Diamondbacks on the verge of extending CEO Derrick Hall
Aug 24, 2016, 4:44 PM | Updated: 11:36 pm
Arizona Diamondbacks president Derrick Hall arrives for a meeting of MLB owners, Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2016, in Coral Gables, Fla. The two-day meeting of baseball owners is expected to include updates on stadium security, preventing takeout slides at second base, and instant replay. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
(AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
The Arizona Diamondbacks’ front office has been a big topic of conversation during recent weeks.
One key piece of the group will likely not be going anywhere anytime soon. That would be CEO Derrick Hall.
Hall and the D-backs are on the verge of agreeing to an eight-year extension that will run through 2024.
“Basically it [the deal] is,” Hall told Arizona Sports’ John Gambadoro. “This is home for us and I wanted to go nowhere.”
The 47-year-old became the team’s president in 2006 and the CEO just two and a half years later.
During that time the team has been to the playoffs twice — 2007 and 2011. In that span, the team has also moved spring training from Tucson to Scottsdale, where they call Salt River Fields home, signed a new TV deal and have had record revenues.
The team is currently run by their third general manager under Hall. Josh Byrnes was the general manager until mid-2010 and then Kevin Towers manned the position until 2014. Tony La Russa was brought in as the Chief Baseball Officer in the middle of the 2014 campaign. That offseason Dave Stewart was brought in as GM.
La Russa and Stewart’s contracts are up this season. La Russa’s contract expires at the end of the season while Stewart has an option in his contract for 2017 according to AZCentral’s Nick Piecoro and TodaysKnuckleBall.com’s Jack Magruder.
The buzz about the group hit one of its high points last week when ESPN’s Keith Law posted a story calling for the team to part with La Russa and Stewart, and just a day later USA Today’s Bob Nightengale wrote a story saying the team would be silly to dump the pair after just two full seasons. Nightengale instead pointed whatever finger there was to the folks who are even higher up the food chain than they are.
Both pieces mentioned faults by the front office, whether it was not knowing all of the rules when it comes to international players or decisions being blocked because of ownership.
La Russa called the reports “exaggerated” Wednesday morning on Doug and Wolf.
Hale is the third manager to be in charge with Hall as CEO. A.J. Hinch managed 212 games from 2009-2010 and the club was then managed by Kirk Gibson for over four seasons. Hale was then brought in for the start of the 2015 season and has been in charge since.
