Arizona Diamondbacks' best and worst-case scenarios for 2024

Corbin Carroll during photo day at Salt River Fields at Talking Stick on Feb. 21, 2024 in
Corbin Carroll during photo day at Salt River Fields at Talking Stick on Feb. 21, 2024 in / Rob Schumacher/The Republic / USA TODAY
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Arizona Diamondbacks' Best-Case Scenario for 2024

The D-Backs are defending National League champions, so the best-case scenario for 2024 has to involve contention for an NL West division title. That best-case does, however, require that a few things to go right.

1. The kids who carried this team in 2023 have to continue their uptick. Notably, NL Rookie of the Year Corbin Carroll has to develop into an MVP candidate. In 2023, Carroll batted .285 with an .868 OPS, 25 home runs and 54 stolen bases. If he can elevate those numbers to .300/.900 with 40 homers and 60 steals, Arizona’s dreams are alive.

2. They’re really alive if Gabriel Moreno becomes the National League’s answer to Adley Rutschman behind the plate. Moreno batted .285 with strikingly solid defensive numbers. What he lacked in 2023 was power; just 27 extra base hits held his OPS+ down to 104, barely above average.

3. The vets need to deliver career seasons. That may be asking a lot of Christian Walker and Ketel Marte, since they are arguably already coming off of career seasons, notching a combined 58 home runs and 185 RBI. But if they can match or improve on that, the D-Backs are legit.

Worst-Case Scenario for Arizona Diamondbacks

You can summarize Arizona’s worst-case scenario for 2024 in two items. They are:

1. The Los Angeles Dodgers are in the same division. Enough said for that one.

2. Starting pitching. I like Zac Gallen, too. He was 17-9 with a 3.47 ERA last season, and entering his age-27 season, there’s no plausible reason to expect much of anything short of excellence from him. Beyond Gallen, though, concerns loom.

Merrill Kelly is coming off the best year of his career with, a 12-8 record and 3.29 ERA in 30 starts covering 178 innings. But Kelly will be 35 in 2024, and that’s an age when pitchers frequently show some decline. If Kelly is any measure less the pitcher in 2024 than he was in 2023, there’s trouble.

That trouble is doubled if the supporting arms the D-Backs are counting on don’t develop to their and the team’s fondest hopes. Brandon Pfaadt, the projected No. 4 starter, looked good in the post-season. But Pfaadt was 3-9 with a 5.72 ERA over 18 regular season starts. How much are you willing to lean on a good October?

The D-Backs are betting $105 million over five seasons that Eduardo Rodriguez will pitch like he did for Detroit in 2023, when he went 13-9 with 3.30 ERA in 26 starts. But that was the best season of Rodriguez’ life; he’s in his 30s now, with zero seasons of more than 160 innings since 2019. If Rodriguez merely reverts to form, his ERA will climb three-quarters of a point. That would not be good.

Most realistic scenario

The D-Backs survived last season despite pretty routine team numbers. They were strikingly average both on offense (98 team OPS+) and defense (98 ERA+). They finished 84-78, a record that was good enough to qualify for the postseason only through the grace of the modified postseason format, which admitted six teams from each league rather than five, as in previous seasons. Arizona was No. 6 by virtue of their mastery over one team, the Cubs. The D-Backs beat the Cubs six of seven in September and still finished just one game ahead of Chicago.

Aside from Rodriguez, they haven’t added much during the winter. They did get Eugenio Suarez from Seattle to play third base, but considering that Suarez batted just .232 last season with a league-high 214 strikeouts, one can debate whether that’s an improvement.

The other pickup of possible note was Joc Pederson, who will be the primary DH. At this stage of his career, Pederson is a confirmed journeyman, although so was Tommy Pham when Arizona obtained him last year, and that worked out pretty well.

Best guess: Nobody’s picking anybody to overhaul the Dodgers in the NL West, but there’s enough here to dream. Maybe Carroll will produce that MVP season; maybe Moreno will become the NL version of Rutschman; maybe Gallen will win the Cy Young, Pfaadt will make every month seem like October, and Kelly will forestall the aging process.

If all that happens, then the Diamondbacks are a legit wild card contender. If not, well, it isn’t a long fall from 84-78 to below .500.

The Cubs' Cody Bellinger deal makes sense for both sides (calltothepen.com)

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