically the whole season so far. I mean, the Dodgers still have that lineup, but their choice to prioritize bulk over durability with both their starting rotation and their bullpen isn’t a viable model for building a pitching staff. Yeah, they managed to squeak by last year and win a World Series, but it seems to me like this year proves that they got lucky and got away with it, not that they’d discovered some new paradigm for pitching staff roster construction or something.
Likewise, the Padres did nearly nothing to improve their roster in the offseason, and they had a bunch of players they were looking to unload who they failed to unload, and their rotation has been overtaxed for much of the year and their bullpen was also very much fraying around the edges going into the All Star Break. As Mak and Sam pointed out, they did add some big and needed talent at the Deadline, but it certainly wasn’t enough to fix the underlying flaws they’ve had with their overall roster construction going back to last season.
All that said, if I had to wager, I’d guess that the Padres Trade Deadline additions push them just a bit closer than the Doyers’ marked lack of significant Deadline improvements, and so the Friars maybe have the edge. By a hair, though, if at all. And really, anyway, if we’re out of it, I don’t really care all that much. A pox on both of their houses at this point.