Raised by Theo Epstein, the Diamondbacks' new brain trust tries to copy his success

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – A delightful afternoon sun crested over Salt River Field in mid-February, and Mike Hazen, Jared Porter and Amiel Sawdaye sat on the veranda overlooking their new lives. For all the foibles of the Arizona Diamondbacks in recent years, the dunderheaded maneuvers and the long trail of lulz, there somehow remained a decent core of ballplayers amid it all. Now it was Hazen, Sawdaye and Porter’s jobs to shepherd it.

The field below was empty, spring games still a week away, and the optimism of spring met the reality of their task. They’d worked together in Boston under the tutelage of Theo Epstein, learned as much as they could from the most successful baseball executive this generation, and now was their chance to make something of their own.

It’s daunting, even for those with the résumés of Hazen (general manager of the Red Sox), Porter (director of pro scouting for the Cubs) and Sawdaye (Red Sox VP of international and amateur scouting). They know what they want to do, know how to do it, know where to find success. They also know baseball is an unrelenting ogre that can take the most well-tuned process and turn it into an unsightly outcome with no compunction.

So it’s days like this that they’ve tried to learn to cherish during their first spring in Arizona, knowing tougher ones lie ahead. Not that the Diamondbacks are going to be awful. On the contrary, they’re emanating a little sneaky-good scent, what with a lineup that includes Paul Goldschmidt, A.J. Pollock and Jake Lamb, a rotation larded with impressive young starters and a defense that’s bound to be better than last year’s, because, really, it can’t be much worse.

None of that, of course, fulfills Hazen. He’s the Diamondbacks’ GM, though this job carries full baseball-operations responsibilities as opposed to the one he left, in which he was Dave Dombrowski’s second in command. Hazen is 41 but looks a decade younger, particularly considering he’s got four young sons running around his home, and in addition to Porter and Sawdaye he brought with him the imperative that working for Epstein as well as the Cleveland Indians instilled in him.

“You have to do it right,” Hazen said. “It’s not even that you want to. It’s a requirement.”

All three see Epstein as a model for running an organization, not just because he won a pair of championships in Boston, led the Cubs to another last season and has positioned Chicago as a juggernaut for, oh, the next half-decade. The question is just how well Epstein’s system works without the Epstein part, particularly in a National League West already loaded with strong teams.

“Theo’s hands down the smartest person I’ve ever worked with, but there was so much more to it than just his intelligence,” Hazen said. “It’s how he builds front offices and coaching staffs. He does that and mixes it in with a ridiculous IQ, too. You can’t take that IQ with you. But watching what he does, being a part of what he was doing, you see every hire is important. Every personnel decision – coaches, scouts, front-office hires – is important. Every single hire.

“And when you work there, you can never escape that. There were no little things he missed. You couldn’t hide them. Something was happening in A ball. He was on it, and he wanted to know why. It forced you to be accountable to explain things. There’s an expectation of personal accountability throughout the entire organization.”

Forging that takes time. The winter and spring weren’t merely about trading Jean Segura for Taijuan Walker or trying to hit the budget bin filling out their roster. It was learning who’s who throughout the organization, familiarizing themselves with players and coaches and development people and ownership and the rest of the team’s fabric. It was putting their stamp on the place without actively dabbing an ink pad but allowing their style to resonate. It was trying to build a culture, that intangible Justice Potter Stewart would’ve appreciated, because they’ll know it when they see it.

It’s not there, not yet, not that they expected it to be at this point, either. The Diamondbacks job had so many things going for it. Molding the organization, more than the roster, was going to be the difficult part.

“It’s putting good processes into place to make well-informed, responsible decisions throughout every aspect of the organization,” Porter said. “Whether it’s moving a player level to level at the right time, a player making the major league team, trading a major league player, how often a player plays, the draft, the trade deadline – there has to be a consistent process you stick to.”

The process part comes straight from Epstein, who solicited Porter’s opinion even as an intern with the Red Sox. “It didn’t matter how long I’d worked in baseball,” Porter said. “If there was a good idea, he wanted to hear it.” They don’t need bracelets that say WWTD because they spent enough time with Epstein that they inherently know.

Arizona won’t be Boston or Chicago West, at least not immediately, because a relatively barren farm system is forcing them to get creative finding players. “We’re not trying to look five years out yet, other than we know there’s a base of talent we need to acquire,” Hazen said. “It may not just be through the draft or international signings. It can be through trades, too. The Segura trade is an example of that. We gave up one of our best players, but we got four years of a starting pitcher we felt very strongly about.”

Walker is just 24. In 27 1/3 innings this spring, he has struck out 32 and walked two. He starred in previous years during spring training, too, so this could be more of the same. Maybe it isn’t, though. Maybe it’s real.

That’s why, when Hazen, Porter and Sawdaye are sitting on the veranda, the optimism outweighs the pessimism. It’s no fun when Zack Greinke, the guy taking up a third of their payroll, can barely crack 90 mph with his fastball these days. It hurts to see Dansby Swanson, the No. 1 overall pick Arizona traded in a deal for Shelby Miller, playing shortstop like he’s been on the job for a decade.

Spend enough time on that, and the rest of the gig is impossible. So they put their heads down, do what’s required of them and hope that process is indeed > outcome. This is their time to make something of their own. And they’ve got none of it to waste.

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