Focus on What He's Getting Helps Hazen Make Impactful Trades

The Diamondbacks general manager is no stranger to making the big trades necessary to improve the club.

Executing trades can be very difficult across Major League Baseball. As the saying goes, it takes two to tango, and for two teams to agree upon a potential trade it has to come to some tangible benefit for them. For a team like the Arizona Diamondbacks, a mid-market club, having the courage to execute trades to try to improve your team is a must when spending hundreds of millions of dollars in free agency isn't an option.

Hazen himself is no stranger to making big trades, with quality players coming in and out of Arizona. The most recent example comes two offseasons ago, when the D-backs traded outfielder Daulton Varsho to the Toronto Blue Jays in exchange for catcher Gabriel Moreno and outfielder Lourdes Gurriel Jr. The deal couldn't have worked out better for Arizona in 2023, as Moreno emerged as one of the best young catchers in the league and Gurriel re-signing in the offseason, but the move itself was risky at the time.

"There's going to be a burned factor to it for sure, or you're going to watch Varsho go out and have a good year" said Hazen. "He's going to end up being a really good player, but we got really good players too. Ken Kendrick has hit me on that a lot, don't worry what you're giving up just tell me what you're getting. I think that's an interesting perspective to go through from a trade standpoint, focusing on what you're getting as opposed to what you're giving up."

Focusing on what he's getting is a perspective he's learned from watching his former boss, Dave Dombrowksi, in Boston. Dombrowski has taken four different franchises (Florida, Detroit, Boston, Philadelphia) to the World Series as the primary decision maker, with two championships.

"Dave, was willing to give up good players to get good players. I have to remind myself that he's done a good job on a lot of those weird trades because he's willing to give players up."

Going even beyond the Moreno trade, there are plenty of examples of Hazen making some blockbuster deals that contributed to the team's success last year. He gave up his top prospect, Jazz Chisholm Jr., at the 2019 trade deadline to pick up Zac Gallen. Gallen has since become the ace of the pitching staff with back-to-back Top 5 finishes in the Cy Young Award voting. He also gave up an All-Star caliber second baseman in Jean Segura and a future All-Star outfielder in Mitch Haniger to pick up Ketel Marte. Marte went on to win the NLCS Most Valuable Player after the D-backs came back from down 2-0 and 3-2 to take the series.