Posts by: Ryan P. Morrison

Shelby Miller: Top of the Rotation Starter

On December 10, 2015 By

The D-backs have set about rotation upgrades with the relentless abandon of Liam Neeson in Taken, signing Zack Greinke and trading for Shelby Miller in the last week without blinking at the cost. But those two pitchers have something in common other than some sweet new uniforms — they both surprised with especially low ERAs in 2015. So low, …

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Diamondbacks Sign Greinke, Get Busy Living

On December 7, 2015 By

Let’s not let the gravity of this moment escape us. The Diamondbacks have agreed to terms on a contract that calls for over $200 million in spending, a contract that calls for an average annual salary of just under $35 million per season. This is not normal, and this may not happen again to this team for decades. For most …

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Double Plus: A Committee of New Uniforms by Committee

On December 4, 2015 By

Okay, weird. The D-backs have a kind of front-office-by-committee, and I’m on record saying I think a starter-by-committee pitching staff would be a good idea. Now, the new uniforms unveiled by the team last night need enough mannequins to fill a conference room — and they look like they were designed by a committee. Or a committee of committees? Say …

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Scott Kazmir: The One That Shouldn’t Get Away

On December 2, 2015 By

One step in our Offseason Plan process last month was a search for trade targets of a certain type: starting pitchers that, while good, were overpaid on existing contracts due to expire in 1-3 (ideally, two) years. Unless the D-backs payroll rises in a big way, there is a payroll crunch coming toward the end of the Contention Window, and …

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Johnny Cueto: If You Can’t Make Him, Buy Him?

On November 30, 2015 By

If you could add any player to the D-backs without regard to feasibility, who would it be? I wondered that question out loud on Twitter on Saturday, and got a mixed bag of different kinds of responses. Among the pitchers named in response: Carlos Carrasco, Sonny Gray, Zack Greinke, Kenta Maeda, Clayton Kershaw, and Chris …

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Double Plus: Why Trade for Zach Britton?

On November 27, 2015 By

We’ve never seen anything like Aroldis Chapman. Once upon a time, Billy Wagner seemed like a once-in-a-lifetime unicorn, a lefty closer who could regularly hit 100 mph. I once heard a report that a right-handed closer — Billy Koch — once hit 104 mph on a radar gun, a legend so unbelievable that I never expected to see that …

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40-Man Decisions and Why the D-backs Protected A.J. Schugel

On November 23, 2015 By

A year after doing an excellent job protecting its players from the Rule 5 draft, the D-backs had their work cut out for them this season. After cutting Jamie Romak, trading for Chris Herrmann and trading Jeremy Hellickson away, the team had just two spots to use if it kept everyone else on the 40 man roster. All that …

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Double Plus: Chase Anderson’s Dropped Drop and Whiffed Whiffs

On November 19, 2015 By

Before 2015 became the season of grand experimentation, 2014 was quickly lost, somewhere between Sydney Cricket Grounds and Chase Field. It may not have had the same frenetic roster turnover as 2015, but 2014 was also an information-gathering season. Among the most important of that information: Chase Anderson has a silly-good changeup and major league skills. We were treated to …

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Hellickson Trade Signals Right Kind of Experimentation, New Kind of Offseason

On November 16, 2015 By

Some change is normal when a new GM is named, but last offseason, the recalibration that GM Dave Stewart and CBO Tony La Russa undertook was anything but normal. Retooling is the kind of thing you see when a team just missed, and expiring club control would make some turnover inevitable; when the D-backs entered the 2014-2015 offseason, they did …

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From the Archives: Getting Lucky By Design

On November 12, 2015 By

Life rears its hoary head. In lieu of nothing or another piece explaining why Jake Lamb is the greatest thing since man discovered the greatness of cooked meat, I’m re-posting a piece from June 2014. The players involved? Not so relevant. But after a season of experiments, the D-backs are unlikely to make the leap to contention only with …

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The Silvino Linings Playbook

On November 10, 2015 By

As volatile as relievers tend to be in 60-odd inning samples, it’s hard to get very excited about performance over shorter spans. If you want a great debut, you have no farther to look than record holder Brad Ziegler, who set a new standard with 39 consecutive scoreless innings to start his career. If you want greatness from a …

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Double Plus: Pitcher Upgrades and a Trade for Jonathan Lucroy

On November 6, 2015 By

For all practical purposes, the D-backs are set at catcher in the near term (a/k/a The Contention Window), thanks to the tremendous 2015 contributions of not-quite-full-time catcher Welington Castillo. The team may or may not add Jarrod Saltalamacchia — probably in a role where the proportion of his PAs to innings caught is higher than normal — and while …

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40-Man Decisions in Advance of Rule 5 Deadline

On November 4, 2015 By

The Rule 5 draft: the sexiest of all offseason events. Forget chasing down the biggest big free agents, and the coming litany of minor league deals with non-roster invitations to spring training. The trade market will be interesting, I’ll grant you. But what of Alex Glenn, world? What of the possibility that a franchise-altering catcher could change hands again, …

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The Case for 2016 Starter by Committee

On November 2, 2015 By

2015 was a year of experiments, especially on the pitching side. But as noted last week, next year is not about personnel experiments — it’s about contention, and getting as much as possible out of the staff the team has. As of now, the D-backs haven’t added a starter through free agency or trade good enough to change our …

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New D-backs Pitching Coach a Welcome Move

On October 28, 2015 By

The day after the season ended, the Diamondbacks parted ways with pitching coach Mike Harkey. Last night, Nick Piecoro reported that former Angels pitching coach Mike Butcher is likely to be hired as Harkey’s replacement, and while the role of a coach is especially hard to analyze with our site’s particular brand of analysis, signs still point to this …

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Over the Hill

On October 26, 2015 By

It’s been an odd career for Aaron Hill, who started his career strong, missed much of 2008, logged an excellent 36 homer, 4 WAR season in 2009, and then saw things get weird. In the season when he joined the D-backs, Hill posted just 8 HR in 571 PA, with a 0.6 WAR — and then followed that with …

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