Ketel Marte is officially off the market, but even if the Diamondbacks aren’t swinging a big trade this winter they still have plenty of work to do. The team’s biggest move of the offseason has been reuniting with Merrill Kelly in free agency. They’ve also signed right-hander Michael Soroka and catcher James McCann to one-year deals while shipping lefty Kyle Backhus and outfielder Jake McCarthy out in trades.
Those relatively small moves aren’t the end of the team’s offseason maneuvers, as general manager Mike Hazen told reports (including Alex Weiner of Arizona Sports) that he would like to bolster the pitching staff and also add “a couple of bats” to the offense. More specifically, Hazen said that he is “still in the process of trying to add to our pitching staff. Bullpen, starting, whether it’s depth, whether it’s jumping into the rotation is still the main area of focus.” Those comments are obviously broad, and leave open plenty of avenues for improving the roster.
Arizona’s 2025 rotation was below-average overall amid injury woes and nearly across-the-board underperformance. Despite pitching the third-most innings of any rotation, the group’s 9.0 fWAR ranked 21st in the league. Staff ace Corbin Burnes had a 2.66 ERA in 64 1/3 innings before undergoing Tommy John surgery in June. He’ll miss most, if not all, of the 2026 season but remains under contract through 2030. Losing Burnes wouldn’t have been quite so disastrous had righty Zac Gallen remained a top-of-the-rotation caliber arm after being demoted to the #2 spot behind Burnes, but that didn’t come to pass. Gallen was healthy all season but posted a 4.83 ERA and allowed the third-most home runs of any starter in the league with 31. He’s now a free agent, and a reunion between the sides seems unlikely.
Brandon Pfaadt and Eduardo Rodriguez, meanwhile, both remain under club control but had similar struggles with run prevention and long balls, as both finished the year with ERAs north of 5.00. Rodriguez is guaranteed $46MM over the next two seasons (including a $6MM buyout on a 2027 mutual option), while Pfaadt is entering the first year of his five-year, $45MM extension with the team. Ryne Nelson looked good after moving into the rotation in May and is controlled via arbitration through 2028. Kelly actually led the rotation with 2.3 fWAR, despite spending the back half of the season with the Rangers after a deadline trade. Even with him re-installed on a two-year deal, the downgrade from Gallen to Soroka and Burnes’s uncertain status combine to leave the rotation looking much thinner than it did a year ago.
Vague as Hazen was about his specific plans for the pitching staff, adding another starter seems like a worthwhile endeavor. Kelly and Nelson currently project as the rotation’s top two starters, but on most contending teams would surely fit in closer to the middle of the rotation. Pfaadt and Rodriguez are both coming off the sort of brutal season from a results perspective that makes it hard to count on them for more than back-of-the-rotation innings eating, while Soroka was signed to be a starter but has long performed better when used out of the bullpen and last pitched more than 100 innings in 2019.
The main hurdle to another rotation signing is the payroll. RosterResource has the Diamondbacks at $166MM in payroll right now. That’s down from $188MM in 2025, but principal owner Ken Kendrick has indicated a desire to spend less on payroll this year. It’s unclear what the team’s exact payroll limitations are, but it’s hard to imagine the team finding room in the budget for an impact free agent starter like Ranger Suarez (or even a reunion with Gallen) without extending themselves. Perhaps the trade market, where players like Freddy Peralta and Kodai Senga could be available, would make for a better path towards bringing in pitching help if the team wants to pursue a starter.
If the team is going to focus on free agency, however adding to the bullpen might make more sense. As much as the rotation struggled throughout parts of 2025, things were even worse in the relief corps. The club’s 4.82 bullpen ERA was the fourth-worst figure in all of baseball last year. Much of those struggles can be attributed to losing top relievers Justin Martinez and A.J. Puk for most of the season, but both underwent Tommy John surgery in June and will join Burnes in missing at least the first half of the season and potentially all of it. That leaves the team without much continuity or reliability in the bullpen headed into 2026. Ryan Thompson and Kevin Ginkel will return, with the former coming off a decent season while the latter struggled badly but has the track record to bounce back. The top returning reliever is lefty Andrew Saalfrank, who put up a dazzling 1.24 ERA in 29 innings last year but is unlikely to repeat that performance considering his meager 16.8% strikeout rate.
There’s a number of interesting young arms on the team’s 40-man roster, but the Diamondbacks bullpen could clearly use an established late-inning arm to help stabilize things while Martinez and Puk are on the shelf. Hazen didn’t name specific targets in his recent comments, but it seems Arizona is interested in just that sort of player given the club’s interest in Pete Fairbanks before he landed in Miami last month. Seranthony Dominguez is the top relief arm still available in free agency and would make plenty of sense in the desert. If his contract ends up being too rich for their tastes, other options like Pierce Johnson, Michael Kopech, and Danny Coulombe also remain available in a relief market that’s seen most of the high-leverage options picked over in the early months of the winter.
Turning to the offense, Weiner suggests that the Diamondbacks’ pursuit of help on offense could be focused more on adding platoon players rather than everyday regulars. Between the teams limited financial flexibility and the players already available on the roster, that’s an understandable course to take. Pavin Smith has spent most of his career as a platoon bat, and getting a right-handed complement at first base seems like an obvious addition. Diamondbacks legend and likely future Hall of Famer Paul Goldschmidt is on the market and would fit that bill, as would Rhys Hoskins. Lower level options for that role in free agency include Connor Joe and Ty France. A right-handed hitting outfielder to platoon with Alek Thomas and take occasional reps at DH could also be valuable. Someone like Miguel Andujar, Chas McCormick, or perhaps even old friend Randal Grichuk could make some sense in that role. One other intriguing option would be switch-hitting super utility man Willi Castro, who could serve as a reserve outfield option while also backing up youngster Jordan Lawlar at third base.
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