Are the Diamondbacks on the verge of a spending spree?
Despite being the National League champion in 2023, the Arizona Diamondbacks were one of the more active teams across baseball.
They weren’t the Los Angeles Dodgers–who signed Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto to a combined $1 billion dollars–so they didn’t catch headlines (similar to the San Francisco Giants), but the Diamondbacks were the last team to make a splash this offseason, signing a one-year, $25 million deal. That all came after trading for Eugenio Suarez, inking Eduardo Rodriguez for $80 million (over four years), Lourdes Gurriel Jr. for $42 million (over three) and Joc Pederson for $12.5 million.
But is Arizona done? Not according to the team’s managing partner Ken Kendrick, should the right door open ahead of the trade deadline.
“You all will remember, and this is a little less significant number than maybe now, but we brought J.D. Martinez in at the trade deadline (in 2017),” Kendrick said Friday, according to Theo Mackie of the Arizona Republic. “That was a pretty good move. So we’re prepared to do that yet again if we’re at a place where an extra player or two could make a difference depending on exactly what the competitive landscape is. I hope we’ll have that problem.”
When Arizona acquired Martinez in 2017, they were 54-39 and 10.5 games back of the Dodgers for the NL West, despite being 1.5 games up for the first NL Wild Card spot and six games up on the second Wild Card spot. The Diamondbacks went on to finish 93-69, beat the Rockies in the Wild Card and ultimately got swept by the Dodgers in the NLCS.
Arizona finished ranking No. 18 in 25-man payroll ($81.6M) and No. 23 in cumulative payroll ($102.6M) in 2017, per Spotrac; currently, Arizona ranks No. 19 in 26-man payroll ($101.0M) and No. 14 in total payroll ($165.6M) a season removed from being in the bottom-third in payroll.
The Diamondbacks are expected to compete in a very competitive NL West. They may not win the division–Dodgers are rightfully favorites for their 11th divisional crown in 12 years–but are projected to win 86 games, per FanGraphs, the third-most in the NL and the fifth-most in MLB.
It remains to be seen how Arizona’s season unfolds; we won’t have a better idea with what they need come July. But the seed has been planted for Arizona to potentially make noise in the trade market in a few months–and not be left empty-handed after all the “talk” like Boston was after Tom Werner’s “full throttle” comment this offseason.
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