Diamondbacks Gameday Thread, #117: 8/12 vs. Padres

Roster moves

The Arizona Diamondbacks made the following roster moves:

• Selected INF Buddy Kennedy (No. 16) from Triple-A Reno.
• Optioned INF Emmanuel Rivera to Reno following last night’s game.
• Designated OF Kristian Robinson for assignment.

Kennedy will be making his 2023 debut, having appeared in 30 games last year, putting up a line of .217/.287/.325 for a .613 OPS (75 OPS+). He has been tearing the cover off the ball in Reno, where in 87 games, he has hit .318/.447/.480 for a .927 OPS. Obvious caveat: it’s Reno. So, applying the standard discount to Kennedy’s stats, we get an MLB expectation of .236/.354/.348 for a much less appealing .702 OPS. That’s only sixteen points better than Rivera has given the team this year. The weirdness is seeing Robinson DFA’d. He got promoted to High-A last month, which is roughly age-appropriate for a 22-year-old, and has had an .800 OPS over ten games there.

He was the team’s #12 prospect, per MLB, and #15 according to James, so seeing him DFA’d like this is a little weird. Now, it might be a bit of a stretch for a team to put him on the 40-man roster, considering his lack of experience. But it’s certainly not impossible, especially a team without any pretensions of competing this season. Of course, the elephant in the room is Robinson’s well-documented legal troubles, which effectively took him out of baseball for almost three years. One has to wonder whether something outside the lines - whether related to the previous case or not - which caused the team to cut bait on the former top hundred prospect. We’ll see what happens.

“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a cleat stamping on a Diamondbacks’ face—for ever.”
— not George Orwell, 1984

In defiance of recent form, “celebrations” will continue at Chase Field, marking the team’s 25th anniversary with throwback weekend. In line with this, the team has been losing games like they were the reincarnation of the 2004 Diamondbacks. Nine in a row to this point, even though they scored more than four runs yesterday, for the first time since July 26. It’s only the fourth time over the past twenty games, Arizona has managed to reach the tacos standard. The team are now 0-4 in those games. I would normally say something along the lines of, “Hopefully, ace Zac Gallen will stem the tide.” But even though Gallen has been great at Chase Field (9-1 with a 1.96 ERA), I’m going with no more than, “We’ll see.”