5 takeaways from Diamondbacks GM Mike Hazen’s season wrap

The offseason began for the Diamondbacks on Thursday, which meant General Manager Mike Hazen met with the media at Chase Field. Most years, this happens in late September or early October, and Hazen has usually had time to sort of process what he wants his offseason to look like.

This was different, of course, coming a day after their Game 5 loss in the World Series, but Hazen still had a rough outline for how he plans to make his team better, in addition to other thoughts about the way the year played out.

Here are five things that stood out from his session.

Targets: Starting pitching, third base, right-handed bats

For anyone who watched how the postseason played out, the first two are no surprise. Adding another established starter sounded like Hazen’s top priority, a move that would leave pitchers like a healthy Tommy Henry and Ryne Nelson fighting for the No. 5 spot in spring training. The Diamondbacks saw this year how quickly starting pitching depth can evaporate, so don’t be surprised if Hazen adds more than just one.

“Having veterans in that rotation matter,” Hazen said. “I think you looked across the aisle (at the Rangers) here in this series and they had more veteran starting pitchers than we did.”

Third base was a sort of hodgepodge for much of the year, and it remained that way in the playoffs, too, with Evan Longoria and Emmanuel Rivera splitting time. The club does have a talented young infielder in Jordan Lawlar, but the guess here is that the Diamondbacks do all they can to bring in more of an established option in the winter. That does not mean they close off a path for Lawlar to make the club out of spring training, but operate under the assumption he opens the year in Triple-A and forces his way up at some point.

Outfielders Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and Tommy Pham are both free agents, so the Diamondbacks either need to find a way to bring them back or find replacements for them. It is possible their internal options like Jake McCarthy and Dominic Fletcher could factor in, but Hazen made it sound like maintaining some right/left balance in the lineup will be key.

“That’s probably going to be an area that we’re going to need to address again,” he said.

Trade deadline regrets

The need for the Diamondbacks to run a failed bullpen game in Game 4 of the World Series left Hazen second-guessing the decisions that got him there. While he gave himself some grace in properly recognizing the price teams were asking for rental arms was too high — many teams wanted either center fielder Alek Thomas or starter Brandon Pfaadt — he still thought he should have done more at the trade deadline.

“Were there other avenues that we could have pushed by adding more prospects into deals where it didn't include those guys?” Hazen said. “Or should I have gone down that route? I don’t know. I don’t know the answer to those things, but I know I didn’t get a starting pitcher and that’s on me.”

He added: “I have a lot of regrets. Yeah, it's kind of painful to sit here and talk about this after getting bounced from the World Series and feeling like what happened in Game 4 is 100 percent on me.”

Raised expectations

Hazen entered the year hoping to be adding at the deadline and playing meaningful games into September. Having blown past those expectations, Hazen admitted the bar has been raised entering next year to the point that anything short of a return to the postseason will be a disappointment.

“Yes, the goalposts have moved, as they should,” he said. “I feel like part of my responsibility is to set realistic expectations for what we're shooting for. And I don't see any reason why that’s not a realistic expectation moving into next year with the team we’re going to have coming back.”

Hazen said during his end-of-year session last season that he expected the performance of his young core to be the biggest driver in a move up the standings. That turned out to be the case, particularly when it came to the performance of rookie outfielder Corbin Carroll, and Hazen said he expects that again will be true heading into next year.

“I still think,” he said, “with the group of 21- to 23-year-olds that we have in the rotation and in the lineup and in the bullpen, that another big jump for this team will happen with continued development of that group.”

Growth mind-set

That leads into another point Hazen made multiple times on Thursday: Even though his team won 84 games, even though it was outscored during the regular season, he is still going to enter the offseason thinking he has a team that is better than that.

He pointed to two primary reasons:

*The bullpen as currently constructed is far better now than it was for most of the first four months of the season. He will still look to upgrade, if possible, but even if he just runs back the same group he still thinks it should perform better than the unit did for stretches earlier this year.

*His young players, namely Thomas, Pfaadt and catcher Gabriel Moreno, stepped forward in the postseason in ways that portend the best is yet to come. He does not know exactly how to weigh postseason performance when it comes to making future roster decisions, but he also knows it’s not irrelevant.

“I think when I look at that group, I see growth potential,” he said.

He said he drove home from the ballpark after Wednesday night’s loss with assistants Amiel Sawdaye and Mike Fitzgerald, and he relayed a point Fitzgerald made in the car.

“Fitz’s comment was like, ‘Man, we got like 20 playoff games and like 75 at-bats for Corbin Carroll in his rookie year in the playoffs,’” Hazen said. “What kind of experience could you ever want for these kids? To just, like, toss them into the deep end of the pool and say go get them. And they did. They carried us a lot.”

He said the onus now shifts to the front office and the coaching staff to ensure their developments continue along on the right trajectory.

“If we do this right and continue to push growth from that young group,” Hazen said, “that’s where I feel like 84 wins could be a low number.”

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Contract talks

Hazen was asked specifically about manager Torey Lovullo’s contract situation and echoed what he said during the division series about planning to sit down with Lovullo to discuss a long-term deal.

In June, Lovullo was given a third consecutive one-year extension, at which point Hazen said he told him they would discuss an even longer deal if the team advanced to the postseason.

“I'm not anticipating that the question of where he's going to be managing anytime soon is going to be something we're going to need to spend a whole lot of time on,” Hazen said on Thursday. “But that is one of the things that I want to sit down with (owner) Ken (Kendrick and (President and CEO) Derrick (Hall) about, too.”

The Diamondbacks are also expected to approach Moreno about a long-term deal, though that might not take place until spring training.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: 5 takeaways from Diamondbacks GM Mike Hazen’s season wrap