Plus, what is the state of the farm system, really?
The Week That Was
Reno scored 62 runs as they split a series with Sugar Land. Unfortunately, they also allowed 67 as the trickle-down effect of the pitching situation hinders their run prevention ability. Amarillo lost a series at home to San Antonio. Hillsboro split with Eugene, losing the first three and winning the final three. Visalia won their series in Lake Elsinore. And the three rookie league teams combined to go 6-9 on the week. That works out to a full record of 18-21 down on the farm over the past week.
Postseason Races
Despite winning their series, the Rawhide saw Rancho Cucamonga recover to take five of six at Inland Empire and clinch the first half title. Visalia, along with Reno and Amarillo, are out of the first half race and will turn their attention to the second half.
Hillsboro remains alive, but is two games behind the Vancouver Canadians, who have won ten in a row. They are also one game behind the Everett AquaSox. With just three games to play in the first half, the Hops basically must win all three games and hope for help. They will be in Pasco, WA, to face Tri-City, while Everett goes to Spokane and Vancouver to Eugene.
Organizational Depth
Rick Scuteri-Imagn Images
The depth of the organization has been tested by the injuries. This leads to multiple questions: how long does it take to develop adequate organizational depth, and do the Diamondbacks lag behind rivals in terms of organizational depth?
For answering these questions, the rankings released by Fangraphs provide the best option. This is not that I think these rankings are superior; rather, this is because Fangraphs lists every player that they consider to be a future major league contributor (even as a depth piece) while others list only the high end. And what we are looking at is depth.
Unfortunately, Fangraphs has not completed all of their 2025 reports. Seven have not yet been done. But that should not make much difference in terms of answering the questions here.
Fangraphs ranks 53 players in the Diamondbacks system, which is the second-most, trailing only the Rays. The Dodgers and Orioles are the only other teams with fifty or more listed. Fangraphs also assigns a dollar value to the systems, and this is where the Diamondbacks fall short, with a system valued at $191 million, which is middle of the pack. This comes from the Diamondbacks having just three players who are considered to be future average or above-average major leaguers. By comparison, the Dodgers have eight. What the Diamondbacks do have is a lot of potential future replacement players, at least in the view of Eric Longenhagen.
The Diamondbacks also have a lot of players nearing readiness, per Longenhagen. Twenty-five of the 53 (47%) have an estimated arrival of 2026 or sooner. By contrast, the Dodgers are at 39%, the Giants at 43%, the Padres at 45%, and the Rockies at 53%. So by these measures, the depth in the system is fine, and Hazen has had enough time to assemble that depth. In fact, the difference between the Dodgers and the Diamondbacks comes down mostly to Roki Sasaki, the highest rated prospect in the division. With Sasaki and Dalton Rushing, the Dodgers have two blue-chip prospects, while the Diamondbacks have Jordan Lawlar.
As a matter of fact, accusing the system of a lack of depth (something I have done in comments) really fails to look at the entire picture. While the Dodgers, because of organizational money and location, do have the upper hand in signing players like Sasaki, the systems are much closer overall than one might think. As a matter of fact, the Diamondbacks’ system feels thin right now because of the injuries up and down the system.
Essentially, according to the future value system Fangraphs uses, players with a 40 future value should be bench players or back-end starters. These are the guys most teams would be calling up as injury replacements. Ideally, teams would have some 45 future value guys to call up; these are platoon players, fourth and fifth starters, and lower-end regulars. The Diamondbacks have four players listed with a 45 future value or higher and an estimated arrival date of 2025. These should be the first players called up as injury replacements. And to a large extent they were. Jordan Lawlar, Cristian Mena, and Yilber Diaz have all been called up at some point. But Lawlar didn’t really have a position to play and struggled in a part-time role, Mena himself is injured, and Diaz struggled with control to the extent that he was sent to the complex. He is back in AAA now, but still struggling with control and working out of the bullpen. Add in the injuries to players who have lost their prospect status (Drey Jameson, Brandon Bielak, and most recently Tommy Henry) and you have a ton of depth missing. Adrian Del Castillo, like Lawlar, would be without a position even if he had been healthy.
So that leaves the next tier of players, the 40 future value guys. The Diamondbacks had three with estimated arrival dates of this year. Joe Elbis had paperwork issues and is now on the IL, but Jorge Barrosa and Tim Tawa have both seen major league time, with Tawa being one of the brightest spots of the year.
Then there’s the 35 future value guys. Three more players had estimated arrival either this year or in 2024 (seemingly the spreadsheet was not updated in the case of Juan Morillo.) Morillo has been up and been replacement level, but Blake Walston is also injured and Andrew Saalfrank is just now returning from his poor-judgment related suspension.
By comparison, the Dodgers had nine players with an estimated arrival date of 2025. That’s one fewer than the Diamondbacks had. But they’ve gotten a lot of production from two of the pitchers (Jack Dreyer and Ben Casparius) although neither was a highly regarded prospect. They’ve also had health from their depth pieces. Meanwhile, the Diamondbacks are relying on players not on their list for innings down on the farm. Avery Short has never appeared on a top prospect list, and he likely never will, but he was pressed into starting in Reno yesterday. Christian Montes De Oca failed to make even Fangraphs’ list, and he’s pitched in the big leagues, and would be still if he had not joined the list of wounded.
Contrary to what I thought before looking into things more deeply, Hazen has compiled a decent amount of depth. The crop of serviceable minor leaguers in the upper levels is on par with other teams in the division, including the Dodgers. The health of that depth and the performance of that depth has not been. Obviously, Hazen has a lot of say in coaching and conditioning, so this does not let him entirely off the hook, but to accuse him of not putting together sufficient depth is no more true in his case than in other cases. The depth is here, it’s just that the depth has also been injured. I mean, here’s the list of pitchers on the roster of teams in the upper minors currently out due to injury: Kyle Amendt, Zach Barnes, Billy Corcoran, Joe Elbis, Tommy Henry, Drey Jameson, and Will Mabrey. Add in the pitchers on the major league injured lists, and that’s fifteen pitchers in the top three levels that are currently out, many of them for the season. Across all domestic players, an astounding 29 pitchers are currently injured (not counting Jorge Minyety, who is on the developmental list.) While the Dodgers currently have fourteen pitchers on the 40-man roster who are on the IL, they have just one each at their top two minor league levels. Their depth is certainly being tested, but that depth has remained healthier, on the whole, than that of the Diamondbacks. (Also, two of those injured pitchers are on rehab assignments right now, so the Dodgers are about to get reinforcements.)
In conclusion, the personnel does not seem to be the issue, so much as maximizing that personnel. The depth would be fine, if people were healthy. The lack of health might be an organizational issue, but that is a different question.
MLB Draft Combine
Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
In the continual effort to become more like the NFL, Major League Baseball (the organization) started the draft combine back in 2021. The first edition was held in Cary, NC; it moved to Petco Park in 2022 and has been at Chase Field each year since. The 2025 edition will kick off tomorrow, with on-field workouts and MLB Network coverage at 9 AM. It’s well-attended, 322 prospects have said they will attend this year. Some will not due to College World Series-related commitments. Five Arkansas players, three LSU players, three from Oregon State, and one from Louisville will almost certainly not make it; the four Arizona players who were eliminated yesterday might be there. High school players will contest a game of some sort tomorrow evening, with more on-field workouts to follow.
The combine provides an opportunity to get some metrics for players using the same Statcast equipment used in the major leagues and AAA, but how much that data sways teams is unknown. In fact, players who are relatively certain to be first-round selections can really only hurt their draft position. But it does provide an opportunity for front offices to meet with players who would have mostly been in contact with scouts and cross-checkers in the past. The Diamondbacks have drafted players who impressed at the combine, most notably Hayden Durke, who showed out there after not getting to pitch at Rice due to suspension. In fact, Sam Knowlton, Jackson Feltner and Kevin Sim were also listed among the “Statcast standouts” in 2023 and were drafted by the Diamondbacks that year. Knowlton threw six of the ten fastest pitches, Feltner had one of the highest exit velocities, and Sim had 15 hard-hit balls in batting practice, fourth most.
Batters of the Week
Blaze Alexander, Reno (.409/.500/1.000, 4 HR, 26 TTB)
Trey Mancini, Reno (.600/.692/.950, 12 H, 25 TTB)
However you measure it, there wasn’t much difference in production between Alexander and Mancini. Alexander’s week Blazed across the Nevada sky with his four home runs, but Mancini got on base at a higher clip and led the organization in hits for the week. He wasn’t a slouch in the power department either, hitting two dingers of his own. But it was especially encouraging to see Alexander breaking out over the last week, as he’s seen time in center field and is a key part of the organizational depth discussed earlier.
Starting Pitcher of the Week
John West, Hillsboro (6.2 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 8 K)
Daniel Eagen also turned in an excellent start for Hillsboro with near-identical stats, and Naimer Rosario had the rare quality start in the DSL. But West is a largely-unknown name who has been pitching well after a rough start. Last year’s 12th round pick out of Boston College, West is a bit of a unicorn. He’s 6’8”, 265 pounds. He’s reportedly sitting in the mid-90s and has added a two-seamer to go with his four-seamer. He didn’t pitch last year, but the Diamondbacks were clearly working on his pitch mix, and he’s already moved from being a fringy late-round pick to a guy who looks like (assuming health) he has the floor of a back of the rotation starter. This was already his third quality start of the year.
Relief Pitcher of the Week
Andrew Saalfrank, Reno (3 G, 3 IP, 2 Saves, 4 K)
It seemed like Saalfrank was being rushed back to Reno because of all the injuries after making just two appearances in the complex after his suspension came to an end. In his two appearances there, he struck out just one batter and allowed four runs on four hits and three walks. So in three appearances at AAA this week, all he did was not allow a baserunner while striking out four. He picked up saves in his last two appearances.
Saalfrank made a big mistake. He served his suspension. He’ll be back in the Arizona bullpen sooner rather than later. With the exception of early last season with the cloud of suspension hanging over him, he’s always gotten results. With Kyle Backhus and Jalen Beeks the only other healthy left-handed bullpen arms on the 40-man, we’ll be seeing Saalfrank soon.
Next Up
The second half of the season will start up in the middle of the week for three of the four teams (if my math is correct; the powers that be either wish to obscure the workings of the minor league postseason from people or simply haven’t updated websites.) In addition to Hillsboro’s trip east to Tri-City, Reno will be in El Paso and Amarillo will be in Springdale, Arkansas to face the Northwest Arkansas Naturals. Visalia will play host to Fresno.