70 games left in the 2022 Major League Baseball season.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!With the All-Star break this week, the Arizona Diamondbacks front office has time to lock themselves in a room and make some franchise changing decisions. They are at a crossroads at the moment, deciding who to keep and who to trade. Tremendous depth, especially in the outfield is the best problem a team can have.
Since playoffs in the 2022 season according to fangraphs.com for the Diamondbacks are 0.00% the front office can use the last two and a half months of the season to give a lot of minor league guys some call ups. Trade the old guys away, clear cap space and give these young guys some time under the bright lights, and literally get a head start on next season. I mean why wait until spring training?
They have 10 outfielders that are fighting for the 3 outfield spots in the big leagues next year. First thing to do is to trade LF David Peralta to the Yankees who have been in talks to get the 35 year old making $7.5 million a year, that leaves you with 9 worthy outfielders.
Now this paragraph is for the dreamers that read my column, and I mean the real dreamers; take 3-4 of these young outfielders, I mean ANY of them besides Alek Thomas, Corbin Carroll, Jordan Lawler and recently drafted Druw Jones, add 4-8 draft picks and make whatever call you have to make to get Juan Soto from the Washington Nationals, who just won 2022 Home Run Derby, and is my favorite for MVP at 70/1. Then spend every dollar in free agency on pitching. What? It’s not that easy?
Okay I am awake now, lets get serious, the month of August and September the D-Backs will put lineups on the field hardly recognizable, yet finding out if these guys are “your guys” is huge. With injury to Pavin Smith, it gives them more freedom to call guys up. Players like Stone Garrett, Cole Tucker, and Dominic Fletcher are some names you will definitely hear, these are players that will either be starters moving forward or trade bait for the rest of the league. They will be competing for LF, because presumably Alek Thomas and Corbin Carroll will have CF and RF on lock, until Jones and Lawler come up that is.
That still leaves a number of players the franchise needs to figure out what to do with, players like Daulton Varsho, Jake McCarthy, and Jordan Luplow. These players have been playing at a decent but inconsistent level for the Diamondbacks this season thus far. I understand being patient with young players, but there is a fine line between patience and procrastination. There’s an old saying in football “if you have two quarterbacks you have no quarterback”, and that applies to this outfield.
The front office can make some smart moves, trading for pitching would be one. Long story short trading Bumgarner and Peralta before August 2nd, can free up some money and give some young guys a chance to show the entire league what they are worth. Spend the last 2 months to sort out what exactly you got, in the off-season trade everybody you have doubt in for starting pitchers.
Reality is the D-Backs are 2-3 seasons from contending. They need to spend the next season and a half building a rotation around Merrill Kelly and Zac Gallen, secure the left side of the infield and figure out how to properly play this 10 outfielder problem.
