The Los Angeles Dodgers shook up the National League West Division after recently acquiring All-Star shortstop Manny Machado from the Baltimore Orioles. With many intriguing trade candidates still remaining, the Arizona Diamondbacks have plenty of options to make a counter move.
The Arizona Diamondbacks are currently 1.5 games behind the Dodgers for second place in the NL West. With the Colorado Rockies breathing down their necks, and the San Francisco Giants still looming around, the Diamondbacks will look to be buyers at the trade deadline.
During the 2017 trade season, the Diamondbacks made a very significant move. They acquired J.D. Martinez from the Detroit Tigers for Sergio Alcantara, Jose King, and Dawel Lugo.
In the 62 games that Martinez played for Arizona, he hit 29 home runs and had 65 runs batted in alongside a 1.107 on-base plus slugging percentage. This performance helped propel the Diamondbacks to a first place NL Wild Card finish.
Within the dreaded one-game playoff, the Diamondbacks defeated the Rockies to advance to face the NL West leading Dodgers in the National League Division Series. Unfortunately for Arizona, their season came to an end when they were swept by their division rivals in the NLDS.
Over the offseason, the Diamondbacks lost their recently acquired superstar outfielder, Martinez, to the Boston Red Sox in free agency. They responded by trading Brandon Drury, Anthony Banda and two players-to-be-named-later in a three team trade to acquire Steven Souza Jr. from the Tampa Bay Rays and Taylor Widener from the New York Yankees.
Although Souza hit 30 home runs for the Rays through 148 games in 2017, he only has 1 home run in 2018 for the Diamondbacks through 25 games.
All-Star first baseman Paul Goldschmidt is the only Diamondbacks player with more than 20 home runs on the season. Outside of David Peralta with 16 home runs, Nick Ahmed with 12 home runs, and A.J. Pollock with 12 home runs, no other Diamondbacks have over 10 home runs on the season.
As a team, the Diamondbacks are 22nd in the MLB with a .394 slugging percentage. They are also 24th in the MLB with a .309 on-base percentage.
Due to their poor offensive numbers, let’s take a look at three players the Diamondbacks should consider prior to the trade deadline.