The Diamondbacks are bringing again supervisor Torey Lovullo for what’ll be his tenth season, as first reported by Nick Piecoro of The Arizona Republic. Lovullo was already underneath contract for yet one more 12 months after signing an extension shortly after the workforce received the Nationwide League pennant in 2023.
Whereas the Diamondbacks aren’t making a managerial change, it appears they’ll maintain Lovullo in a lame duck setup. John Gambadoro of 98.7 FM experiences that the 60-year-old Lovullo will not be anticipated to signal an extension this offseason. Groups typically draw back from having managers and high entrance workplace personnel on expiring offers, however it appears management in Arizona is content material with that association heading into 2026.
The D-Backs have come up in need of the playoffs in every of the 2 seasons following their league championship. Final 12 months’s workforce received 89 video games and completed on the skin on the ultimate day of the season. They backed as much as an 80-82 end that positioned fourth within the NL West this 12 months. The Mets’ collapse helped maintain the Diamondbacks mathematically alive into the ultimate weekend, however they completed with their first dropping season since 2022.
They’ve dramatically ramped up spending in every of the final two winters. They’ve targeted most of their free agent exercise on the rotation. Not one of the offers for Corbin Burnes, Eduardo Rodriguez or Jordan Montgomery have labored out. All three pitchers have been some mixture of ineffective or injured. The Snakes signed every of Ketel Marte, Brandon Pfaadt, Geraldo Perdomo and Justin Martinez to extensions final winter.
With all that thoughts, proprietor Ken Kendrick advised Gambadoro on Sunday that he’d “by no means been extra disenchanted in a season than this one as a result of (their) expectations have been so excessive.” Kendrick expanded on that remark throughout an look on the Burns & Gambo present this afternoon, saying it’s rooted largely within the accidents that wrecked the pitching workers. Shedding Burnes to Tommy John surgical procedure was the most important blow, however the Snakes have been additionally left with a patchwork bullpen for four-plus months by season-ending accidents to Martinez and A.J. Puk.
The Diamondbacks bought impending free brokers Merrill Kelly, Eugenio Suárez, Josh Naylor, Shelby Miller and Randal Grichuk on the deadline. It’s to their credit score that they didn’t telephone of their final two months. The Snakes went 29-24 after the deadline. It led to disappointing style with a five-game dropping streak, however they improbably remained on the postseason periphery with a bullpen comprising principally rookies or journeymen depth pickups.
Lovullo got here underneath some fireplace in the course of August when experiences emerged that some gamers have been annoyed with Marte for taking too many video games off. The supervisor defended his star second baseman, who subsequently apologized for lacking the primary few video games of the second half after returning to the Dominican Republic following the All-Star Break. Marte later mentioned he was upset upon studying that his house in Arizona had been burglarized whereas he was attending the All-Star festivities. D-Backs’ possession and the entrance workplace are evidently assured that Lovullo dealt with the scenario effectively sufficient to not lose the clubhouse.
Common supervisor Mike Hazen can also be headed into his tenth season. Lovullo had labored with Hazen with the Pink Sox and adopted him to the desert not lengthy after the GM’s hiring. The D-Backs have made two postseason berths of their 9 seasons. They received 93 video games and have been bounced within the Division Sequence in 2017. The ’23 NL championship season is their solely different playoff berth throughout that stretch. The D-Backs have a .490 common season win proportion underneath Lovullo.
