{"id":643746,"date":"2026-03-26T02:06:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T02:06:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/643746\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T02:06:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T02:06:15","slug":"arizona-diamondbacks-offseason-review-az-snake-pit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/643746\/","title":{"rendered":"Arizona Diamondbacks Offseason Review | AZ Snake Pit"},"content":{"rendered":"

In previous weeks we looked at the offseason moves of the Colorado Rockies<\/a>, Los Angeles Dodgers<\/a>, San Diego Padres<\/a>, and the San Francisco Giants<\/a>. Today we\u2019ll wrap up our tour of the NL West with a review of the Arizona Diamondbacks offseason, along with my predictions for the 2026 season.<\/p>\n

2025 Season Overview\/Recap<\/p>\n

The D-backs 2025 season was a disaster, largely as a result of the pitching staff being decimated by injuries. The biggest acquisition of the 2025 offseason, Corbin Burnes, who signed a 6 year $210 million contract, had his season end early when he hit the injury list in early June with an elbow injury that required Tommy John surgery. He wasn\u2019t even the only pitcher who needed their elbow surgically repaired, as young flame-throwing reliever Justin Martinez would also go under the knife for Tommy John surgery, along with AJ Puk who needed internal brace surgery on top of having a flexor strain that initially put him on the injured list. Before being traded to the Rangers, starter Merrill Kelly would also spend time on the IL with a back injury.<\/p>\n

The D-backs were well on their way to a losing record by the trade deadline, so GM Mike Hazen shipped out almost all of the pending free agents aside from Zac Gallen, trading away the aforementioned Merrill Kelly, first baseman Josh Naylor, third baseman Eugenio Suarez, and outfielder Randall Grichuk. The D-backs then proceeded to go on a winning streak that allowed them to stay in the mix for the last Wild Card seed up until mid September, though the N.Y. Mets were in the middle of their annual late season collapse, per tradition. The Diamondbacks ultimately finished in fourth place with an 80-82 record.<\/p>\n

3B Nolan Arenado<\/a> (trade with Cardinals)SP Zac Gallen <\/a>(re-signed; 1 yr\/$16.2)SP Merrill Kelly<\/a> (2 yrs\/$40M & 2028 vesting option)SP Michael Soroka<\/a> (1 yr\/$7.5M^)1B Carlos Santana<\/a> (1 yr\/$2m^)C James McCann<\/a> (re-signed; 1 yr, $2.75M) RP Paul Sewald<\/a> (1 yr, $1.5M) RP Taylor Clarke<\/a> (1 yr, $1.55M)RP Kade Strowd<\/a> (acquired in trade with Orioles)RP Grant Holman<\/a> (claimed off waivers from Athletics)Avery Owusu-Asiedu<\/a>* (Acquired in trade with Orioles)Joshua Grosz<\/a>* (trade with Rockies)Wellington Aracena<\/a>*Jose Mejia<\/a>* * = MILB Prospect, ^ = Mutual Option for \u201827Notable Minor League Contracts Joe Ross<\/a> Derek Law<\/a> Jonathan Lo\u00e1isiga<\/a> Thomas Hatch<\/a> Isaiah Campbell<\/a> Gerardo Carrillo<\/a> Junior Fern\u00e1ndez<\/a> (All right handed relievers)1B Luken Baker<\/a> OF \u00d3scar Mercado<\/a> INF Jacob Amaya<\/a>OF Jake McCarthy (traded to Rockies)SS Blaze Alexander (traded to Orioles)RP Kyle Backhus (traded to Phillies)<\/p>\n

Offseason Summary and Review<\/p>\n

If you were closely following the D-backs offseason, you probably weren\u2019t a fan of the moves Gm Mike Hazen made, especially as they happened. Now that the winter and spring training are over, we have the benefit of looking at the overall picture of what their offseason looks like.<\/p>\n

Bringing back starting pitcher Merrill Kelly was a no-brainer after he was shipped off to the Texas Rangers at the deadline. Zac Gallen returning is more of a result of him having a terrible 2025 season along with the fact that any other team who signed him would lose a draft pick. With a bounce back season and no qualifying offer, I\u2019d think Gallen should be able to land a multi year deal next offseason. (Yes, I\u2019m completely ignoring the impending labor stoppage that\u2019s possible next offseason).<\/p>\n

The other big move of the winter was acquiring Nolan Arenado from the Cardinals at a discount. Arenado is definitely in the decline phase of his career, but the move back to the NL West could allow for an offensive bounceback in 2026. Considering the Cardinals and Rockies are both picking up a majority of his contract, I\u2019m not too concerned about the worst case scenario of the team having to eat the rest of the contract if he doesn\u2019t bounce back.<\/p>\n

Shipping out the fan favorite, but also frustratingly inconsistent OF Jake McCarthy to the Rockies, along with promising young infielder Blaze Alexander to the Orioles, probably upset a few D-backs fans, but I think it was time for the team to move on from the former, and I actually like the return for Alexander. What IS more of a concern for me is Kade Strowd looking bad enough with the D-backs that he didn\u2019t even make the team out of spring training. I actually like the bargain bin pitcher signings Hazen made over the offseason, I see a ton of upside, but if the team is making promising young pitchers like Strowd worse with their training and coaching staff that doesn\u2019t bode well for the future. If you\u2019d like to see my thoughts on all those signings, check out the article<\/a> I did earlier this winter.<\/p>\n

I am not at all a fan of the Carlos Santana, Paul Sewald, or Michael Soroka signings. Carlos Santana will likely be platooned with Pavin Smith, but he has fallen off so hard the last few seasons that I\u2019d be shocked if he provides positive value even as a platoon bat. Paul Sewald wasn\u2019t quite washed up the last time around with the Dbacks in 2024, but a 4.31 ERA and the many blown saves sure made it feel like it. While he wasn\u2019t dramatically worse with the Guardians or Tigers, his ERA did rise further to 4.78 ERA, and he was limited to just under 20 innings between the two teams. I hate the Michael Soroka signing at that cost, and with the intention of using him as a starting pitcher. I think he could be a serviceable reliever in 2026, but I don\u2019t think he\u2019ll be both healthy and effective for any real length of time if used as a starter.<\/p>\n

I am a fan of bringing back catcher James McCann, who was a key part of the the little success the D-backs did have in 2026. Even if his bat isn\u2019t quite as good in 2026, that\u2019s a small price to pay if he\u2019s making the pitchers he catches better pitchers, which I\u2019d say he did in 2025. The new ABS Challenge system will definitely make any framing skills less valuable, but that\u2019s not something I\u2019m worrying about with any catcher in MLB right now since it applies to everyone.<\/p>\n

I am also a big fan of bringing back Taylor Clarke now that he\u2019s a reliever. Having interviewed and gotten to know him when he was coming up the D-backs Farm system, I think he\u2019s a solid clubhouse addition at minimum, but I think he should be able to provide quality innings out of the bullpen. A lot of these moves do feel more like they were made to provide some Veteran Presence, especially the additions of Arenado and Santana. Overall, while I don\u2019t hate the bigger picture view of D-backs offseason moves, I don\u2019t exactly love any of them, except claiming reliever Grant Holman off waivers. (See the previously linked article for more detail) The Padres and Dodgers are the top of the class as far as the NL West goes, and I don\u2019t think there were realistically any combination of signings that would\u2019ve made the D\u2019Backs a clear favorite over either of those two teams. I like their winter better than the Giants, but that\u2019s only because I think the Dbacks are a better team on paper with their additions. The Rockies are perennial basement dwellers who desperately needed to make organizational changes for years, which they did make, but their actual moves weren\u2019t all that impressive. My offseason grade for the D-backs is a C-. I would have given them a solid C+ prior to finding out that they will enter the season with zero left handed pitchers in their bullpen, but that\u2019s a big enough black mark to knock the grade down.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t say I am confident in any specific outcome for the season. On one hand it is a very flawed team, but om the other hand I do not think this team is as bad as their sub-.500 record from last season. My expectation is for anywhere between 80 and 90 wins, but I can see the team greatly outperforming expectations and winning 90+ games, just as must as I can see them underperformed and finishing with less than 80 wins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In previous weeks we looked at the offseason moves of the Colorado Rockies, Los Angeles Dodgers, San Diego…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643747,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2404],"tags":[146,22,75770,4314,5,38,40669,4],"class_list":["post-643746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arizona-diamondbacks","tag-arizona","tag-arizona-diamondbacks","tag-arizona-diamondbacks-analysis","tag-arizonadiamondbacks","tag-baseball","tag-diamondbacks","tag-diamondbacks-opinion-analysis","tag-mlb"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116293034637352418","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643746","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=643746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}