With an off-day today, it seems like a good time to take stock of the early going. We have now completed two turns around the rotation, and Arizona has gone 5-5 against a trio of teams Fangraphs currently has at better than sixty percent odds to make the postseason. Could certainly be worse. [Looks over at San Francisco, 3-7 and in last place in the division, their suckiest start since 2015] Of course, there’s still room for improvement. But given the toughness of the early schedule, keeping around .500, say through mid-May would by no means be a bad thing. However there’s still room for improvement. Let’s look at what has and hasn’t worked so far for Arizona
Hitting
- Runs per game: 3.5 (25th in MLB)
- OPS+: 80 (26th)
- BA: .211 (22nd)
- OBP: .271 (28th)
- SLG: .367 (17th)
This is certainly the area where there has been the biggest drop-off. Last year through ten games, Arizona had scored 58 runs, with an OPS of .800. That’s 162 points better than the figure this year. Some of that may be bad luck. The team’s BABIP this season is .245: 47 points down on a year ago, and ranked 28th. Three regulars have posted an OPS+ of lower than 25 – Nolan Arenado (23), Alek Thomas (15) and Carlos Santana (-19). But let’s be honest: nobody really expected much from them at the plate. Almost as troubling has been three others who were expected to produce. Gabriel Moreno, Geraldo Perdomo and Ketel Marte all have OPSs in the sixties.
Some of this may rectify itself. Marte in particular is hammering the ball. Only two players have more balls classified by Baseball Savant as hard-hit (95+ mph) than Marte’s 18. The problem is, Marte’s average launch angle is 6.9 degrees. It doesn’t matter how hard you hit the ball if you are pounding it into the ground. Last year, Ketel’s launch angle was a much more productive 14.8 degrees. Thomas may simply be unlucky. More than half his balls in play have been hard-hit (52.4%) and the launch angle of 17.8 degrees is fine too. But his BABIP is all the way down at .190. I’d expect his results to improve going forward. Just keep doing what you’re doing, Alek.
Arizona ranks much nearer the middle of the pack in these peripheral offensive metrics. Their hard-hit percentage of 41.1% is twelfth, with a launch angle of 13.5 degrees which is 14th. What is odd is, the offensive struggles have not been due to a team-wide lack of clutch hitting. With runners in scoring position, Arizona has an OPS of .793. That’s eighth-best in the majors. Though it is hugely variable. Marte, Perdomo, Moreno and Santana are a collective 1-for-26 with RISP. Ketel’s walk-off hit yesterday afternoon was that quartet’s first clutch hit of the season. But generally, it has been struggling to get runner on base. With nobody aboard, Arizona has an OPS of just .579.
Starting pitching
- ERA: 3.29 (11th)
- FIP: 4.37 (24th)
- fWAR: 0.5 (24th)
- K:BB: 2.06 (23rd)
- K%: 17.4% (29th)
- BB%: 8.5% (15th)
It’s less the overall performance of the rotation which has been a surprise, than who has been delivering it. After two starts apiece, Eduardo Rodriguez and Michael Soroka have combined to throw 22 innings while allowing just a single earned run. Anybody see that coming? Zac Gallen has been okay: one meh start, one good one. But it’s the in-house products of Ryne Nelson and Brandon Pfaadt who have struggled, with a combined ERA there of 6.30. All told, the overall numbers have been good. That ERA is exactly one run better than the Arizona rotation delivered in 2025. But there’s cause to wonder if that is sustainable.
In particular, look at the FIP, which gives back all that improvement, and a little more. It’s worse than the equivalent figure last season (4.21). You don’t have to look far to see why. Arizona’s starters are not missing enough bats. Starters generally this year are basically at 9.0 Ks per nine innings. Arizona are second-worst, all the way down at 6.4. Soroka, who has 13 strikeouts in ten innings, is the only one even at 7.0. Everybody else has combined for 24 Ks over 42 IP. Gallen has fanned only four of the forty batters he has faced. The performance has been very reliant on a .238 BABIP, fourth-lowest in baseball. That may well regress, and it probably won’t be pretty when it does.
Relief pitching
- ERA: 6.50 (29th)
- FIP: 5.03 (21st)
- fWAR: -0.3 (21st)
- WP: +26% (12th)
- Shutdowns: 16 (3rd)
- Meltdowns: 9 (3rd)
The situation here is likely the reverse, in that things aren’t bad as they seem. As noted in yesterday’s recaps, half of the 26 runs allowed by the bullpen belong to the junkball arms of the DFA’d Joe Ross and backup catcher James McCann, who gave up 13 ER in 4.2 IP. Take them out, and Arizona’s relief ERA plummets to a much more respectable 3.73. That would actually be ranked in the top half by overall bullpen ERA, a position the D-backs have not occupied for a very long time. Of course, any other team would improve if you took out their two worst arms as well, but likely not to such a dramatic degree.
It has felt to me like the bullpen has been feast or famine, and you can see that in the shutdowns and meltdowns, where Arizona ranks close to the top in both categories. It seems like almost every game, one reliever or another will have a sticky outing, but everyone else is solid. Consequently, almost two-thirds of D-backs’ relief appearances (25 of 38) have been classed as a shutdown or a meltdown, a far higher ratio than last year’s 41.6%. I think we are still figuring out who can be trusted. But things haven’t been too bad thus far, despite the absence of left-handed options. Hopefully, we can keep improvising until reinforcements arrive, in the shapes of A.J. Puk and Justin Martinez.
Defense and base-running
- DRS: +15 (1st)
- Def: +3.2 (4th)
- Errors: 5 (=10th)
- SB/CS/OOB: 6/2/3
- BSR: -1.4 (27th)
Torey Lovullo made defense a priority after a “disgusting” campaign with the glove in 2025. That was a key factor in the signings of Arenado and Santana, and going by the metrics so far, that seems to have paid off. While these are still very small samples, Arizona have been among the best teams on defense so far. Particularly outstanding has been Thomas, who certainly has not let his struggles at the plate carry over into the field. By DRS (Defensive Runs Saved), Alek’s +4 leads all major-leaguers, with Marte just behind him at +3. Fangraphs’ Def also has Thomas as the best fielder in the majors. Early days, but a Gold Glove could be in Thomas’s future.
The base-running got off to a rough start, with multiple TOOTBLANs over the opening series in Los Angeles. Things have calmed down, with no outs on the basepaths since. Indeed, the team might now be skewing too conservative. Looking at the percentage of times they take an extra base, e.g. scoring from second base on a single, Arizona’s figure of 31% is the third-lowest in the majors. In particular, the D-backs have had a runner on first 22 times when a single was hit. Only twice has that runner reached third safely. Last year, that happened around 33% of the time for Arizona. We might want to pick that up.
Conclusions
As you would perhaps expect from a team with a 5-5 record, it has very much been a mixed bag for the Diamondbacks. That’s in line with the emotional roller-coaster we’ve gone through. From being swept by the Dodgers, to sweeping the Tigers, to being clubbed mercilessly by the Braves, to walking them off yesterday. It is still only ten games, and I expect more or less everything to normalize as the sample size increases. That overall win record may be the most accurate reflection of where the team is heading, rather than particular areas or individual performances.
German Marquez
Ernie Clement
Logan Gilbert