Day 5: Arizona Diamondbacks

The entire schedule of when team recaps will be.

Team: Arizona Diamondbacks

2007 Regular Season Record: 90-72

2007 Postseason Record: 3-4; lost in NLCS

Cost per Win: $52,067,546 / 93 = $559,866 per win

2007 Season Recap: The Diamondbacks had a better than expected season especially when you consider the age of their team. Add a young team with the fact that Randy Johnson missed nearly all of the season and you would expect the team to have a horrible season. The exact opposite happened though. They went out instead and won the NL West, arguably it was by a slim margin but still all things considered winning the division was probably more than they expected. First the Diamondbacks swept the Cubs in 3 games in the NLDS outscoring them 16-6. Then the D’Backs ran into the Colorado Rockies who they had barely edged out in the regular season. The Rockies were on an amazing roll and the Diamondbacks stood no change and got swept in 4 games.

One of the Diamondbacks biggest stories of the year was Brandon Webb’s consecutive scoreless inning streak. Webb threw 42 consecutive scoreless innings in the regular season and threatened to match Orel Hershiser’s record, he came up 12 innings short. In addition to that story was just the good story of the young Diamondback players playing consistent good baseball. While they did play consistent none of them put up amazing numbers. Only 1 player hit over .300 on the season and that was a pitcher. Rookie pitcher Micah Owings impressed with his bat as much with his arm. He went 4-4 two times in the regular season and ended with a batting average of .333.

The Diamondbacks did get one distinction that they may not be too proud of and that is that they were the first team to ever make the playoffs while getting outscored in the regular season by their opponents. The Diamondbacks scored 712 runs on the season and their opponents scored 732 runs. They still made the playoffs though so they probably weren’t complaining too much. In the end though that lack of offensive power proved to be their downfall in the postseason.

Key Free Agents: 1B Tony Clark, SP Livan Hernandez; Clark won’t prove to be too big of a loss but his experience could have helped a young team develop and grow together. Clark served as a fill in player for a large part of the season, starting in only 43 games, due to the rise of 25 year old Conner Jackson who will most likely keep his first base duties for several more years. Livan Hernandez may prove to be a bigger loss. This could severely hurt the pitching depth especially with the question mark of how healthy Randy Johnson is and if he will be able to come back and pitch. Hernandez will most likely sign a big contract somewhere due to the thin market of free agent pitchers and the Diamondbacks aren’t a team to lay down big money for players, especially considering the success they had this year with few big contracts on the payroll. It will be interesting to see exactly what the D’Backs do to assemble a solid 5 man pitching rotation.

Offseason Needs: The biggest need is at pitcher but I won’t go in depth into that because I already have. Besides pitcher they simply need to find some players that can hit for higher averages. I think they will all come from in house as the young talent develops into smarter more patient hitters. So really the D’Backs don’t need to be too aggressive in the offseason just simply need to work with the guys in the clubhouse.

Prediction for the 2008 season: I personally like the Diamondbacks so I would love to see them succeed but they have an uphill battle. They got lucky several times last season and if that luck changes at all they could be on the outside looking in next season. They will have another close battle in the division with the Rockies and Padres and in the end I think the Diamondbacks will end up out of the playoffs with the Rockies instead riding the good vibe from the World Series into the next season. I also don’t see the wild card coming out of the west again so all that leaves no place for the D’Backs in the playoffs. I do think they will be an improved team but a lot of other teams around them will improve too. I can’t say I would be surprised if they made it but my prediction is that they come up just short.