2019 NL Wild Card: Because the rules say somebody has to win

Arizona Diamondbacks

76-74, 5.5GB from 2nd WC

So what are we looking for here?

“Deserve” is like fWAR, there are too many factors to break down the formula succinctly, so suffice is to say dWAR – that’s what I’ll call it – dWAR takes into account performance this season versus expectations, the potential heartbreak for each team, the cosmic consequences should they make it in, potential for surviving the Dodgers, most fun to watch, soundness of process to get to this point, and a myriad of other random and/or subconscious factors.

If I made this list a week ago, the Diamondbacks might not be in the basement, but after losing 6 of 7 to the Mets and Reds, it’s difficult to justify saying they deserve to make the playoffs.

They have to be taken into consideration, however, because of their amazing run as a Ewing Theory darling. For the uninitiated, the Ewing Theory was coined by Bill Simmons to articulate the phenomenon of a team playing better after losing their star player.

The 2019 Arizona Diamondbacks have taken the Ewing Theory and made it gospel.

Granted, star players have less sway in baseball than they do in basketball, and it’s less surprising to see a team thrive following the loss of a significant check-collector. This is something slightly different.

By now, you probably know their story: the Diamondbacks lost the three players most synonymous with Diamondbacks baseball over the winter, theoretically prompting a trip to the NL West gutter. Only they put together an extended run of .500-ish baseball to stay within a stone’s throw of the Wild Card. Suddenly, the long-assumed deadline selloff was no longer a foregone conclusion.

Yet selloff they did, trading the current player most synonymous with Arizona baseball and the ace of their staff, theoretically prompting a slide to the NL West gutter blah blah etc.

That didn’t happen either, and until the Mets swept them this last week, they were the hardest-charging chasers.

This team making the playoffs would be a heck of a story. If nothing else, their season announced their arrival as a force moving forward. But they don’t have the pitching to make an extended run, and scrappy as they are, they’re no giant killer. They’ll succumb to the domineering will of their division tormenter in the ALDS, if not in the Wild Card game before.

Come playoff time, I want to see flashes of dominance. These Diamondbacks don’t have that. They have an incredible level of competency, an exciting core of young players, the weakest team/colors/uniform identity in the league, and a puncher’s chase at playing beyond game #162.

That’s fine by me. They don’t deserve more than that. They deserve to stay in this conversation until the very end, and then to bow out respectfully.

We should treat the Diamondbacks like a new employee seeking a promotion at their year-end review. They’re doing great work. The future is bright. We appreciate all that they’ve accomplished in such a short amount of time. But it has been a short amount of time. It’s just too soon. Next year, we can have this conversation again.

Why don’t these Diamondbacks deserve the postseason? Because timing. Because pitching. Because 5.5 games.