What the experts are saying about the 2015 Arizona Diamondbacks
Apr 3, 2015, 9:25 PM | Updated: 9:26 pm
We’re just days away from the 18th Opening Day in Arizona Diamondbacks’ history.
With a new regime headed by chief baseball officer Tony La Russa, general manager Dave Stewart and skipper Chip Hale in place, the 2015 D-backs aren’t being weighed down by any lofty preseason expectations.
Last year, Arizona lost an MLB-high 98 games, necessitating change in the front office and dugout. But change is present all around. None of the five pitchers in the early season rotation — Josh Collmenter, Jeremy Hellickson, Rubby De La Rosa, Chase Anderson or Archie Bradley — were in the same spot for Opening Day 2014.
The club aggressively pursued Cuban defector Yasmany Tomas and signed him to a $68.5 million deal. He’s expected to contribute at third base in ’15. On the other side of the diamond, All-Star Paul Goldschmidt is back and healthy after a broken hand sidelined him for the last 51 games of the season.
La Russa, one of the architects of the roster, is bullish on the D-backs’ upcoming season, despite what the national perspective may be.
“I really believe that the experts don’t understand how solid our position player squad can be,” he said. “And we have some depth, too.”
About those experts, here’s a little sampling about what they’re saying about the Diamondbacks heading into the campaign.
Will Leitch, Sports on Earth
Leitch put together a list of 125 predictions for the season, and used three of them on the D-backs.
106. Tony La Russa, a man who infamously handles losing the way the rest of us handle kidney stones, will have to stop going to Chase Field every game by mid-May.
107. We’ll discover that Yasmany Tomas isn’t just not a third baseman … he’s probably not much of a fielder anywhere.
108. Paul Goldschmidt will remain the most unheralded brilliant hitter in baseball.
Jonah Keri, Grantland.com
Keri picked the D-backs to finish last in the NL West, taking the under on the projected win total of 75.
Get ready for lots and lots of homers from Arizona’s right-handed sluggers — but even more from opposing batters teeing off against its flimsy pitching staff. If you like watching 8-7 baseball games, this could be your team. Just brace yourself: They’ll probably put up a fair bit more sevens than eights.
Yahoo! Sports
Three of the five members of Yahoo!’s panel pick the D-backs to finish last in the West, but Mike Oz and Chris Cwik have them finishing ahead of the Colorado Rockies for fourth place. Although none of the panelists projects Arizona to win more than 72 games.
Cwik believes Goldschmidt will lead the senior circuit in home runs (he’s the only one to not pick Miami’s Giancarlo Stanton) and two panelists — Jeff Passan and Oz — predicted Tomas to be the season’s biggest letdown.
SI.com
The D-backs didn’t garner even one mention in SI’s six-panelist piece. That can’t be a good thing, can it?
ESPN.com
The “Worldwide Leader” projects 74 wins and a fourth-place tie with the Rockies for Arizona this season. Hey, they even have the D-backs possessing a very small chance to make the playoffs, so there’s that!
A disaster of a 2014 season has started Arizona down the rebuilding road, with the team’s contribution age declining to the fifth youngest in baseball and the youngest in the division. ZiPS doesn’t think playoff aspirations are completely hopeless with a 4 percent projected playoff shot, but it’s exceedingly unlikely with the team having only two 3-WAR projections for 2015 in Goldschmidt and Pollock. The team is still very early in the rebuilding process and it remains to be seen if Dave Stewart and Tony La Russa are as adept at running a franchise as they were at throwing the forkball or using left-handed relievers.
Hardball Talk
The folks that cover baseball under the NBC Sports umbrella aren’t too jazzed about Arizona’s 2015 chances, either. Half of their six-person panel projects a fourth-place finish, and the other half says the D-backs will remain in the division cellar.
CBS Sports
Eighty percent of the CBS Sports five-person panel of experts picked the D-backs to finish dead last in the National League West. Only Matt Snyder projects Arizona to finish ahead of the Colorado Rockies for fourth place.
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