ESPN.com: Diamondbacks ranked 23rd in trade deadline moves
Jul 31, 2015, 6:41 PM | Updated: 8:27 pm
The MLB has had a very exciting week to say the least. The non-waiver trade deadline saw tears on the field and Troy Tulowitzki heading north of the border, among many other deals around the country. One team not involved in any of that action was the hometown Arizona Diamondbacks.
Though they were making serious calls to get themselves an ace — in talks with the Reds and Phillies for Aroldis Chapman and Cole Hamels, both didn’t happen and neither did anything else for the snakes. ESPN.com writer Dan Szymborski took notice of this Friday when he ranked all 30 teams on their trade deadline transactions, ranking the D-backs in the bottom ten and No. 23.
While it would be unfair to penalize the team for thinking it actually needed to go after Aroldis Chapman — a top, expensive, closer being as useful to a sub-playoff team as a computer to a cat — Arizona also didn’t do anything else. But at least the Diamondbacks didn’t sell any more of their prospects to the Braves for $10 million.
Szymborski touched something very intentional by the Diamondbacks — The organization is strongly investing in their young guys. Several members of the organization mentioned before and after the deadline that the team was going to make sure it would be incredibly worth it, now and in the future, for a deal to go down.
“We just were not willing to go that extra mile to get it done,” GM Dave Stewart told Burns and Gambo about the Aroldis Chapman deal on Arizona Sports 98.7 FM. “Those guys are indeed players that are going to play, we hope, for a long time in our organization and guys that we covet very, very highly in this organization.”
Chip Hale added on the Bickley and Marotta show, “They just couldn’t come to terms with any of those and really, the ask was just way too much I think, for us and the future. We need those bullets down the road.”
