Burns & Gambo draft its own Arizona Diamondbacks Dream Team, Day 3

How would you build the ultimate Arizona Diamondbacks Dream Team?

Arizona Sports’ Burns & Gambo will be answering that question this week, as hosts John Gambadoro and Dave Burns, anchor Sarah Kezele and producer Jordan Byrd each draft their own squad.

All four will fill out an entire eight-man position lineup, with five starting pitchers and a closer.

With a random drawing for draft order and going snake style, Sarah, Jordan, Burns and then Gambo made up the order.

Once the draft concludes, a panel of three judges of Greg Schulte, Tom Candiotti and Mike Ferrin will pick the best overall baseball team.

Check back here on ArizonaSports.com each night, where we will be recapping the days and breaking down each pick.

Here is where the teams stand through the first eight rounds, with a breakdown of the picks you’ll find in the related links.

Team Kezele: Randy Johnson SP, Steve Finley CF, Dan Haren SP, Ian Kennedy SP, J.D. Martinez RF, Aaron Hill 2B, David Peralta LF, Daniel Hudson SP

Team Byrd: Luis Gonzalez LF, Zack Greinke SP, Justin Upton RF, Robbie Ray SP, Jose Valverde CP, Stephen Drew SS, Orlando Hudson 2B, Chad Tracy 1B/3B

Team Burns: Paul Goldschmidt 1B, Brandon Webb SP, Patrick Corbin SP, Miguel Montero C, Craig Counsell 2B/SS/3B, A.J. Pollock CF, Mark Reynolds 3B, Chris Young OF

Team Gambo: Curt Schilling SP, Matt Williams 3B, Mark Grace 1B, Ketel Marte 2B, Jay Bell SS, Miguel Batista SP, Wade Miley SP, Damian Miller C

Here are the next four rounds, which were selected on Thursday.

All statistics via Baseball-Reference

Round 9

33. Tony Womack, SS (Team Kezele)

Womack wasn’t much of an extra base hits guy and that hurts his numbers, but his ’99 season is actually pretty great. In D-backs history it ranked sixth in runs scored (111), 21st in hits (170) and of course first in steals with an absurd 72.

A career .269 hitter in Arizona, Womack had Sarah lean more towards a fan favorite here than someone who was more productive. Her lineup lacked a true lead-off hitter, and Womack will be solid there.

34. Josh Collmenter, SP (Team Byrd)

Here comes a run on starters.

Collmenter had two seasons in Arizona with an ERA under 3.50 and has two of the top-16 seasons in WHIP. His career ERA, in fact, with the D-backs is 3.54, a good number for Byrd as his No. 3.

35. Omar Daal, SP (Team Burns)

After Burnsy grabbed some guys who were consistently great over a half-decade or longer, he goes with the two-year wonder in Daal.

The lefty had a 2.88 ERA in 1998, eighth all-time, and followed it up with a 3.65 ERA in ’99. That season he posted a 4.6 WAR, 19th on the D-backs leaderboards.

After that, Daal’s career completely spiraled, including a 7.22 ERA through 20 outings in 2000, his last season with Arizona. That has to factor in and what has obviously left Daal on the board this long.

36. Doug Davis, SP (Team Gambo)

None of Davis’ seasons in Arizona crack the top-40 of the leaderboards in any major statistical category outside of innings pitched.

Davis was always just fine. His ERA over three seasons with the D-backs: 4.25, 4.32 and 4.12. That’s over 93 starts, a respectable amount of consistency for the back-end of Gambo’s rotation.

Round 10

37. Gerardo Parra, OF (Team Gambo)

Great value here for Gambo. Parra’s defensive WAR of 3.2 in 2013 is third all-time and that year he hit .268 with an OPS of .726. Over his D-back career, Parra had a .721 OPS and won two Gold Gloves.

You’re not going to do much better than a decent bat and great glove when getting to the back-half of filling out your position players, and Gambo managed that with Parra.

38. Nick Ahmed, SS (Team Burns)

Ahmed’s 2018 was the best defensive WAR season in franchise history, and he’s got three in the top-10. His value there is undeniable.

The question is if Burnsy gets Ahmed’s most recently upgraded bat, which in 2019 produced career-highs all over the board and an OPS of .753.

Even if we are talking more about the average hitting Ahmed provided as opposed to this one-year blip of improvement, it’s still a great pick in round 10.

39. Brian Anderson, SP (Team Byrd)

We have hit the part of the draft where you’ve just got to get dirty in order to fill out the rest of the team. The lefty Anderson has some impressive numbers despite the finished product being rather blah.

Anderson’s 2000 season brought on a WAR that ranks top-25 all-time, and four of Anderson’s D-backs seasons find him on the top-50 WHIP leaderboard. His 1.038 walks per nine innings in 1998 is the best mark in franchise history.

At the end of the day, though, Anderon’s career ERA was 4.51 in Arizona. Could Byrd have done better? Not really.

40. Eduardo Escobar, 3B (Team Kezele)

Escobar’s 2019: .269/.320/.511 with 35 homers, 118 RBIs, 29 doubles and 10 triples.

In 212 games for the D-backs, he has an OPS of .817. That’s the same as Reynolds’ and higher than Williams’.

That’s the type of bat that was going in rounds 6-8, and Sarah gets it here at the end of the 10th round. Surely the strategy for some prioritizing iconic D-backs/fan favorites and so on hurt Escobar here, because I’m not sure otherwise how he lasted this long.

Round 11

41. Max Scherzer, SP (Team Kezele)

One of the best pitchers in baseball right now was not that in Arizona, but he was still decent.

Over 46 outings, Scherzer had a 3.86 ERA as a D-back. That’s a lower number than you remember because Scherzer had a 3.06 ERA over 16 appearances as a rookie.

He was only average as a D-back and only over two seasons. With that being said, Scherzer as your fifth starter is awesome. Sarah is owning this draft.

42. Quinton McCracken, OF (Team Byrd)

Of the 16 outfielders to play at least 200 games in the D-backs outfield, McCracken’s .702 OPS ranks 15th, second to last.

He did have a one-year bump where he hit .309 in 2002, which is the 12th-best batting average by a D-back ever.

Not a fan.

43. Zack Godley, SP (Team Burns)

That 2017 Godley season is underrated, even if we all know it’s good. A 3.37 ERA, 4.3 WAR and 1.142 WHIP is one of the 15-25 best statistical seasons by a D-backs starter ever.

Now, he couldn’t replicate that and had a career 4.70 ERA in Arizona, so that makes Godley a difficult player to judge in this exercise. A decent get for Burnsy as his No. 4.

44. Brad Ziegler, CP (Team Gambo)

Gambo declared Ziegler the second-best closer in D-backs history, and the numbers back it up.

Arizona has had 24 seasons of a closer posting at least 15 saves, and Ziegler’s WAR in 2015 and 2016 rank fourth and ninth on that list, respectively.

Ziegler’s 1.85 ERA in 2015 is numero uno on that list and his 2016 mark of 2.82 is also in the top-10.

Round 12

45. Jean Segura, 2B (Team Gambo)

Segura had one of the best offensive seasons in team history, but that was his only season in Arizona. Apparently, that was enough of a reason for him to last this long, because my goodness did he rake that year.

Segura’s all-time D-backs rankings for that 2016: fifth in WAR (6.4), fifth in batting average (.319), 28th in OPS (.867), 15th in runs (102), second in hits (203), 10th in doubles (41) and fifth in steals (33).

As said in previous reviews, second base was very deep, and Gambo takes advantage by moving Marte to center.

46. J.J. Putz, CP (Team Burns)

In that same group of 24 seasons we mentioned for Ziegler, Putz has two seasons in the top-8 for ERA, most notably a 2.17 mark in 2011.

His 45 saves that year were the second-most in team history and he’s the only D-back ever to record 30 saves or more in two seasons.

47. Jake Lamb, 3B (Team Byrd)

Byrd did not do himself any favors with his last few picks.

Lamb’s career .770 OPS is a fine number at third, but there were better names available, especially with Lamb’s .242 batting average. And what’s he gonna do hitting off some of these lefties?

Hopefully Byrd can restrict this to Lamb’s 2017 All-Star season.

48. Byung-Hyun Kim (Team Kezele)

Everyone was SCARED to take Kim knowing how he is remembered by most fans for his failures in the World Series. Sarah ain’t scared!!!

Going back to those 24 seasons by D-backs closers, the closest WAR to Kim’s 2001 (3.1) or 2002 (4.0) seasons was Valverde’s 47-save season producing a 2.2.

That’s because Kim threw a ridiculous 98 innings in ’01 (2.94 ERA) and another 84 in ’02 (2.04 ERA). No other pitcher on the list even broke 70 except Archie Bradley’s 2019 campaign when he got to 71.2.

It’s not by much, but I rate Kim as the best D-backs closer ever. Him going this late is disrespectful. Sarah continues to crush it.

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