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More Fastballs, Different Fastballs for Rubby

On April 9, 2015 By

On Tuesday, Rubby De La Rosa started for the Diamondbacks. It was Arizona’s second game of the season. That made De La Rosa the D-backs’ number two starter, kind of. At least that’s how people thought of it, and when they did, a lot of them said, “hey, Rubby De La Rosa is our number two?” to which others responded, …

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Ahmed In, Hill Out: a Positive Change?

On April 7, 2015 By

The news of the Trevor Cahill trade and the insertion Archie Bradley was surely surprising. But the news that Nick Ahmed was going to start over Aaron Hill, shifting Chris Owings to second base, was perhaps even more of a shock. And not a bad shock necessarily as Ahmed had a fantastic spring, but a shock nonetheless. The transition …

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Out of Left Field: Platoon Trumbo and Peralta

On April 2, 2015 By

The Diamondbacks’ outfield is set. Now that we know that Yasmany Tomas is almost surely destined for the minors and that he’s going to continue working at third base, the pieces are in place. A.J. Pollock is a stone-cold lock for every day duties in center field. Cody Ross is going to get some starts, but isn’t a major piece …

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Daniel Hudson’s Very Best Fit

On March 31, 2015 By

It’s one week until the Diamondbacks take the field for Opening Day. Of course, that will be their second game of the season for them since they play on Opening Night against the Giants, but baseball’s right around the corner. Finally. And, with this being the final week without real baseball, everyone’s releasing their final predictions. The trend for …

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Spring Notes from D-backs Minor League Camp

On March 24, 2015 By

There’s nothing like seeing baseball up close and personal. After the long, baseball-less winter, just about any baseball action will do. I remember trying to stream Caribbean Series games a few weeks back and even though they slowed my computer down and froze every thirty seconds, it was worth every crappy pitch thrown by a nameless reliever. It was baseball, …

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Spring Notes From D-backs MLB Camp

On March 17, 2015 By

As Ryan stated in yesterday’s Round Up, we were literally camped out at Salt River Field for a few days last week and over the weekend. That opportunity allowed us to access to things in a whole new way. There’s simply nothing like taking in batting practice from 10 feet away or standing even with the third base bag while …

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Yasmany Tomas in Left and D-backs Outfielders for Sale

On March 11, 2015 By

If you’d like to acquire an outfielder, you might want to call the Arizona Diamondbacks. They have plenty and might have one more on their hands sooner rather than later, because according to reports, the Yasmany Tomas-at-third-base-thing isn’t working out so well. While that was predictable, the organization had been going to great lengths to highlight what they could, …

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Can Patrick Corbin Pull a Matt Harvey?

On March 10, 2015 By

Everyone is excited about Spring Training and baseball being played. This is great, with the exception that we see plenty of hyperbole. “Player X is in the best shape of his life and could be an MVP,” “Player Y has a new changeup grip and will win the Cy Young,” “Player Z changed his pre-game routine and will play 155 …

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The Cause of Trevor Cahill’s Downturn

On February 27, 2015 By

By virtually any metric, it’s hard to look at Trevor Cahill‘s recent performance and conclude that he’s likely to be a good value at his $12M salary for 2015. But that doesn’t mean that he’s not worth more than the $520k the team would be likely to recoup by releasing him. As recently as 2013, Cahill was arguably an …

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An Observation on the Risk of Power

On February 19, 2015 By

On Tuesday I took a stab at discussing Ender Inciarte within the context of his defensive value. Because his defensive value makes up the bulk of his overall value as a player (since he doesn’t hit a lot), he needs to maintain a high defensive level in order to continue to be a truly valuable asset. That, of course, places …

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On Defensive Value and Ender Inciarte

On February 17, 2015 By

Over the last decade or so, defense has become an increasingly important aspect of baseball. When the Steroid Era slipped away and the old, plodding sluggers capable of hitting 40+ home runs per season all but evaporated from the game, they were often replaced by younger, faster players who could at least help prevent runs even if they weren’t capable …

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A Love Letter to Jake Lamb

On February 13, 2015 By

Jake,

This has been a long time coming. In this season in which people say what they really feel, it’s time to admit the sentiment that’s bubbling to the surface.* You put the “hot” in “hot corner,” Jake.

Even one year ago, you were a test case for players who might or might not make it. I wasn’t dreaming on …

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What Slowed Aaron Hill in 2014?

On February 12, 2015 By

There’s no denying that Aaron Hill is an important piece to the Diamondbacks’ 2015 success. Sure, you could say that to some degree about every player who’ll spend time on the 25-man roster during any season, but Hill is paid to hit and after consecutive season of doing just that, he fell off in a big way in 2014. Like …

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Identifying Jeremy Hellickson Problems with Curve, Change

On February 6, 2015 By

Last week, I took a crack at finding out why, despite very consistent Fielding-Independent Pitching marks, Jeremy Hellickson had wildly different results in 2013-2014 as opposed to 2010-2012. The answer, it seemed, was that Hellickson’s success in getting weak hits on his curveball and change all but disappeared. In last week’s piece, we took a look at some other possible …

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A Multi-Layered Look at Gerald Laird

On February 4, 2015 By

Once upon a time, the Rangers had depth at catcher at least as envied as what the Red Sox have right now. In 2007, Texas traded Mark Teixeira and received Jarrod Saltalamacchia as one of that package’s headliners; they also had control over the promising Taylor Teagarden, and Max Ramirez was starting to get some attention as a catching …

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Yoan Lopez: Talent at a Premium

On January 14, 2015 By

Tuesday started off with a bang for the Diamondbacks. In a rare occurrence, the team actually dominated the headlines and just about everyone’s twitter feed. Dave Stewart made some comments about analytics that were probably taken a bit too far but garnered plenty of attention. He also announced that the team wasn’t going to be trading for a catcher, electing …

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