Roster Reconstruction<\/h3>\n
Trade and free agent maneuvering have been going \u201cfairly aggressively,\u201d but Hazen also cautioned that \u201cwe\u2019re only a few days into this.\u201d He continued, \u201cA lot of the guys have signed.\u201d But since there\u2019s usually a delay of a few days as details get ironed out, \u201cthere’s probably more in the works that will come out over the next 24 to 48 hours.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hazen is pleased with the progress but not fully satisfied with the moves that the team has made. \u201cWe haven’t done a ton. We’ve done some of the things we want to do and will keep working in other areas. One of the things that we’re going to see, and some of the reason that there haven’t been more moves, is that we\u2019re carving out opportunity for the younger players. Some of the balance of that is blocking them off. When you start to do that, and then you’re not going to get those opportunities. But it’s not a limited opportunity, and it’s not a camp for anyone to come in and try to make the roster in the sense of stopping us from trying to upgrade the roster anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n
They are still working on getting external candidates to fill the need at third base. However, Josh Rojas is taking reps at third so that they won\u2019t be caught unprepared if none of those candidates work out. The team is looking into potential trades as well as free agents, although a trade is more likely. With a trade, a player who has some years of team control left is preferable than a shorter-term solution, given the current state of the franchise.<\/p>\n
Back-End Relief<\/h4>\n
The Diamondbacks have agreed to terms with former Pittsburgh Pirates<\/a> and San Diego Padres<\/a> fireman Keone Kela, pending some red tape. He\u2019s coming off a surgery, so \u201cit\u2019ll be midseason\u201d before he can join the team. But, as Hazen said when signing Ian Kennedy and Mark Melancon, the Diamondbacks are looking to improve their back-end relief. Their performance was \u201cnot acceptable last year. We’re looking to improve that. We have a lot of guys internally that we think are going to have opportunities to pitch out there, too.\u201d They are \u201clooking to add things into the back that are going to help late in games for us. It was not an area of strength for us last year.\u201d<\/p>\n The team is pleased to have Ian Kennedy. \u201cWe like his stuff, makeup, and ability. There were some games last year where we vibrated a little bit back in the pen. Those are tough games to lose. We talk about that a lot. The games that you should be winning you need to win. It has carryover effects. For younger teams, especially, it’s not as easy to just say, \u2018Okay, shower it off, we’ll be back here the next day.\u2019 Those are the toughest games. We need to start winning those games.\u201d<\/p>\n Taylor Widener, Corbin Martin, Tyler Gilbert, Humberto Castellanos, and non-roster invitee Dan Straily are all in the mix for spots in the rotation. Those who don\u2019t make the rotation will pitch in middle relief. Caleb Smith is one who may, due to the shorter-than-usual ramp-up to the season, do some starts at the beginning of the season before becoming a full-time reliever, but that is a conversation the team has not had with him yet. Hazen said about Smith was \u201cone of our best relievers last year. \u201cHe had the most swing-and-miss stuff in our pen and did a really good job.\u201d<\/p>\n Zac Gallen\u2019s bursitis is \u201cnot a concern, from a long-term standpoint.\u201d He pitched Tuesday and \u201cfelt great.\u201d But they are going to be \u201cmindful of his long-term health.\u201d<\/p>\n Ketel Marte, who was named the top second baseman in the league Tuesday night by MLB Network, will play second this season.<\/p>\n Pavin Smith will play right field and first base, keeping him on the same side of the diamond at all times. The team is going to \u201cbe more discerning\u201d when considering which players can handle multiple positions. Center field, right now, will probably be a platoon position.<\/p>\n Designated hitter is still up in the air as far as whether they will rotate guys in or find a full-time candidate. \u201cWith the history that we have with the DH, if I find someone who can bang the ball like a certain Hall of Famer, then that’s one way that you look at that position. I’d probably say that our model, at least initially, is going to necessitate us maneuvering through that position a little bit.\u201d Hazen imagines that other NL teams, \u201cespecially in the NL East,\u201d are \u201clooking at it a little bit differently.\u201d<\/p>\n Manager Torey Lovullo gave his daily debriefing at about 1:30 pm. He said that the players have been working hard and at a high intensity with the drills. \u201cIt’s been hard for me to gauge up until the past couple days what these guys have done during their time down during the 99 days. But they’ve prepared as well as they possibly could have, which has allowed us to kind of push things a little bit quicker.\u201d<\/p>\n Due to how well the players prepared during the lockout, the coaching staff \u201cwill continue to make some adjustments to the original plan of really slow-playing things, but we won’t put anybody in harm’s way. We’ll make sure, once they enter into a big-league game, that they’re going to be ready to go. That might happen a little sooner than I originally planned.\u201d<\/p>\n Lovullo will meet with the medical staff on Thursday to discuss when the 40-man players will get into exhibition games. The original plan was the weekend of the 25th-27th, but that might change. Some of those players got some at-bats on the minor league field Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n Thursday\u2019s starting pitcher will be Tommy Henry, a second-round pick from the 2019 draft.<\/p>\n There will not be any 40-man position players in the first two exhibition games (for sure, possibly more), but three 40-man pitchers will pitch an inning Thursday. Those pitchers are Caleb Smith, Joe Mantiply, and J.B. Bukauskas. Their appearances, earlier than announced on Monday, are \u201cbecause these guys came in as prepared as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n As far as Caleb Smith, the team is \u201cgoing to stretch him out\u201d (for a starting role). At that point, they\u2019ll have a better idea as to what his role will be in the pitching staff.<\/p>\n Josh Rojas<\/a>, Keone Kela<\/a>, Ian Kennedy<\/a>, Mark Melancon<\/a>, Taylor Widener<\/a>, Corbin Martin<\/a>, Tyler Gilbert<\/a>, Humberto Castellanos<\/a>, Dan Straily<\/a>, Caleb Smith<\/a>, Zac Gallen<\/a>, <\/strong>Ketel Marte<\/a><\/strong>,\u00a0Pavin Smith<\/a><\/strong>, Torey Lovullo<\/a>, <\/strong>Tommy Henry<\/a><\/strong>, Joe Mantiply<\/a><\/strong>, J.B. Bukauskas<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Diamondbacks Spring Training: March 16, 2022 Wednesday was the last day of \u201cworkout-only\u201d Arizona Diamondbacks spring training, with exhibition games beginning Thursday. Diamondbacks players went through their standard routines of defensive drills, bullpen sessions, and live batting practice. While all this was going on, general manager Mike Hazen addressed the media Wednesday morning. Here are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2901,"featured_media":53883,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[29,1071],"tags":[2616,196,5152,2974,702,489,1321,582,1820],"class_list":["post-53882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diamondbacks","category-mlb","tag-caleb-smith","tag-ian-kennedy","tag-joe-mantiply","tag-josh-rojas","tag-ketel-marte","tag-mike-hazen","tag-pavin-smith","tag-torey-lovullo","tag-zac-gallen"],"modified_by":"Evan Thompson","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2901"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Rotation<\/h4>\n
Other Positions<\/h4>\n
Torey Lovullo<\/strong> Debriefing on Day Three of Diamondbacks Spring Training<\/h3>\n
Looking Ahead to Thursday\u2019s Exhibition Game against the Colorado Rockies<\/h4>\n
Main Photo:<\/h4>\n
![\"Diamondbacks](\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2022\/03\/Diamondbacks-Spring-Training-20220316.jpg\")
<\/a>Players mentioned:<\/h4>\n