{"id":561923,"date":"2026-02-09T03:33:25","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T03:33:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/561923\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T03:33:25","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T03:33:25","slug":"are-the-d-backs-actually-trying-to-contend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/561923\/","title":{"rendered":"Are the D-backs actually trying to contend?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Week two of these daily questions gets under way, with the (vague) theme this week being rosters, expectations and reality checks. Arizona enters 2026 coming off a sub-.500 season, and signed just one of MLB Trade Rumors Top 50 Free Agents<\/a>. And that was Merrill Kelly, who was here for most of the season anyway. They did add significant veteran presence, in the shapes of Nolan Arenado and Carlos Santana, and made some smaller moves intended to address the bullpen, a significant problem last year. But was it enough? Or is this simply lip service, effectively re-arranging the dugout chairs on a mediocre baseball team?<\/p>\n

Is Arizona actually trying to contend, or are they just pretending?<\/p>\n

Obviously, it\u2019s rare for any team to come out and admit they don\u2019t have a chance. Though nobody would blame the Colorado Rockies front-office for throwing their hands in the air and \u2018fessing up. But given the team only missed out on the playoffs by three games last year, despite some major injuries, it\u2019s not as if the Diamondbacks need to be rebuilt from the ground up. However, there is also massive uncertainty regarding the 2027 season, so perhaps it makes sense to make no big movies until a new CBA is agreed. Tell us what you think lies behind the team\u2019s mindset, as we head into spring training\u2026<\/p>\n

Won\u2019t be in the comments immediately, since as mentioned yesterday, we\u2019re off to the RenFair, where wifi has yet to be invented. \ud83d\ude42 But I\u2019ll check back when we return from the Middle Ages!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Week two of these daily questions gets under way, with the (vague) theme this week being rosters, expectations…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":550240,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2404],"tags":[146,22,4314,19173,5,38,4],"class_list":["post-561923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arizona-diamondbacks","tag-arizona","tag-arizona-diamondbacks","tag-arizonadiamondbacks","tag-az-snake-pit-community","tag-baseball","tag-diamondbacks","tag-mlb"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116038574494818750","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=561923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561923\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/550240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=561923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=561923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=561923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}