PITTSBURGH -- The Diamondbacks made their first move of the Trade Deadline on Thursday, sending first baseman Josh Naylor to the Mariners for a pair of pitchers, and the question now is: Was that just the first of many deals they will make between now and the July 31 Deadline?
It certainly seems to indicate that more moves will be made, but Arizona GM Mike Hazen said he still wants to see how his team performs over the next six games -- three against the Pirates and three in Detroit -- before deciding just how deep the selling will go.
“I'm not sure yet, honestly. I want to see this team continue to go out there and play,” Hazen said. “I haven't decided what it's going to look like. Honestly, I'm open-minded to a number of different things. We're still in the controllable-player market on the buy side, so I don't know. Quite frankly, we're listening to what people have to say and what people have to offer, and we're going to do what's best for the long-term good of this organization.”
The Diamondbacks have third baseman Eugenio Suárez, outfielder Randal Grichuk and right-handed starters Merrill Kelly and Zac Gallen on expiring contracts that would be appealing to contending teams.
Naylor was in a similar contract situation, and Hazen made the decision Thursday to be aggressive in trying to see what he could get for him.
The Diamondbacks told the teams that had interest in Naylor that they had a deal they liked for him, and pushed those other teams to see how high they would go.
“I think when you're the selling team, in this situation, you can dictate the pace at which you want to work,” Hazen said. “We were in a position where teams were matching, or, you know, below, obviously, the deal that we took, but moved way up into the area that we felt comfortable, where deals could get done, and we felt like it was the right thing to do.”
One of the incentives for trading Naylor early is that Hazen didn’t want the first-base market to dry up. When it comes to Kelly and Gallen, though, teams are always looking for good pitchers, so he can afford to wait and see how high the offers for the pair get before the Deadline.
“I just think the pitching market behaves a lot differently than the position-player market,” Hazen said. “So, we wanted to be able to focus our attention and energy appropriately as we move through the week and trying to make two or three trades a lot of times with the same teams, with the same players, I didn't feel like we were going to be able to do as good of a job, So we decided to push the market [Thursday] to see what was going to happen.”
The Diamondbacks opened the year with a team-record payroll of around $195 million. The expectation was that they would compete for a postseason berth.
Injuries to key pieces like ace Corbin Burnes, who signed a six-year, $210 million deal in December, and both closers A.J. Puk and Justin Martinez, along with catcher Gabriel Moreno, are a big reason why Arizona entered play Friday at three games under .500.
Still, Hazen said he thinks the Diamondbacks can turn things around and will continue to give them some time this week to prove it.
“Unfortunately, the pattern for this team has been, on a number of occasions, we've ripped off three or four [wins] in a row, and then we just turn around and it just disappears on us,” Hazen said. “It's not one loss, and then back to winning three or four in a row. It's multiple losses. At some point, I have to take a step back from what I want to do and focus on what the greater good for the organization is. But that doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to be everything. It just means I have to take something off the table at this point [Naylor], and we'll see what happens for the rest of the week. We still have five more days to go before the Deadline.”