Is It Time To Close The Book On The Arizona Diamondbacks of 2006-2010
by Wimb on May 18, 2010 1:50 AM EDT
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PrintI posted this over in the fixing the D-Backs thread but Jim suggested I move it to a separate fanpost, so here goes (bear in mind I wrote this before the Florida game ;) )
I’ll start by qualifying my remarks as admittedly I’ve seen little baseball with my eyes this season. Due to the time difference I’m mostly confined to reading the box scores and having a look through the recaps. In this regard being 8 hours ahead of you guys is some what of an advantage as it saves my eyes from seeing this gargling vortex of suck, but I’d still rather be watching live baseball every night :(
But looking at it from afar it does beg the question of whether this ‘core’ that we’ve put our faith in for the last 4 years or so has run its course. I’m not only talking the team, but of Josh Byrnes who has overseen our slide since May of 2008 onwards.
In my eyes there is little excuse for this franchise to be lagging behind the Rockies and Padres in this division, and even the Giants shouldn’t be that far away from us either.
Since our over inflated unsustainable payroll of death delivered us 3 playoff runs in 4 seasons, we’ve made the post season just once, (and arguably that was by statistical fluke) Is that something that should be considered acceptable by fans of the team? is one playoff berth in 8 seasons something that the Arizona Diamondbacks and its fans should be content with? The likes of the Pirates, Royals, Rangers, Mariners etc have even less success then us over the last 8 years so is this middling mediocrity something that’s to be lived with and any playoff run considered a bonus?
I don’t ask those as loaded questions… I ask honestly as given my transatlantic base it’s quite difficult to judge the mood and long term expectations of a sports franchise in the States.
But assuming the Diamondbacks aspire to be a perennial contender, or even produce a winning team every 3 seasons or so, should we class this team as a failure?
The likes of Drew, CoJack, Snyder, Webb, Ojeda, Qualls, are regularly lauded as being good players, worth our time, money and patience. But has the window of opportunity for success with the Diamondbacks closed for them? Moreover should the Diamondbacks be holding onto the likes of LaRoche and Johnson for a season or two if we could get several decent prospects that can serve us well in the future? In my eyes that group of players had 2008-2010 where they were supposed to shine and they failed to do so.
We all sat here in the wake of 2007 and said ‘these guys are only going to get better’ and put our faith in them while we traded away top prospects to aquire the likes of Dan Haren. Sadly a combination of injuries (Webb, Hudson, Davis, CoJack) and financial restrictions (letting Lyon, Cruz, Valverde go) have contributed to us failing to reach the expected heights in 08,09 and seemingly 10.
Over that period, the Diamondbacks front office has made big financial commitments to the likes of Haren, Reynolds, Young and Upton whilst gradually restocking a farm system that currently has little depth above single A.
In my own opinion given the above conditions and the failure of the last 3 year plan, I have to believe that the chief man responsible for roster construction and those who have been team constants in that period should be moved on and a team now built to peak in 2012.
In terms of the team, it seems CoJack is going the same way as Chad Tracy, an infielder, moved to the outfield, back to the infield but ultimately can’t live up to potential and promise of a good start to a career. He was cruelly robbed of last season but something seems to have gone from his game and it’s reaching the stage where I think he needs a fresh start.
Similarly Drew is an above average shortstop but with the likes of Abreu in the system we can afford to gamble on trading one of our prime assets to try and get some prospects in return.
Webby and Ojeda aren’t going to get us much in return for differing reasons but at this stage I think you just take what you can get at the deadline.
Similarly Kelly Johnson and LaRoche are both good pickups but neither seem to have a long term future here, so trading one or both of them should not be ruled out in June/July.
Even Edwin Jackson needs to be considered for a trade IF we get a decent offer for the guy. It’s unlikely we’ll be seeing him much after 2011 and in my model of building towards 2012 he just doesn’t fit.
As for the man who signed these guys and kept faith with them….. Look, don’t get me wrong, I like Josh Byrnes I think he’s a decent guy and clearly has some nous about him. But ultimately the buck has to stop with him. This is now HIS team, one that he’s had 4+ years to help build and one that has delivered just one playoff run in that time. It’s obviously still very early in 2010 but with little signs of recovery this season too looks to be heading to a sub .500 lamefest once again.
That’s for me why he should step aside and let someone else build the team. I’m not baying for blood and I think he COULD perhaps have future success but if you forced me into a keep or let go decision with our GM … for the first time I’m saying go.
It pains me to write such critical things of players and management, especially when they’ve all been great servants and all shown flashes of potential and talent. But their time in the desert seems to have come to its natural end.
Overall I guess in my mind it comes down to 2 real choices. Do we stick with what we have and gamble that 2010 will pick up and lead to a charge in 2011 with some more short term deals in the summer?
Or do we admit this team has failed and make changes with trades/contract/prospect signings with a view to contending 2 years from now.
I really am torn and I realize there is a lot of grey areas in my choices above but I’m going with gut instinct here and to me I don’t see us competing in 2010/2011 with the current core but CAN see the likes of Reynolds, Upton and Young hitting their prime in 2012 to see the sort of success the Rays are now enjoying.
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The way this season has been the last two weeks, maybe I too should move 8 hours away so I miss the games. This is a very roller coaster season so far and I think things will get better for us, as they cant get much worse. Right now, we are playing horribly and struggling, yet there will be times this season when we’re the hottest team that nobody will want to play. Changes do need to be made, no doubt. I’m just glad I dont get paid to make those kinds of decisions. My first move would be to get Parra back to play everyday and try to trade Connor.
I disagree with everything completely.
We cannot just go around trading Drew, Webb, Jackson, etc. These are the guys we brought up from draft all the way to the majors, they are not some journeymen we signed for 2-3 seasons to shore up the offense. This is the essence of building from ground up – you draft good players, develop them in the minors, bring them up to the bigs, and develop them further until you have a good team.
The Twins and the Braves are the two franchises that are usually given as prime examples of ground-up farm system development. They do exactly what should be done: build a core around good young players that have been with the organization for a long time (Mauer-Morneau-Cuddyer-Santana, Chipper-Andruw-McCann-Hudson-Smoltz). Notice that some of the Braves players I mentioned as the “core” are no longer there – they’ve been replaced by stopgap guys like Nate McLouth, Derek Lowe, and Melky Cabrera. They’ve broken up their core by parting with Smoltz and Andruw, the guys that were THE Braves for most of this century, and look what has happened to them. The Twins tried their best to do the same by getting rid of Johan, but when you have back-to-back MVP’s on your club, one of whom is 3-time batting champ catcher, you’ll be fine either way.
On the other hand, look at the Pirates, the team everyone and their grandmother give as an example of horrific management. Imagine the Pirates with Bay, Sanchez, Nady, McLouth, added to McCutchen and Garrett Jones. They would be the class of the NL Central, not the ’10 Reds (so far) or the ’08 Cubs. Instead, they are stuck in a permanent cycle of develop → bring up → make good → trade → develop → bring up →etc.
My point is that, we can’t start just giving up on guys and trading away the pieces that have been in place for a good 5 years now. Tony Abreu can play, but he is not a tenth the leader and the clubhouse/fan figure Drew is. Sure, Parra may have a better batting average and fielding skills than Conor, but he may never be the #2 hitter Conor is right now. These guys aren’t the washed-up high-ranked prospects barely getting by hitting .220 with young hot-shot kids waiting in the wings; they ARE the core of the team. Once you start dismantling that core, it will affect the rest of the team. What would you think if you are Reynolds and you see Drew and Jackson get traded for prospects? In a blink of an eye, you aren’t the third baseman of the future, you are the stopgap rebuilding-year third base filler until Borchering is ready for the majors. Same with Upton – would he have the motivation to try hard if he knows the team will suck for the next 3 years and he will get paid no matter what he does? Given that we will be players in the starting pitcher market in 2010 offseason, would anyone remotely good even consider coming to the Pirates of the West?
Talks of blowing up the team on May 18th make me sick.
Bring back the Baltimore Chop!
But the point of the post
wasn’t to base the decision on this season alone but on the last four. If the team had been largely successful in this time then questions like this would be idiotic, but the team haven’t been successful so the question is very much worth asking.
'Does Magna Carta mean nothing to you? Did she die in vain?'
by Arizona via Slough on May 18, 2010 1:26 PM EDT up reply actions
Agreed.
So yes, we can close the books on the expectations of the 2006-2010 Diamondbacks.
There have been some moves that seemed to side track us on that road map we were all following back then. You can’t foresee injuries or illnesses and how these will impact the team.
Time to blow things up? wholesale, no. certain aspects, could live with if we got something of value in return.
Anyone who attempts to generate random numbers by deterministic means is, of course, living in a state of sin.
by unnamedDBacksfan on May 18, 2010 2:18 PM EDT up reply actions
I agree to an extent...
It’s not worth tearing down the entire house, what I’m suggesting is we keep those who have shown abilty and have long term deals here and aim to win in 2012.
To be rid of Reynolds, Upton, Haren, Young would be foolish given the contracts they are on. They are the future of the organisation and are young enough to really contribute for 3-4 years down the line.
My argument is that some of the ‘older-young’ players like Jackson, Drew, Webb, Ojeda, Snyder and the short-midterm rentals such as Johnson, Qualls and LaRoche, should be moved on to give us the best chance of winning long term. The Braves teams you speak of also had the benefit of 3 Hall of Fame starting pitchers, a future HoF 3rd basemen and numerous other perrenial all stars. You can’t say losing Smoltz stopped them winning though, he was well past his peak by the time he left and Jones has done absolutly nothing since he left either.
The problem with Drew/Jackson/Snyder etc isn’t that they’ve no talent…. in my eyes it’s more the fact they’ve not shown the consistancy to be a success here. There is no way you can compare the likes of Jackson and Drew to Mornau and Mauer, or Chipper and Andruw. The players I’m suggesting we move on are solid but not great players, who a contender may be willing to give up a couple of good prospects for. Trading for prospects is always a risky business but I beleive that holding onto players with 1-2 years left of control who are not going to hit great heights is pointless if we want to actually win something once in a while.
If we do sell off some of the longer serving players yes we’ll probably suck throughout 2010 and even into 2011. But would you sacrifice those seasons for a shot at going deep in the post season in 2012/2013? As I said in my OP, the moves I’m suggesting are ones that are painful to consider but there comes a time when you just have to say ‘enough is enough’ and realise that your core isn’t as strong as you’d like and it’s time to draw up a new map.
I think that we need to look at the Rays/Rockies model more then the Pittsburgh one if we want success. There’s no way I’m suggesting we move J-Up, Reynolds etc, but the Rays were prepared to move good but not great players like Kazmir, Young, Edwin Jackson in order to get pieces and the payroll flexability to compete when their very best young talent were hitting their peak.
There is so much potential for the front office to really build something special if they are prepared to make short-mid term sacrifices. Those millions of dollars saved on Jackson, Drew, Webb, Qualls could be used to draft better players, and ensure that the very best players can be locked up long term.
It may just be a personal opinion, but I’d rather go back to the hope of 2006/2007 when we had ‘a great core of prospects’ to look forward too, rather then watching the same guys scuffle about season after season with little real improvment or consistancy.
Time for another drink then?
http://www.wimbles.wordpress.com
You use
“the likes of” a LOT.
Letting our bullpen pitch is like playing Russian Roulette...
...with an automatic.
Agree with author
I understand the reply by dima on the fact that blowing this club up now and making all sorts of moves would be a bit premature, but again, from a historical prospective, what loss is there?
The Diamondbacks have ranked near last in batting average over last 3 years (16th-2007, 13th-2008, 12th-2009) and near the top in errors and strikeouts. Sure giving up signals change and prospective, but what good has happened? Webb and Haren choked it in 2008, 2009 was a nightmare, and 2010 is shaping up to be a night terror. Why? Well there are 3 avenues of blame you can point to.
1) Ownership- which has led the Diamondbacks to near bottom of MLB payroll now for 4 years. Does Kendrick and co. own this team for fun? or do they want to win? I am confused at times of the direction and dedication of ownership. Sure it’s easy for us to spend money on games and food and all the other jazz, but where is the return thank you. The original poster on this is correct, 2007 was a lucky wacky near, and if you remember all the statistics pointed to this 1st place finish as one of the most bizarre things to occur in baseball in decades.
2) The GM and Manager- the team was quick to use Bob Melvin as the scapegoat last year, and this year we were all told “AJ will have a fresh season all to his own”, okay… and your record or winning percentage more fairly to compare is worse. Your team: Is better. Melvin didn’t have Webb, neither does Hinch, but Hinch does have LaRoche, Conor Jackson back and Kelly Johnson. The pen is worse, but not by too much. Rauch was lighting up suck last year the way a few of our heroes in the pen this year are as well. Josh Byrnes is the reason more than AJ. We ALL say this and that about JB and his direction of this club, but again the numbers really can’t lie. 2007 was good because we had Valverde, Brandon Lyon had a good year, and Juan Cruz was even decent. That alone helped a lot, but Josh Byrnes involvement in keeping that around was lacking. The thing that some saw that others didn’t, 2007 was seen as some highly successful year and everyone got super excited thinking the Diamondbacks were so close to winning it all, and a few tweeks would win us the ring in 2008. The problem of course was that JB refused to look at the numbers. The hitting wasn’t good, the pitching was. We add another great pitcher, ignore the hitting and factor out the luck we had in winning 1 run ball games by trading away the pieces that WON us those games, and you have an 82 win seasons, slipping to an -8 win difference. What do now DO have is a nonexistent farm system. We all love Haren, but the excitement and promise of that quirky 2007 season was HIGHLY overlooked and over exaggerated and 2008 led to disappointment. It was careless and it costs us years most likely. But say what you want, that’s just my feeling.
3) Players. Dima you responded by saying that if we cleared out some players, and people like Mark Reynolds were left thinking he’d be traded possibly, maybe his K’s or the big contract to bat .250ish in return for driving in runs for a team that can’t get on base is to blame? What I’m saying is, since 2006 or 2007 or even 2008 whenever this “core” had their first full seasons, NOT 1 of those players- Drew, Reynolds, Jackson, Upton, Young, Snyder, etc have had back to back seasons where their numbers either remained close to the same or better. Drew majorly feel off from good 2008 to a weak 2009, Upton is struggling thus far in 2010, Jackson is following very likely to what Chad Tracy was, Snyder is injury prone and hits inconsistently, Chris Young is getting paid to do nothing like what 2007 was. These players play for themselves I feel at times as opposed to winning as a team. (hence the K’s?). The potential was high, but 3-4 years later none of these guys have been all-stars more than once, nor have they posted numbers that are far beyond league averages for players similar to them (exception on Upton last year for his HRs). At what point do you realize this team has decent players, but not the caliber to take us to the playoffs again and not by the fluke 2007 season where we finished last in hitting, there is no correlation to the Dbacks hitting being good and a potential entrance to the playoffs.
My point is this, we’ve tried, and tried, and waited and hoped and crossed our fingers and done about everything possible to get better. But when you see signings like Tony Clark in 2009, Tom Gordon, Bob Howry, resigning Ojeda, Blaine Boyer, etc etc etc, what really is happening? How come Colorado, nor Minnesota, or some of those other younger teams haven’t done the same stupid mistakes. The Padres are even better! The Dodgers, Giants, more and more teams that successfully picked out players and coached and led them to be big name stars very quickly.
The Diamondbacks have a cycle for sucking for last 4-5 years, and 2007 sure was exciting but let’s be honest, we knew to be better in 2008 it would take more than Dan Haren, with that last place hitting. 2007 = Lucky Chance, admit it or not it was.
I think most will agree but that same crap they fall back on “oh our players are young” and “he has great potential” has to stop. I’d respect this organization much more if they straight up came out and admitted things have been bad since about May 2008, bad decisions were made, he’s the plan for the next few years, and we will be winners again with a great strategy in place.
Bob Howry getting some $4 mil to be released not even 8 weeks into the season is a joke. What idiot would pay that much to Howry considering his lack of success over last few seasons. The stupidity has to stop.
I’m not fighting those that oppose what i’m saying, its just me venting and what I feel is really the root of the problem.
Pitching wins championships, but pitching is SP and RP, when you fail to recognize one, and have only a mid level offense, with only 2-3 good starters, you’ll never win. Ever. Maybe get to .500 but NEVER win.
Best of luck to Dbacks in future…
Ugh have you seen Chris Young lately?
The dude has been pretty decent.
I hear voices in my head They council me They understand They talk to me.
Not yet (IMO)
Although I think we are currently digging ourselves a big hole, I’m not willing to give up on this year until we find out more about Webb. If he can pitch effectively, our starting rotation goes from acceptable to good – especially if you assume Haren gets back on track. Jackson has shown flashes, Kennedy has been excellent, and even Lopez has pitched well for a #4/#5. We obviously still need a bullpen arm or two.
However, if we are going nowhere by the All Star break, I actrively seek offers for Webb, Laroche, Johnson, Drew, Snyder (likely to bring good returns, assuming Webb can pitch). I keep Reynolds, Young (probably can’t get much for him and he is showing improvement), Upton, Montero, E Jack, Kennedy, Qualls. Everybody else is probably available if the right offer comes along, although I wouldn’t expect much return from anyone else.
Change starts at the top
I do not entirely disagree with the initial post, but I do have a variation.
How about a return to Joe jr. at the GM helm, Gibby running things on the field, Mattie backing him up on the bench, Gonzo at first, and Brett Butler bringing home the runners from third?
Players come and go anyway thanks to free agency, but culture and attitude start with the management team, and I think we have our biggest issues there. I’m afraid Ken Kendrick is not going to be sitting on the sidelines much longer, and he is only going to be pulling strings above the 25-man roster.
At this point it won’t make much difference if Webby comes off the DL 100% like his old self or not. Someone has to be able to close the game, and I don’t mean just the bullpen. There is good talent on the field and on the DL, and it is talent that can win games, but we need to correct the attitude that is settling in and that needs to start higher up than the dugout.
Joe Garagiola, Jr.??!?
Really?!?? The guy who left us million$ in debt and signed Russ Freaking Ortiz?? The architect of the 2004 season?
Letting our bullpen pitch is like playing Russian Roulette...
...with an automatic.
by DbacksSkins on May 19, 2010 12:50 PM EDT up reply actions
Joe jr
Seems a little old to be running a baseball team, but anything that will keep him off the tv is fine with me!
excellent post wimb
like the long-term thinking. i wouldn’t go for blowing it up, as these guys can win (maybe minus the ‘pen, ahem). Rockdodger has it right, there’s a malaise in the clubhouse that we need to get rid of. IMO, this was already creeping in with Melvin, and the Hinch hiring made it worse. We need some absolute credibility in the manager spot, a Gibby or Butler. J. Byrnes has made some nice moves, but yes, we need to be thinking long-term, which includes him on the hot seat if things don’t turn around eventually, possibly including others in the FO.
"Have a take and do not suck or you will get run." - Jim Rome
What's happened to the Baby Backs?
Dima hits the nail on the head that for a franchise to be successful for the long run it has to build its farm system from the ground up. The Braves and Twins had good systems; when the Dodgers were strong they did it from what came out of Albuquerque, not from the auction block. If we want long term quality we have to quit trying for short term solutions.
by Mr 4CornersFan on May 23, 2010 10:00 AM EDT reply actions
Wow!
BigPapaKishi! It’s been awhile…
Letting our bullpen pitch is like playing Russian Roulette...
...with an automatic.
That
retarded dolphin Roucsh and Valverde and even Lyon are all doing very well this season. Is is the catchers that they are throwing too, the bullpen coach or something else ?
Steam Rollin' Cub's fans like an 18 wheeler with a drunk driver driving. There's no survivin'.
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