The Arizona Diamondbacks are going without a playoff appearance for the third straight season, despite finishing the 2026 campaign 10 games over .500 at 86-76.
Such is the life of a team destined to play in a tough, competitive National League West. Opportunities were squandered, at times, but the Diamondbacks did keep it close until the final weekend of the regular season.
And so, they face the offseason. But there are three particular harsh truths Arizona will have to come to terms with as they gear up for 2027 — however that season may or may not look. Here they are:
1: Improvements can't come without investment
The Diamondbacks are expected to go into 2027 with a lower payroll. This isn't necessarily something that stands out as a major cause for concern, but external additions are going to have to come a little differently.
What this means is Arizona can't simply dump money into expensive free agents. But they also can't afford to simply run it back with the same group of players on either side of the ball.
GM Mike Hazen has a knack for making shrewd moves at times, but it's going to take more than a couple of those type of moves to truly improve the team while on a budget. And it's possible, as well, that they'll simply have to agree to make some slightly substantial financial investments, anyway.
2: In-house pitching development is still an issue
The Diamondbacks still do not have a strong pipeline of pitching development. That was evidenced in 2026 by a severe lack of solidity from pitching prospects such as Mitch Bratt, Kohl Drake and Jose Cabrera, despite their high rankings.
In addition, Arizona sent off No. 5 prospect Daniel Eagen to St. Louis for Lars Nootbaar; Eagen immediately took a 17-spot plunge to No. 22 in the Cardinals' system.
The Diamondbacks' pitching development has yet to make a significant impact on the field, outside of a handful of success stories like Ryne Nelson or Justin Martinez. Their bullpen success came from mostly outside the organization.
If Arizona wants to weather the storm of a 162-game marathon, they have to find a way to get more consistently positive results out of arms like Bratt, Drake and Cabrera, or they'll have to heavily stock up on external depth additions.
3: Bullpen results may be due for regression
The Diamondbacks; bullpen became a surprising team strength in 2026, improving to 16th in baseball with a 4.07 bullpen ERA. That was a massive step up from bottom-five results in 2024 and 2025, and still doesn't quite measure how positively impactful that unit was.
Unfortunately, reliever ERA is among the most volatile, as are results. Though the D-backs opted for a more contact-over-chase approach with their arms this year, they've since made the somewhat surprising decision to part with pitching coach Brian Kaplan, who helped engineer that turnaround.
Meanwhile, arms like Jonathan Loaisiga, Taylor Clarke, Kevin Ginkel and Ryan Thompson are free agents. Some may be brought back, but the D-backs cannot simply hope that the wholesale success of 2026's bullpen will carry over without making any investments in the talent present.
And even if they do everything right, the results may not fall. Such is the nature of baseball.
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