Currently viewing the tag: "Zack Godley"

Is This What Success Feels Like?

On September 27, 2017 By

Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think I’ve fully come to terms with the success the Diamondbacks have experienced this season. The team was projected to win 77 games entering the season, and after what we witnessed last year, you can understand why. There were very few changes to the squad in the offseason. It was mostly the same …

Continue Reading

My goodness, there are a ton of relief arms in camp this spring. I know, I know. This isn’t exactly unheard of as relievers, especially those not slated for late inning duty, are probably the most fungible assets in the game. They’re also the most volatile. With performances fluctuating wildly and sample sizes small, evaluating relievers is difficult in the …

Continue Reading

Pitchers and catchers report for Spring Training in about a week. That’s cool, and plenty of Diamondbacks are already in Scottsdale given the team’s headquarters fall inside the Cactus League boundaries. You don’t need a refresher on how the starting staff fared last year. It was a disaster, and even Robbie Ray‘s bright spot (strikeouts) had it’s own detractors …

Continue Reading

How do you know if something is broken? Usually, you give something a go and don’t get the desired effect. Maybe you try again and still get an error. Other times, after a second try, everything works just fine. There always little blips on the radar of life. I mean, we all have to cycle our routers once in a …

Continue Reading

The playoffs started yesterday, and that’s both good and bad. Playoff baseball is fun (good), but with every passing final box score, we’re reminded that the long, cold, dead, baseball-less winter is fast approaching (bad). The Jays beat the Orioles in a game that’ll remain notorious for Buck Showalter neglecting to use Zach Britton, the best reliever in baseball, …

Continue Reading

One of my favorite debates within the baseball analytics community is how to evaluate pitching. We’ve collectively moved on from ERA since it has some obvious problems. The first is the most glaring: ERA tells most of the story of what happened, not how talented a pitcher is. We don’t really care what happened, we care mostly about how good …

Continue Reading

It doesn’t seem like it was long ago that we discussed Rubby De La Rosa being the fifth starer. If you’re tallying up “the best five,” Rubby seemed like the right guy to be about fifth on that list. Zack Greinke, Shelby Miller and Patrick Corbin are all clearly better. Robbie Ray is probably better, too, and he …

Continue Reading

When the D-backs reported for spring training a year ago (yes, it really is February!), the roster had been partially blown up. For the rotation, there were at least twelve candidates — and only Josh Collmenter and Jeremy Hellickson had slots essentially locked up. They don’t have rotation slots locked up this year.

What a difference a year makes, right? …

Continue Reading

We know that the Diamondbacks’ rotation will be better in 2016. Part of that is because it would have been hard to be worse, but there have also been some notable additions. You may have heard about this. I’m guessing you did. For a team with big aspirations, a boost to the rotation was at the top of the holiday …

Continue Reading

Whenever decisions don’t seem to make sense, it may always be because of missing information. Over the last year, there have been very many decisions by the D-backs front office that have been hard to understand. A staggering number of them suddenly make sense, though, with a single bit of information: this team has prioritized ground balls. With their recent …

Continue Reading

They say you have to have at least two pitches to make the majors. Three if you want to start. Having any number of “average” major league pitches is impressive, really, but they’re certainly not all created equal. Some guys have one “plus” pitch they can lean on to get the job done most of the time – a pitch …

Continue Reading

Yesterday, the third and final installment of the Diamondbacks Top 30 Prospects was released. Dansby Swanson grabbed the top spot ahead of familiar names Aaron Blair and Braden Shipley. Fellow 2015 draftee Alex Young came in fourth and Brandon Drury rounded out the top five. Ranking Young ahead of Drury wasn’t easy, but it came down to the value …

Continue Reading

Last week we kicked off the Diamondbacks Top 30 with two posts, first a Primer, then Prospects 21-30. The back end of the list is difficult to compose as there isn’t much that distinguishes most players in that category. But this list, well, it’s entirely different as projected outcomes shift significantly from #20 through #11. There are guys …

Continue Reading

Former manager Buck Showalter helped to shape the D-backs franchise well before it ever had a major league team take the field in 1998, taking a job in 1996 and helping to build the organization from the ground up. A probably-not-self-described “micro manager,” I’ve always loved the guy despite his role in building a Yankees dynasty — in part because …

Continue Reading

When the Wheels Fell Off of 2015

On September 17, 2015 By

Once upon a time, the Diamondbacks were a relevant baseball team. If it seems like that was a long time ago, it’s because it kind of was. If it seems like that wasn’t a long time ago, it’s because it kind of wasn’t. I don’t really know what that means – it was a middle amount of time ago? The …

Continue Reading

D-backs position players rank 3rd in the NL this season in FanGraphs’ version of Wins Above Replacement. Sure, they could be better — two teams actually are — but for a team that finished last in baseball just last year, that’s a pretty enormous accomplishment. Hitting is a big part of it. The D-backs currently have a 96 wRC+, and …

Continue Reading