Mike Hazen Talks Evan Longoria's Role, Diamondbacks Ceiling
Diamondbacks GM Mike Hazen met with media today to discuss the Evan Longoria signing that was first reported last week and made official yesterday. In discussing the merits of this player he said that Longoria is a player that they discussed all off season. He said that talks bogged down waiting for the trade market to settle, but once they made the Toronto trade they were able to circle back to a player they feel is a natural fit for the team.
Specifically citing "how he balances out some of our left hand hitting infielders", Hazen inferred that Longoria will be in a platoon, time share with Josh Rojas at third base, with Rojas playing the majority against right handers and Longoria against left handers. Longoria later confirmed this in his own press conference. Hazen said Longoria will also occasionally DH and play third base whenever Rojas is spelling Ketel Marte at second base. Hazen said that adding someone with experience and "veteran presence" was an important consideration for him, but he also emphasized that Longoria still hit the ball hard and is a good third baseman.
Hazen made it clear that while this move and others he's made this off season help add depth, experience, and raise the floor for the team's performance, there is a lot of upside ceiling on the Diamondbacks.
"I feel like we've shored up some areas of weakness from 2022. As I said before I think the majority of the growth of our team is going to come internally.....We have a lot of young players and I'm hoping [those players] will continue to work this off season and come in ready to go and build upon the seasons they had last year."
Noting that the bullpen was his responsibility to reconstruct and acknowledging that he was still not finished there, he said he is relying on the remainder of the team to come in and improve.
On follow up he was asked if he felt the moves made to date were more about raising the floor and reducing volatility, and therefore depending on the youth to raise the ceiling .
"I think Lourdes [Gurriel] getting back to 2021 raises the ceiling. I think [Gabriel] Moreno taking a step forward in the position that he is, raises the ceiling. It's don't think it's 100 to zero. I do think that the outside acquisitions, in aggregate the bullpen becomes not the 28th to 31st (sic) performing bullpen, we've raised the ceiling. "
"I think Ryne Nelson, Drey Jameson, Brandon Pfaadt, Tommy Henry, Corbin Carroll, Alek Thomas, Jake McCarthy, that group of players, Ketel getting back to Ketel, Perdomo taking a step forward, Josh Rojas pushing the envelope defensively at third base and around the infield, if those things improve, there's some ceiling to where we can go. "
He was also careful to manage expectations perhaps by adding:
"I don't know how far that ceiling goes. I don't know what should be a reasonable expectation for a younger team, because as much as we all dream on what that ceiling could be it doesn't happen that way. But I think it's a fair assessment of how I feel about the team"
Hazen indicated that the position player part of the roster is mostly complete, although he didn't absolutely rule out further moves. The bullpen overhaul however is definitely not complete in his mind. It's likely we will see further movement in that area then.
