2009 DIAMONDBACKS SEASON PREVIEW - PART I
* BUILDING UP TO OPENING DAY - With Opening Day 2009 fast approaching, Diamondbacks Nation is very pleased to begin its first full season providing news and commentary by and for fans of the Arizona Diamondbacks. Today brings the first installment of our 2009 season preview.
We believe that to understand and evaluate the Diamondbacks of 2009, one must recognize where this club has been and how the current edition came to be. So before we take a look at the season to come, Diamondbacks Nation will try to put things into an historical context. Our preview of the 2009 season begins with a look way back to the early days of our favorite team.
We will then fast-forward to the club in the present day, focusing on the winter moves and the season schedule; the rotation and bullpen; the position players, bench and batting order. We'll dig deeper, with a review of the front office, field management, and minor league operations. And we will finish our run-up the 2009 campaign by taking a look at the rest of the NL West, with predictions for the championship season.
Reasons for optimism are plenty. Cause for doubt remains. There are 162 games (more, we hope) of Diamondbacks baseball in store for us in 2009. We look forward to a wild ride. Diamondbacks Nation invites you to join us.
* THE PHILOSOPHY OF A FRANCHISE - For most of years since the club was born, the Diamondbacks' roster has been like the populace of the City of Phoenix: a collection of transplants. Just as so many of us have roots in places like Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles, Arizona's ballplayers were rarely local in origin. Of course, any expansion franchise will at first be stocked with the products of other organizations. But what began as a necessity (i.e., to assemble an instant Major League Baseball team) soon evolved into a strategy, one that would persist throughout the defining period in the Diamondbacks' history.
Given the demographics and dynamics of loyalty (or lack thereof) at play in their home market, Jerry Colangelo and the original ownership group must have sensed that they could not long rely on the novelty of the team, its tricked-out ballpark, its ... unorthodox color palette. Adults raised on the Red Sox, Cubs and Dodgers would not easily sever their ties to those clubs. Kids who had never known a team of their own could be won over by the thrill of the new, but would be lost by long years of mediocrity. Fans accustomed to seeing an array of teams and rooting options in the Cactus League might not invest their hopes in only one. Impatience for a winner would foreclose the possibility of a slow and steady development. To hold the attention of the local fan base would instead require taking the fast-track to success. In an effort to field a competitive club in record time, Arizona opted to acquire its core players through a series of trades and free agent signings. While so doing, the Snakes displayed a willingness to deal away the jewels of their farm system and incur vast debts for players in their 30s.
By Opening Day in 1998, the Diamondbacks had signed Jay Bell to play SS and dealt expansion draft booty for 3B Matt Williams. Alas, these star-level veterans could not lift the club above a 65-97 (.401) record and a last-place finish in its first campaign. So the following off-season, Arizona doubled down, adding to its core with trades for Luis Gonzalez and Tony Womack and the free agent signings of Steve Finley and Randy Johnson. Together, these players made the immediate impact that ownership hoped to achieve. In 1999, Gonzalez made his first All-Star game, Womack led the majors with a career-high 72 SB, Finley won a Gold Glove in CF, and Johnson claimed the first of four consecutive NL Cy Young Awards. With the help of a mid-season swap for closer Matt Mantei (who came at the expense of then 21-year old pitching prospect Brad Penny), the Snakes managed a remarkable worst-to-first feat, winning 100 games and the NL West crown in the team's sophomore year. Only by those standards could Arizona's 2000 record of 85-77 (.525) be considered a disappointment. But although they finished third in the division, their deadline deal to acquire Curt Schilling for a package including home-grown Travis Lee -- once seen as the future of the franchise -- evidenced ambitions to accomplish much more.
2009 DIAMONDBACKS SEASON PREVIEW: PART I - PART II - PART III - PART IV
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