Arizona Diamondbacks 2017 Preview: How many wins?

Steven Burt, 75 wins

The follies of the previous regime will leave their impact on the 2017 Diamondbacks and beyond until they decide to finally cut their losses and rebuild. With a league worst farm system and aging stars, expectations should be tempered. They may surprise with young players improving, but it shouldn't cloud the bleak future outlook of this team.

MichaelMcD831993, 78 wins

I'll split the difference between 69 and 86, which averages to 77.5 and round up.

Turambar, 85 wins

Because nothing could ever be as bad as last season. Right? RIGHT!?!?!??? In all seriousness I'm just drinking the cool aid of the new regime (minus the Dark One Mike Butcher) and this season could be just as bad, but I think our starting pitching will at least be decent and a return of Pollock and Peralta should keep our offense respectable. We'll see, but please God, don't let last season repeat itself.

Charlie Gebow, 78 wins

Seems about enough of a bump that some good health/better pitching would get you with more or less the same team otherwise. I could be wrong.

edbigghead, 72 wins

Pitching will still be our downfall.

Keegan Thompson, 76 wins

Unlike Dave Stewart, I see value in projections. I'm not going pretend that I'm more intelligent than a proven computer based projection system. The best part about having tamed expectations is that anything better will be a welcomed surprise to me. I'm not certain that enough offseason changes were made to put this team above .500. However, I do also feel that this is a team that can outperform expectations and catch lightning in a bottle. We have to perform better in close games. The largest potential weak spot I see on this team is the bullpen, and I expect the makeup of names there to change significantly as the season progresses. The offense has been in the Top 10 in the majors for runs scored the past two seasons finishing 8th & 10th respectively. The pitching staff must give the offense the opportunity to score more runs than the opposing team.

James Attwood, 77 wins.

I feel like being optimistic. I'd like to think that health has been enough of a pain for the team over the last two seasons. If this team can stay healthy, I like what they have in place for a core with Goldy, Greinke, Pollock, Walker, Ray, Lamb, and Owings. I think the team cannot possibly do worse in the outfield, which will be a major point of improvement. Mostly, I think it is actually just plain difficult to be as bad as the team was in 2016. Simple regression to the mean should help this team a god deal.

Unfortunately, I am also a realist. The team still has very little depth. If anyone gets hurt, the waiting replacements, though better than last year, are still almost certain to be below replacement level. Zack Greinke and his fastball are in decline (though I still think he can be one hell of a pitcher). The pitching staff still has control issues. The farm is barren and Ken Kendrick still owns the team. These things are going to limit the upside that the team can reasonably expect to achieve. Achievement above and beyond that will require copious amounts of luck and some unsustainable streaks of the right sort, such as an inordinately high win percentage in one-run games.

David Castro, 72 wins

I'm a glass half full kind of guy and I see a slight improvement from last season's 69-wins. Onward and upward!

Makakilo, 84 wins

My predicted total is 36.4 WAR.

My predicted wins are 47.6 wins(replacement) + 36.4 wins = 84 wins.

• Bullpen - will be average, which I translate to 3.2 WAR
• Starting pitching - Each of Walker, Ray, Greinke, and Corbin will reach 3+ WAR, overall SP total is 15.7 WAR
• Catcher is 1.1 WAR
• First Base is 5.3 WAR
• Second Base is Drury who exceeds expectations; total is 2 WAR
• Shortstop: Owings, Ahmed, or both. Total is 2 WAR
• Third Base is 2 WAR
• Outfield is 4.5 WAR
• Budget flexibility to fix something is 0.6 WAR"

Jim McLennan, 75 wins

Feels like I'm being cautious here, and hope I'm on the under side. This is largely based off last year's results, and the limited moves made this winter. We lost Segura and Castillo, which will impact the offense, though if we get a healthy season from Pollock, that's going to be a big boost. Adding in the aging improvement for young players, and I think the offense will be about the same as it was in 2016.

Of course, the problem was the pitching. That should be better, albeit largely because it's hard to see how it can be worse. I'm just not sure how MUCH better. The bullpen bothers me in particular: Rodney is less reliable than Ziegler, and I'm not sure the 7th and 8th innings will be less of a minefield than last season. But again: after 2016, the only way is up for our relievers!

Now, prove me wrong and give us a winning season. D-backs.

Nate Rowan, 79 wins

The starting pitching performs much better than last year, with 4 out of the 5 starters improving on their ERA from 2016. However, the offense declines a bit due to the loss of Jean Segura and Welington Castillo, causing the offense to go from 2nd in the NL in runs scored down to 6th or 7th. Additionally, struggles from the bullpen to find one or two go-to guys causes many small leads to be blown late. Sure, if the cards fall into place the D-Backs could compete for a wild card spot; you're talking about a whole lot of cards though.

Summary

Only two of eleven pundits expect the D-backs will have what it takes to produce a winning season. The average across the board projects the team to have a final record in 2017 of 77-85. That would be eight games better than Arizona managed in 2016 - but would extend their streak of years without a winning record to six.

Oh, look: it’s a poll [for those not on AMP, etc!]