With a disappointing two years following a World Series appearance, Arizona Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo is among the candidates to be fired, according to ESPN’s Buster Olney.

Lovullo was listed as one of the less likely candidates to be swapped out, but the Diamondbacks’ lack of competitiveness at times this season has led to speculation.

However, Lovullo is very close with head of baseball operations Mike Hazen — to the degree that if you ranked the symbiosis of GMs and their managers among the 30 teams, a rival exec agreed that Hazen and Lovullo would be No. 1. Presumably, the desire for a change at manager would have to come from (managing general partner Ken Kendrick).

The Dodgers, Padres and Giants started the year a combined 25-5, and the Diamondbacks have found themselves in fourth place in the NL West for almost the entire season, only briefly moving into third in late August.

D-backs’ Torey Lovullo career snapshot

During his nine seasons, Lovullo has had triumphs with the team. Despite the team missing the playoffs in 2024, Arizona actually had more wins (89) than its run to the World Series the previous year (84).

Lovullo finished fourth in NL Manager of the Year voting the last two years, and he won the award in his first season with D-backs in 2017 when he led them to 93 wins and a Wild Card berth.

Even if the Diamondbacks end this season with a losing record, Lovullo will still have more winning seasons (five) in Arizona than losing ones (four).

While winning seasons are good, the D-backs haven’t been considered strong contenders during the regular season in any of Lovullo’s years. The team has only ended the regular season less than 10 games back of the division champion once (2024), and even then they were in third place.

As for the postseason, 2017 and 2023 were the only times the D-backs have made the playoffs under Lovullo, with 2017 only seeing them winning the one-game Wild Card before being swept by the Dodgers in the NLDS.

The bad years have also been very bad. Despite the five winning seasons, Lovullo is guaranteed to end 2025 with a losing record in his career with the D-backs — 657-685 with 15 games remaining in this campaign. His winning percentage fell below .500 during the team’s abysmal 110-loss season in 2021 and has not recovered since.