ESPN writer predicts Arizona Diamondbacks will again finish with MLB’s worst record

At 64-98, the Arizona Diamondbacks finished with the worst record in baseball last season.

Things were bad early on, with the team as many as 14 games under .500 before the end of April. And the organization began troubleshooting early, too, with the surprise hire of Tony La Russa as Chief Baseball Officer in May.

In July, as the trade deadline neared, they sought to unload players like Brandon McCarthy, Gerardo Parra, Martin Prado and Joe Thatcher in favor of prospects.

The D-backs maintained their rebuilding approach in the offseason, with newly-hired general manager Dave Stewart at the helm following the September demotion of Kevin Towers. Chip Hale was hired as the team’s next manager after Kirk Gibson was let go.

Stewart made a splash with the signing of Cuban third baseman/ outfielder Yasmany Tomas before trading away Wade Miley, Miguel Montero and Didi Gregorius for a haul of pitching prospects.

Despite the barrage of changes to 2014’s woeful team, ESPN writer David Schoenfield predicted that the D-backs would once again finish with baseball’s worst record in 2015. He forecasts a 66-96 finish, pointing out his reasoning in a blog post for ESPN.com.

… La Russa hired a veterinarian named Dr. Ed Lewis, whom he has known for 30 years and worked with in the past, as the team’s director of analytics. There are certainly different ways of doing things but this regime doesn’t look all that different so far from the previous one that espoused grit and toughness.

Stewart’s first moves brought in some interesting young arms but this is still a rotation that doesn’t look much better than the group that ranked 27th in the majors in ERA in 2014. Offensively, the D-backs plan to rely on the power of Goldschmidt, Trumbo and Tomas. The issues here are even if Trumbo hits 30 home runs, he owns a .298 career OBP and he’s a big defensive liability in the outfield; Tomas may end up profiling similar to Trumbo as a guy with a low OBP who doesn’t project as a plus defender at either third base or left field. Catcher is currently a black hole — Tuffy Gosewisch, come on down — and the whole lineup aside from Goldschmidt has an aversion to taking walks.

In the post, Schoenfield also lists the players whom he expects to improve and regress while calling Tomas the “most intriguing” player on the roster.

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