D-Backs Potpourri: Don’t Go Home Again

As you grow, the world around you changes, and you change as well. Your life may take you various places away from where you once grew up. You may root yourself elsewhere and your childhood hometown may become a distant memory.

Or maybe you long to go back to those simpler days, and where you were is a big symbol of them. Even though you’re an adult with responsibilities, bills, worries, etc, maybe if you were there, it could be alleviated even if by 1%.

However, nostalgia is a dangerous thing. If you make it part of your life’s goal to go back to where you were or experience something you think you lost, you are most certainly not looking ahead to the future. You might not realize until far too late that everything has changed and you have uprooted everything only to the detriment of yourself and those around you.

You can’t go home again, Mike Leake.

Build a bullpen in modern baseball is not an exact science. Relievers can have a high degree of variance from outing to outing, if only cause relievers usually pitch only one inning, if that.

The Diamondbacks have had some trouble in the past two seasons finding late-inning arms to close out games. Brad Boxberger and Greg Holland were claimed off the heap to try to get late-inning outs. They, for the most part, did not. So what should the strategy be going into 2020? There are options.

1. Roll the dice a little and shell out money to a free agent reliever who has an established track record. There’s always a worry they might turn into a pumpkin, because of the high volatility of relief pitching. However, you’re probably getting better odds with a pitcher with an established track record.
2. You can be more aggressive with your 40-man roster construction to shuffle arms up and down as needed to try and see what sticks with guys in your minor league system. See if anyone sticks and can give you solid production.
3. What the Diamondbacks will probably do again: Get a guy who used to be good on the cheap because he was DFA’d by his last team. FERNANDO RODNEY 2.0 HERE WE GOOOOOOOOOO *airhornairhornairhorn*

To me, personally, the 2019 season “ended” for the Diamondbacks when Luke Weaver got hurt. When that happened, the back end of the rotation spiraled into a ferris wheel of not-quite-ready or extremely underwhelming options from the minors. If he doesn’t get hurt, are the Diamondbacks in better position for a Wild Card Spot? Do they make the Greinke trade if they’re firmly in the playoff hunt? Does the electric company not turn off my power because a healthy Luke Weaver means they’ll take old boxes of Crispix as payment, because the constitution doesn’t explicitly say that’s not legal tender?

Sadly, the world may never know.

A non-baseball lesson this week. Apparently when you go outside by the dumpster at your place of work, and see a few javelinas rooting around in the dumpster, exclaiming “Oh shit, javelinas” startles them and makes them growl at you. Who knew?

Thanks for reading, as always. I miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight try the “Mailbag Column” one more time next week. The last time I tried this I got literally nothing, but sometimes I’m wont for ideas and that’s an easy one. Think of questions. I’m trying to not be too redundant.