PHOENIX — Top-end starting pitching has helped the Arizona Diamondbacks reach their highest points as a franchise.
From Randy Johnson in 1999; Johnson and Curt Schilling in 2001; Brandon Webb in 2007; Ian Kennedy and Daniel Hudson in 2011; Zack Greinke and Robbie Ray in 2017; and Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly in 2023, a superstar ace or dominant duo has pushed the club into contention throughout the the past 26 years.
Starting pitching was the club’s unexpected weakness last year, but the potential is prevalent for this season’s rotation to turn it around.
“I think this is probably the most depth that we’ve had as a pitching staff since I’ve been here,” Kelly said earlier this spring.
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Arizona hired Brian Kaplan to oversee the pitching staff after he spent the previous three years as an assistant with the playoff-bound Philadelphia Phillies. Ace Corbin Burnes wanted to stick close to home and signed a stunning six-year, $210 million deal with the D-backs despite the lack of smoke between the two sides.
Burnes joins Gallen and Kelly, a duo that racked up 445.1 innings between the 2023 season and playoffs and only 221.2 last season.
Injuries played a significant role in the underwhelming performance of the staff last year. Kelly and newcomer Eduardo Rodriguez spent most of the year on the injured list, while Gallen and Ryne Nelson missed about a month each. The lack of starting pitching success strained the bullpen.
The D-backs ended up winning 89 games despite of a bottom-five finish in ERA, WHIP and strikeout rate. They ranked 19th in innings pitched by starters.
Getting more production on a daily basis from the starters and pairing that with a quality offense, the D-backs would unlock more paths to the postseason.
“When you have the type of starting rotation that we do, you’re going to compete every single night,” manager Torey Lovullo said Monday. “You’re going to be in every game, every single night. When you pick up the baseball the way we do, you’re going to enhance that pitching with solid defense. And that’s who I am at my core.”
In each of the last three seasons, eight of the top 10 teams in starting pitcher innings made the postseason.
What does the Arizona Diamondbacks’ starting five look like?
Zac Gallen – 2024 stats: 14-6, 3.65 ERA, 148 innings, 1.26 WHIP
Merrill Kelly – 2024 stats: 5-1, 4.03 ERA, 73.2 innings, 1.17 WHIP
Brandon Pfaadt – 2024 stats: 11-10, 4.71 ERA, 181.2 innings, 1.24 WHIP
Eduardo Rodriguez – 2024 stats: 3-4, 5.04 ERA, 50 innings, 1.50 WHIP
Corbin Burnes – 2024 stats: 15-9, 2.92 ERA, 194.1 innings, 1.10 WHIP
Arizona had key decisions to make regarding the starting five and how to handle the ninth inning. Pfaadt won the spot in the rotation, while the D-backs will match up the ninth inning and evaluate their closer options.
The Diamondbacks will start Gallen on Opening Day, followed in order by Kelly, Pfaadt, Rodriguez and Burnes.
Lovullo agonized over the Opening Day starter, and deciding so late in camp had an unintended consequence of pushing Burnes back to Arizona’s fifth game, which is at Yankee Stadium. Past the first week, that misstep will be of limited consequence as the Diamondbacks plow forward with an accomplished rotation.
“Starters set the tone, and that’s the great thing about being here,” Kaplan told Arizona Sports in camp.
“I think there’s a really good crop of starters, and when the starters set the tone and go deep and can handle some workload, it just takes a lot of stress off. I think we have a really talented bullpen. We have really talented starters to allow guys just getting comfortable in their roles and allowing the bullpen not to feel like they have to do more than what they’re being asked to do.”
The Diamondbacks’ pitching staff will be elite if …
Corbin Burnes is all he’s shaped up to be
Arizona did not budget for the most expensive contract in club history when the offseason began, but when Burnes’ camp made it clear he wanted to land in the desert, the organization made it work. It was an international collaboration in the sense that general manager Mike Hazen was in New Zealand at the time. Lovullo heard about the development while getting off a plane from Buffalo.
Burnes has been a true No. 1 since he fully broke out in 2021, when he won the National League Cy Young award with the Milwaukee Brewers.
Since reinventing himself after a brutal 2019 campaign — both by altering his arsenal to find a tremendously successful cutter and with a meticulous routine — Burnes has made four All-Star Games and finished top five in Cy Young voting five times.
Burnes ranks second in MLB in fWAR among pitchers since 2020 with 21.7, only trailing Philadelphia’s Zach Wheeler (24.7). He also is top five in innings pitched and ERA among qualified starters at 2.88 in this span.
He credits his routine. His attention to detail was evident throughout camp, from how he talked about getting on the same page as catcher Gabriel Moreno to his clarity about sticking to a strict schedule.
“I treat every start and prepare the same way, whether it’s the four days leading up or the five days leading up that time through. Nothing changes for me,” Burnes said. “Doesn’t matter if it’s the first start, midway through the season, postseason, my preparation routine is gonna be the same every time out there. So just excited to get into it.”
The Gallen-Kelly duo continues to put its stamp on the franchise, perhaps one last time
Gallen and Kelly both debuted for the team in 2019 and have been mainstays in the rotation ever since. The Diamondbacks don’t sniff the postseason, nevertheless make the World Series, in 2023 without their contributions.
They now slot in as the second and third banana in the rotation while entering their respective walk years.
Gallen was a top five Cy Young finisher in 2022 and 2023, and he seeks something of a bounce-back season. The right-hander was solid in 2024 when healthy and finished with a 3.65 ERA in 148 innings pitched.
At the same time, it was admittedly not as consistent a season as he would have liked, particularly with his delivery. He said at the end of last year that, on the surface level, his season was fine. But that was not how he intended to look at it.
Gallen makes his living with elite command, and an area where he took a step back was efficiency. Gallen walked 8.7% of batters for his highest mark since 2021 and threw a career-low 59% first-pitch strikes.
What he’s meant to the organization since it traded for him made up a portion of the justification for starting on Opening Day.
“Super appreciative that (Lovullo) was able to give me that honor,” Gallen said last week. “That’s not something I take lightly. We have a bunch of guys in here deserving that honor.”
Kelly made four starts to begin the season and did not re-emerge until August due to a teres major strain, a disappointing follow-up to his stellar 2023 postseason. It was the first time since 2019 (excluding 2020) that Kelly did not pitch at least 158 innings.
The results were not as consistent when he returned, but Kelly put together a trio of really strong outings in September to lead into a healthy offseason. What remained consistent was his ability to put batters away with his changeup. He dug deeper into his arsenal with more cutters and sliders, as he continues to evolve.
Gallen and Kelly are working their way up the franchise leaderboards, and healthy seasons would put them both among the franchise’s top five for starts, innings, wins and strikeouts. Gallen struck out 220 batters in 2023. If he strikes out 224 more hitters, he will jump to No. 2 behind Johnson in club history.
They get better health in the rotation, or at least are more equipped to handle bumps and bruises
The D-backs did not get their full rotation back on the field until the final two months of the regular season in 2024. At points, there were just too many injuries to develop any consistency. Pfaadt was the lone warrior who remained off the IL all season.
Rodriguez signed a four-year, $80 million deal with Arizona and he did not debut until August due to shoulder issues he initially thought were minor.
He made 10 starts to get his feet back underneath him at the end of the year, but now the D-backs will need more from the accomplished lefty. Rodriguez worked a 3.30 ERA in 26 starts for the 2023 Tigers.
Spring training was looking pretty clean up until the very end, as injuries can never be fully avoided, unfortunately.
Jordan Montgomery will miss the entire season due to Tommy John surgery. After an offseason of trade rumors, given his $22.5 million salary and poor performance in 2024, Montgomery entered camp in great shape but could not quite get going due to an early finger injury and now elbow surgery.
Nelson is the next line of defense, a luxury for a club after he broke off a terrific run in the second half of last season.
With a stacked rotation full of accomplished veterans, Nelson was squeezed out, but the Diamondbacks will count on him in the event of further injuries. He will start in the bullpen, although Lovullo has been clear about the point of no return when he will not stretch out a reliever who has shortened up.
From there, young right-handers Yilber Diaz and Cristian Mena got their feet wet in MLB last year. Diaz is considered the top pitching prospect Arizona has by MLB Pipeline. Left-hander Tommy Henry is the more experienced option available to the Diamondbacks if needed with 35 MLB appearances.
Diamondbacks’ bullpen holds up, closer or not
The Diamondbacks have been optimistic about their bullpen, although the unit is a bit banged up entering Opening Day.
Kevin Ginkel will likely start on the 15-day IL with right shoulder inflammation and is not expected to miss extended time. Newcomer Kendall Graveman, who missed all of last season with shoulder surgery, is building up after back issues marred his spring training.
The Diamondbacks will roll with a returning core of Justin Martinez, who just signed an extension, A.J. Puk, Ryan Thompson and Joe Mantiply.
Former D-backs starter Shelby Miller is back and has positioned himself for a bullpen role. Drey Jameson had a standout camp and could work in after checking some boxes in Triple-A Reno.
No closer has been named, as Lovullo will work matchups until someone emerges. Closer by competition, as our Ron Wolfley describes it.
“If somebody emerges and there’s a clear-cut winner to the race and is continuing to to excel, I probably will start to lean on that guy,” Lovullo said. “I would certainly love to have a closer and if somebody’s emerging and performing an elite clip, I’m gonna follow that pattern for sure. But right now, my job is put the players in the best position to be successful.”
Thompson told Arizona Sports’ Wolf & Luke the team has five to six players who could take on the challenge.
Martinez and Puk give the D-backs a clean right-lefty combo to pair late in games and represent the best chance to take over the closer role. Martinez signing an extension does not guarantee he wins the job at this point, but the club has placed its faith in him continuing to develop into a dominant back-end option.
At only 23 years old, Martinez saved eight games and worked a 2.48 ERA, lighting up hitters with triple-digit heaters. His best pitches are his splitter and slider.
Puk also showed off wicked stuff last year after returning to the bullpen, as the Miami Marlins started him in the rotation out of camp. Opponents hit below .165 against both Puk’s slider and fastball, and he worked a 1.32 ERA after joining the team at the trade deadline.
How long it takes for the Diamondbacks to settle on a closer is to be determined if it occurs at all, but there is strong belief in the two healthy options getting the job done.
Hazen has been clear that he will always look at bullpen upgrades when possible, as he pivoted from Montgomery’s injury by reportedly adding lefty Jalen Beeks.
What is the nastiest pitch on the Diamondbacks?
Martinez’s splitter may be the nastiest pitch on the team, as we’ve covered before.
His splitter averaged 89.8 mph with a vertical drop of 31.8 inches last year. Only one other pitcher in MLB last year, Jose Soriano of the Angels, was able to match that combination of speed and vertical drop.
In terms of effectiveness, Martinez’s splitter was a top 10 pitch in MLB in terms of batting average (.098), whiff rate (54%) and strikeout rate (65.9%). That’s about as unhittable as it gets.
Justin Martinez, Disgusting 91mph Splitter. ? pic.twitter.com/4IiBQnBRq8
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) May 11, 2024
Puk’s slider, Kelly’s changeup and Gallen’s curveball have to be up there as contenders, as well as Burnes’ cutter.
Zac Gallen, Dirty 79mph Knuckle Curve. ? pic.twitter.com/ihvpHCv5v4
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) March 1, 2025
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