Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick expects payroll to be lower next season

Arizona Diamondbacks owner and managing general partner Ken Kendrick said Friday he expects the team’s payroll to be lower next season.

Kendrick told Arizona Sports’ Burns & Gambo on Friday that the team’s payroll, which was over $198 million in 2026, will “not be at the same level.”

“If you go look at those contracts that are expiring, we have some very significant contracts that are expiring with, unfortunately, players that made little or no contributions to the team,” Kendrick said.

“You don’t spend the money just to spend the money. You spend the money you think is appropriate to put a winning club on the field, and I think we can put a winning club on the field based on some of the high-dollar players going away that’s going to be very competitive.”

With the collective bargaining agreement set to expire on Dec. 1, the Diamondbacks have several impending free agents this offseason, including starters Zac Gallen and Michael Soroka, the former of whom was making over $22 million last season, according to Spotrac.

With D-backs manager Torey Lovullo back next season on a two-year deal, Kendrick said that with an expected lower payroll, he hopes some of the younger players on the team get more playing time next season.

“We have a lot of very outstanding young players that deserve a chance to play. They aren’t as expensive as some of the veterans, and I think we will end up spending less money,” Kendrick said.

Here are some of the highlights from Kendrick’s interview on Burns & Gambo: 

Kendrick explains key Diamondbacks decisions 

Gambadoro: When did you decide that you wanted to have Torey (Lovullo) back as your manager, and why did you want to have him back?

Kendrick: It’s almost always been our case that we don’t make a final commitment to a new contract until the season has ended. We talk about these things and had a general consensus about a week ago that we would do what we ended up doing. But we officially made a decision finally after the decision and we have signed him.

Gambadoro: Was there any trepidation in bringing him back due to the team not making the playoffs this year or any of the past three years?

Kendrick: I think the answer has to be that we believed going into this season that we were a playoff-caliber team, and for a variety of reasons that didn’t happen even though we went down to the very last day of the season and could have been in…. That happened to us a couple of years ago, and I think the answer is: when these things continue to happen, you wonder, ‘well if you did something different, would the outcome be better?’

And the other side of that is if you did something different, would the outcome be less than basically playing till the last day and then unfortunately not getting in. So to be completely candid, we want to be successful. And successful means, at a minimum, playing in the playoffs, and that hasn’t happened since we’ve won the National League three years ago, and we’ve continued to invest much more significantly in the team, and with additional investment comes greater expectations.

Guest co-host Tim Ring: Mike Hazen on these airwaves today kind of fell on the sword a little bit in terms of the decision to bring Torey back and said we didn’t give him enough as a front office for this team to reach its goals this year. Do you concur with that?

Kendrick: Not necessarily. I think on paper, we had as good a team as I can recall the Diamondbacks ever having. I think in fairness, we had two things of significance occur, and that’s an enormous amount of lost days to injury and losses to very key players, and that certainly is impactful. I’m not saying that as an excuse. It’s just a statement of what happened.

Separately, we had star players who didn’t have their best seasons. You can go player by player, and you can say some guys performed better than we hoped. Example: Nolan Arenado, Gabriel Moreno; then you can say others, and I won’t throw anybody under the bus, but there are other players that didn’t have their best season.

So, all in, did we give him a team that could be successful? I think we did. Did circumstances intervene? Yes, they did. But I think when you’re spending the money that we spent this year on the team, the highest by far ever in the history of our organization that goes back nearly 30 years. We spent over $200 million on this team.

We won the National League Championship with a $120 million team three years ago. So to say he didn’t have resources, I don’t think, is an appropriate comment.

Gambadoro: We’ve talked a lot about Torey. Mike Hazen is under contract for the next couple of years too. I wanted to get your thoughts on the job you think he has done as your general manager.

Kendrick: Yeah, I think he has gone on record as saying this was not one of his better years as a general manager, and I won’t argue with him.

Gambadoro: Torey was on with us yesterday, and he said flat out, “I am no longer going to protect Ketel Marte,” who’s now gone four years in a row with incidents that have embarrassed the organization. How frustrated have you been with him not showing up for games, taking himself out of the lineup? And if he does return next year with you being a primary evaluator, will you demand more of a commitment from him and more accountability from those who coach and manage him?

Kendrick: It is not my job to micromanage the players. It is Torey’s job to manage the players. He’s going on record now in a way that you described. And I hope that Ketel, if he is a Diamondback, I hope will be the player that he has the talent to be. And I hope he will overcome his consistent acts of immaturity.

Gambadoro: Will you demand that from him and the people who will manage him?

Kendrick: That is what his manager should be doing, not me. I don’t mean it to come out as I don’t have any responsibility in all of this. I do. But the primary responsibility for the ball players is the field manager once they’re selected by the general manager. And we’ve had a lot of good results from Ketel, and we’ve had some unfortunate acts of immaturity, and that needs to end.

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