La Russa: D-backs won’t trade team’s core before deadline
Jul 27, 2016, 2:02 PM
Tony La Russa, newly hired as chief baseball officer for the Arizona Diamondbacks, speaks to reporters after being introduced Saturday, May 17, 2014, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Matt York)
(AP Photo/Matt York)
With the Arizona Diamondbacks’ season in dire condition, is it time for the front office to blow up the team and become sellers?
According to D-backs Chief Baseball Officer Tony La Russa, that seems very unlikely.
“The way I look at our club is — not withstanding where we are and how we’re playing and our record, which is pleasing to no one that cares — we still believe the core of this ballclub, the talent of this club, is of contending quality once we keep identifying where things have gone wrong and we fix them and we think that it is fixable,” he said on the Doug and Wolf Show on Arizona Sports 98.7 FM Wednesday.
“With that in mind, what you don’t do is you don’t take phone calls from some club that wants to strip you of that core, that would not be smart and we won’t do that.”
At 41-59 and 18 games back in the NL West, it’s not unusual for other teams to call trying to get a missing piece for a playoff push or just looking for a bargain.
“When people see the club struggling they look at our club as one of the sellers so there are a lot of people that are calling,” La Russa said. “People expect us to be looking to improve our roster by getting rid of somebody.”
Of the conversations La Russa and the front office have had, one position has garnered a ton of attention from other clubs.
“There are a lot of people calling and most of our conversations they look at our young pitching, which is a place we aren’t going to go because, you know, they’re controllable and not expensive,” he said.
While La Russa doesn’t see a trade happening with the team’s young pitching staff, D-backs General Manager Dave Stewart told Off The Edge on Arizona Sports 98.7 FM Wednesday that he feels the team will make some moves in the bullpen at the deadline.
Two players Stewart mentioned were veteran pitchers Tyler Clippard and Daniel Hudson. Hudson’s trade value was up earlier this season, but in July he has struggled to get anything going and his trade stock has suffered because of it.
With less than a week before the trade deadline, the D-backs will most likely move some players, but from what La Russa said, it looks like the core players, along with most of the pitching staff, will stay in Arizona for the remainder of the season.
