There is no doubt that the Arizona Diamondbacks have an abundant amount of talent. They have an electric lineup that could put runs up on the scoreboard in a hurry.
Ketel Marte, Eugenio Suarez, and company were able to lead the Diamondbacks to an 89 win game winning season. Ultimately they finished third in the NL West. It is quite possible that they could have placed higher if their pitching would have performed better.
While the offense placed 1st in runs and RBI’s, the pitching placed 27th in ERA. Their 3 star pitchers Brandon Pfdatt, Zac Gallen, and Ryne Nelson all had an ERA north of 3.50. So you can imagine how the rest of the team did last season as far as pitching goes.
Looking forward to this season, the Diamondbacks have acquired star pitcher Corbin Burnes of the Baltimore Orioles. He has been designated as the “innings eater” by Toery Lovullo. Lovullo has expressed that he is very pleased with the signing of Corbin Burnes as he feels he will be a great asset to the pitching staff.
He has good reason to believe this as Burnes posted a 2.92 ERA and finished fifth in the CY Young Award race.
While Lovullo has a potentially dangerous rotation on tap for the 2025 there are still a great many things that need to go right for the team. Not only do the 4 locked-in starters have to stay healthy and perform, they also need to find a 5th starting pitcher.
As of right now the 5th spot is being competed for by Brandon Pfaadt, Ryne Nelson and Jordan Montgomery. All of whom are not the strongest of choices if we are going by stats. Pfaadt may have had a very shaky season last year but he has done phenomenally in this year’s Spring Training.
Nelson has not done well pitching in 4 games having an ERA above eight. Montgomery has not pitched in a game this spring training so you can’t really tell where he is at. There really is no excellent prospect.
Aside from the prospects fighting for the 5th starting position, you can’t even say that their 4th starter Merill Kelly is even on a good road.
Kelly, who has had some up and down seasons with Diamondbacks, led the league in losses in 2019 with 14, however in 2023 he ended the season with a winning record of 12-8 with an ERA of 3.29.
Kelly is someone Lovullo is seeing as a locked-in starter, but his most recent outing did not go as planned against the Angels. He pitched 2.2 innings, gave up three runs and threw 66 pitches.
Even though on paper this was a less than desirable start Kelly stated that he feels he has made great progress and is finding his putaway pitch, the slider. “One of the things I walked away with today, with how good it’s been this spring, I want to make sure I’m not too slider-happy.” “ I think I still need to focus on what makes me myself.”
Whether that statement holds water or not will be judged by time . I can tell you that if it were me in Lovullo’s shoes, I am not even close to being sold on the idea of Kelly being a starter right now.
I understand that this is baseball, a game that is about longevity and a game where achieving consistency is a tall task. It still doesn’t change the fact that Kelly has not shown much to be granted a spot in the rotation. As I mentioned earlier Kelly has always been an inconsistent starter anyways. Why would it be different this time around?
The fact of the matter is that Lovullo has an abundance of choices, he said so himself. Lovullo’s main emphasis this season when it comes to pitching is depth. We got to have depth. We got to have starters six, seven and eight ready to step in and help us.”
The question is who will be five, six and seven. Lovullo has some tough decisions to make. All I know is that he needs to make these decisions soon because Opening Day is just around the corner.
The 13 pitchers he chooses from and the roles he assigns them could very well determine the Diamondbacks fate this season.
If Lovullo and the Diamondbacks want to make a deep playoff run, it may be time to make some changes. It may be time to make some unexpected changes because the formula last year did not work.
Another big factor that may be overlooked when talking about the Diamondbacks pitching debacle, is that no matter how good they get it doesn’t seem like they will come close to the Dodgers. So that automatically puts them in a situation where they will have to make another wild card run.
While they made a heck of a run in 2023 as a wild card team, it’s hard to catch lightning in a bottle twice and it shouldn’t be the goal.
Regardless, it doesn’t seem that the grass is gonna get any greener on the other side. All the pressure is going to fall on the offence to get them to the playoffs.
The pitching this season could be more than a setback, it could be a liability.
