Currently viewing the tag: "Peter O’Brien"

“Where were you when you heard the news?” you probably won’t ask a friend or baseball-talking colleague some indeterminate chunk of time from now. “You know, the news that Big Pete got traded and Rubby’s coming back as a reliever?” The odds of one remembering that time and place are slim to none. That’s because most of us lead lives …

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The game of Diamondbacks musical chairs continues. I sometimes wonder what song they’re playing when the music is on. Is it light pop music? Maybe White Snake? Perhaps it’s some modern house music to confuse the middle-aged participants? Either way, the music stopped briefly yesterday and several people were left without a chair, notably coaches Mark Grace and Matt Williams

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Peter O’Brien‘s MLB call-up this season was completely warranted. The guy had slugged his way into some big league action and based on the response of his fans, it was even a month or more late. He’d been crushing it in Reno through the first two months of the season, just like he crushed it in 2015. He was …

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As we noted last week, minor league baseball has been in action for two months now, and with the draft just days away, we’re only a couple weeks out from all affiliates getting under way. There’s enough of a sample for us to finally dig into, enough for us to draw some conclusions about where things stand right now. Right

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Only weirdos refresh minor league roster pages every twenty minutes. That officially makes me (and hopefully a couple of others) a weirdo. Minor league rosters started taking shape about a week and half ago and can reveal certain clues about how the team feels about its prospects. Best of all, we get to see which players will be facing new …

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By now you’ve heard of the “Shot Heard ‘Round the Desert.” Of course I’m referring to the massive home run hit by OF/1B Peter O’Brien earlier this week. It was massive. In fact, it was more than massive. According to Thesaurus.com, I could have used words like colossal, gargantuan, gigantic, mammoth, towering or even elephantine. I should use elephantine more …

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The Diamondbacks had their first Spring Training game yesterday. Aside from the fact that the game itself is pretty meaningless, it did signal a return to something we all love: baseball competition. The game also included a couple of non-roster invitees, and while we looked at all of those guys a while back, it seems smart to zero in …

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The Diamondbacks had one major need this winter and they’ve filled it about as adequately as possible. Yes, they could still use an impact reliever, but by and large, the work is done. Finding an impact reliever might be difficult-to-futile at this point considering the team probably knows full and well who is and who is not available at this …

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Why would the Braves think that Shelby Miller and Arodys Vizcaino are worth A.J. Pollock and Aaron Blair? Even by just making a quick calculation, it’s pretty clear that Arizona would come up short in that deal from a value standpoint. Yet the Braves asked anyways and were fine with being turned down for now. They’ll leave their ringers

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We’ve looked at the bottom of the 2016 Top 30 Prospect List. We’ve seen the middle of it, too. I’ve talked about how I do this and why I do this, so there’s that, too. A ton of names have been dropped, tools talked about and projections detailed. And while none of the aforementioned prospects cracked the forthcoming top 10, …

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The upper minors are a mixed bag. On one hand you have some of the most talented, close-to-the-majors guys in system playing their tails off in AA, trying to get the call. On the other, you have a big crop of major league vets who are toiling at AAA hoping to get one last crack at the big leagues. The …

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There’s been a ton of focus on the major league club around here and that’s for a good reason. They’re doing pretty well and certainly have blown those preseason expectations out of the water, plus they’re a pretty damn fun team to watch play baseball. The gears are still grinding in the minors, however, and it’s about time a few …

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Yasmany Tomas is a good player, and signing him was a good move. It seemed like a particularly great idea for the D-backs to sign Tomas as far back as early last September, because it represented a way to add talent without subtracting talent — signing him did not mean forfeiting a draft pick, and unlike most free agent …

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Whenever evaluating prospects, an organization, a trade or something else where value is assigned, it’s always valuable to pull in different perspectives. Early in the week, I broke down The 2015 Diamondbacks Midseason Top 10 Prospects. As always, the order and ranking of prospects, plus those omitted, created plenty of discussion, both in the comments and on twitter. After …

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It’s that time of year again, the time when everyone starts to recalibrate their prospect rankings. Several midseason lists have appeared at Baseball Prospectus, Baseball America and other sites. Last week I profiled our Top 30 Prospect List from last winter and provided some updates, noting that some things have changed. There have been some graduations and some disappointing campaigns. …

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With the improved play of the Diamondbacks this year, it’s easy to focus on what’s taking place in the majors. There are a boatload of compelling storylines, like Yasmany Tomas’ transition to the majors, Jake Lamb’s emergence (and Ryan’s subsequent adoration), Archie Bradley’s ups and down, Paul Goldschmidt’s battle with Bryce Harper for NL bragging rights, …

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