Diamondback Journal

Pitcher Tyler Skaggs, after a solid showing at two stops in the D-Backs minor league system, was named the twelfth best prospect in baseball by MLB.com.  You have to love his strikeout rate (198 in 158 1/3 innings which included ten starts at Double-A) and opponents hit just .218 against him.  Throw in the fact that he’s left handed and turned 20 in July of last year and you can see why people are excited about this guy.

He was part of the Dan Haren deal and while Haren has had some solid seasons, I like the fact that we have this kid.  He’s not a really hard throws but he has three really good pitches that he can use to get batters out.  My guess is, he starts at Double-A again but he’s not there for long.

The Diamondbacks signed Joe Saunders to a one year, $6 million deal after letting Saunders test the waters last month.  They didn’t offer him arbitration but they were still able to come to terms to bring Saunders back for another year.  He was part of the deal that sent Dan Haren over to the Angels back in 2010.

Saunders is a reliable left hander and he went 12-13 with a 3.69 ERA last year.  He’s not a big strikeout guy and he always seems to win more games then you’d expect from someone who barely gets more then 100 strikeouts in a season but he has 69 major league wins.  Last year he became a work horse of sorts with 212 innings.

The Diamondbacks completed their two year deal with outfielder Jason Kubel that will pay the outfielder $15 million.  Prior to getting hit with the injury bug in 2011, Kubel had hit at least 20 homer runs in his previous three years.  His best season was 2009 when he hit 28 home runs and finished with an OPS of .907.

Kubel is consistent.  He draws some walks and that’s helped him garner a career OPS of .794.  Target Field is a pitcher’s park as was the Metrodome to a point and he’s had OPS+’s of at least 105 in each of the past five seasons.  He’s now moving to the more hitting friendly Chase Field so you’d expect his production to go up a bit.  The money also seemed a bit more then I would have expected but in the end, the Diamondbacks got their guy.

Former Dodgers closer and Japanese pitcher Takashi Saito was scooped up by the Diamondbacks to a one year deal valued at $1.75 million.  Saito came over to Japan and made his debut with the Dodgers where he pitched three seasons as the team’s closer. Since then, he’s bounced around and this will be his fourth team in four years.

Still, each of his stops have been solid although last year he threw only 26 2/3 innings for the Brewers.  He’s also getting up there and he’ll turn 42 in February.  Still, he has a career 2.18 ERA with 389 strikeouts and 103 walks in 326 innings.  His strikeout rate was down considerable last year though so we’ll see if that’s a trend or a blip.  Still, I like the deal and Saito should help out the Dodgers pen in 2012.

Here’s the top ten Diamondbacks prospect list as determined by Baseball America.

1)  Trevor Bauer  RHP
2)  Archie Bradley  RHP
3)  Tyler Skaggs  LHP
4)  Jarrod Parker  RHP
5)  Matt Davidson  3b/1b
6)  A.J. Pollock  OF
7)  David Holmberg  LHP
8)  Chris Owings  SS
9)  Wade Miley  LHP
10)  Patrick Corbin  LHP

In early September, I thought Justin Upton was going to win the MVP award.  He was the best player on a surprise team but then Ryan Braun and Matt Kemp stepped it up.  I didn’t expect Upton to win the award, but to have Prince Fielder ahead of him is a little odd.

Upton did pick up a first place vote but he got no second place votes, eight third and eleven fourth place votes.  He did get a vote on every ballot but his lowest pick was tenth place, which was really strange.  The same thing happened to Fielder.  He had a first place vote, but also a tenth place vote.

Ian Kennedy and Miguel Montero also picked up votes.  Kennedy was named on four ballots and his best ballot had him sixth.  Montero was on one ballot and he was ninth on that one.

Kirk Gibson walked away with the NL Manager of the Year in a well deserved award for the first year manager (at least first full season).  He picked up 28 first place votes and four second and he was named on all 32 ballots.  He finished well ahead of Ron Roenicke who was on 30 ballots with three first place votes.

The only other manager with a first place vote was Tony LaRussa.  Oddly, Terry Collins picked up a third place votes as did Don Mattingly.