Name: Bryan Shaw
Age on Opening Day: 23
Salary: $414,000 (pro-rated portion)
2011 stats (MLB): 33 games, 28.1 IP, 2.54 ERA, 24:8 K:BB
2010 stats (Double-A Mobile): 33 games (13 GS), 101.1 IP, 4.26 ERA, 75:43 K:BB

In 2010, the Arizona bullpen was a disaster. What's that? Tell you something that's new? If you insist...

Much of the credit for Arizona's bullpen renaissance in 2011 has been given to GM Kevin Towers and three of his key acquisitions - J.J. Putz, David Hernandez, and Joe Paterson - and rightfully so. However, I'd like to take a brief moment from handing out the deserved praise to the current regime and take a look back, giving some appreciation to former D-backs scouting director Tom Allison. Thankfully, Allison hasn't been completely forgotten - I'm sure some remember Nick Piecoro's article on Allison from last October.

Still, one could argue that the impact of a great scouting director is nearly as significant for a franchise as the value of a great GM. After all, a GM can only make decisions in a free-market system, hoping to squeeze small margins of extra value out of any given move. A scouting director and his staff are given the luxury of working in a highly-controlled system in which costs are deflated by the league, and thus have the potential for values to vastly exceed costs on a regular basis. Allison drafted and signed several key pieces of Arizona's 2011 campaign and future, including seven players who debuted in the majors in 2011: Paul Goldschmidt, Wade Miley, Collin Cowgill, Josh Collmenter, Jarrod Parker, Ryan Cook, and, of course, Bryan Shaw.

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Name: Joe Saunders
Known Aliases: Bazooka Joe, Colonel Saunders, Abrananaham Lincoln (aka The Great Potassiumancipator)
Age on opening day: 29
Salary: $5,500,000
2011 stats: 33 games, 212.0 IP, 3.69 ERA, 12-13, 108:67 K:BB
2010 stats (total: 33 games, 203.1 IP, 4.47 ERA, 9-17, 114:64 K:BB

Is there any player on the Diamondbacks roster who split the fans quite so much as Joe Saunders did? 2011 was Saunders's first full season in an Arizona uniform, and the reactions to his arrival- and the subsequent expectations- were probably heavily influenced by the memory of Dan Haren's dreamy blue eyes and crafty delivery, and echoing recollections of being told that Joe knew how to win. A rough situation for a pitcher, no doubt, especially given a fanbase that was looking forward to the season with a healthy dose of cynicism and just perhaps a tinge of fear.

But we all know how the 2011 season turned out for the Diamondbacks- would Joe be that lucky? He was a constant source of debate through the whole season, but Joe Saunders didn't seem to know it was going on. He just kept his head down, pitched his game, and did his part to help the team with the division.

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At this time last year, my expectations for the season were severely-muted: "Let's not finish last" was about the extent of them. But, now, we head towards the 2012 campaign in an entirely different state of mind, with the team as defending NL West champions, and apparently possessing a bright future. One of the main architects behind the stunning turnaround is General Manager Kevin Towers, who was in charge of putting together the roster which got us to the playoffs. Earlier in the week, we had a chance to talk to Towers, and in the opening part of this interview, pick his brains on bullpen construction, clubhouse chemistry and narrowly dodging a shaved head...

AZ SnakePit: Going back to the very beginning, what attracted you to the position of Diamondbacks GM?
Kevin Towers: I was out of the GM sphere for a year after working with the Yankees in 2010, and was approached by Derrick Hall about a potential opportunity here. After being out for a year, I guess my #1 priority was working with good people, and I'd heard good things about Ken [Kendrick] and Derrick, and of course, the NL West is a division that I was very familiar with, having been in it for most of my career, with San Diego. I was familiar with the team here, just through having played them so many times head-to-head, and it's close to home, me being a West coast guy, so it seemed like a perfect fit.

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Name: Joe Paterson
Nicknames: "Joe-paw"
Age on Opening Day: 24
Salary: $414,000
2011 Stats: 62 games, 34 IP, 2.91 ERA, 0-3, 28:15 K:BB
2010 Stats: N/A

In 2010, the D-backs bullpen had the worst ERA among all 30 teams. Not only were they grossly awful with a 5.74 ERA, but they were more than a full run behind the next worst team - the Cubs - at 4.72. Then Kevin Towers became the new GM and the great reliever project of 2011 began. Mark Reynolds was traded for relievers, J.J. Putz was signed and Saul Rivera, Carlos Rosa and Blaine Boyer were told never to come back. Eventually, the Diamondbacks would select Joe Paterson in the Rule 5 draft as the silly Giants decided to leave their 2009 Eastern League All-Star unprotected. Joe-paw would quickly become one of the leading reasons why the 2011 bullpen improved to a 3.71 ERA.

34 innings pitched later and it seems as if the Diamondbacks may have solidified their LOOGY void for the foreseeable future with a nice, young pitcher. One who is the sole cause for Prince Fielder moving to the American League.

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Name: Melvin Mora
Nicknames: "WTF MORA", "DFA" , "LOL MELVIN MORA"
Age on Opening Day: 39
Salary: $2,350,000
2011 Stats: 42 games, 135 PAs, .228/.244/.276, 0 HR, 16 RBI
2010 Stats (COL): 113 games, 354 PAs, .285/.358/.421 7 HR, 45 RBI

I stepped on a piece of gum yesterday and it reminded me of Melvin Mora...

That's essentially how I'll remember Mora as an Arizona Diamondback. As a chunk of Hubba Bubba clinging to a sneaker, still glutinous and increasingly vexing. As a once gratifying piece of Stimorol, now a pestering lump of mucilage that has cleaved with the sole of my shoe.

*sighs*

Okay, moving on.

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A few months ago, we looked at the performances of teams which made major strides forward in a season - what happened to them the next year? The results weren't pretty. Of the 15 teams to have improved by 20 games in a season since the Diamondbacks came into being, their W-L record the following season was, on average, 11 games worse. Only one team - the 2004 Cubs - were able to match the win total from their "Great Leap Forward." So, Arizona will have to buck the trend if they are to win 94 games again in 2012. But what if we drill down a little further?

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The general theme of fellow SnakePit author kishi's Ryan Roberts Report Card post was clear: nobody expected Roberts to succeed prior to 2011, but the 30-year-old journeyman nonetheless was one of the most valuable third basemen in all of baseball. With a 107 wRC+, 3.6 fWAR, and - as noted in the Report Card - a .360/.417/.581 line in "high-leverage" situations, Roberts provided immense value to the club at just the right moments, providing an easy, effective fix to the hole provided by the unexpected struggles of Melvin Mora and the oft-injured state of Geoff Blum, players who were expected to fill the third-base gap during a rebuilding 2011 season.

However, it's now 2012, and the D-backs have a much different mindset than they did a year ago. No longer is the team hoping to simply utilize a stop-gap solution at third while hoping to rebuild after a poor year - these are the defending NL West Champions, poised to defend their division title. Needless to say, the expectations are higher, and with Roberts currently penciled in at third base on an everyday basis, he'll be called upon to continue performing at a high level in 2012. This, naturally, gives us reason to take a deeper look at Roberts' emergence. Unprecedented as Roberts' 2011 breakout was, have there been any other instances of a player emerging as an everyday contributor out-of-the-blue at age 30? How have they fared the following season?

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Earlier in the month we opened the polls to decide the final, ultimate award in the 2011 'Pitties: that for Most Valuable Player. In a change from previous voting, we presented a ballot of ten nominees and asked you to rank them from 1-10. The polls have now closed, and one thing is certain beyond all doubt: no matter how large you write it, some people will still be unclear on the meaning of "Please rank the ten candidates in order of "most valuableness", from first to last. "1" is most valuable, "10" is the least valuable."

Quietly muttering to ourselves, we have adjusted the results for those who didn't quite grasp this idea, and the overall standings - and thus, the winner - can be found after the jump. Did Kennedy's Cy Young caliber performance beat out Upton's MVP credentials? And was the Most Valuable Person on the 2011 Diamondbacks the same as the Most Valuable Player or not?

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