DBacks, other pitching-starved teams vie for rotation boost at MLB meetings

NASHVILLE — The Diamondbacks’ top priority this offseason has been to add a quality starting pitcher. It is the same priority, it seems, of roughly 25 other teams across the majors.

Starting pitching is always in high demand, but it is hard to recall an offseason in recent memory with as many teams competing to sign or acquire the same players.

The scramble for rotation help raises questions: Why are so many teams in need of pitching? Is it just a one-off aberration that will correct itself in time? Or is the industry somehow falling short in its ability to develop good starting pitching at a rapid enough pace?

The answers depend on whom you ask, but one thing seems to be a clear factor: the competitive landscape across the majors.

For most of the past 15 or so years, it has been relatively easy to identify at least a half-dozen teams every season who recognize their chances of advancing to the postseason are not good and, as such, opt to build for the future instead.

This year, however, there might be as few as two teams, the White Sox and Athletics, behaving in such a way. Every other team, it seems, is intent on trying to get better — if not trying to contend for the postseason, which is easier to do with expanded playoffs.

In past years, there might have been three or four additional teams willing to trade their established starting pitching for prospects, but now those clubs not only are looking to hold onto what they have, some might actually be looking to add pitching themselves.

And so the body of established starting pitchers in a given year across the league is being divided amongst a much larger pool of teams.

“I don't know what exactly that number is, but it's way higher,” Diamondbacks General Manager Mike Hazen said. “I think that’s what’s increasing the competition and potential partners for trades and things like that. That could be sticking the market a little bit.”

How injuries may be playing a role

Another factor is injuries. They continued to trend up last year among pitchers, and they have left several clubs severely understaffed as they head into the winter, perhaps most notably the Dodgers, who lost Dustin May and Tony Gonsolin to arm injuries last season and are likely looking to add at least two or three starters this offseason. Other contenders, including the Rays, Reds, Yankees and Braves, lost multiple starters to injury throughout the past season.

“There’s so much uncertainty,” Diamondbacks assistant GM Amiel Sawdaye said. “Maybe it’s the way they’re training, maybe it’s the way they’re throwing harder, I don’t know, but it definitely feels like there’s more injuries across the game.”

Some, however, believe there are other factors at play. Diamondbacks pitching coach Brent Strom points to pitchers’ pursuit of velocity as a factor in the struggle to develop quality starters.

“We’ve basically lost the art of pitching, so to speak,” Strom said. “You have to develop, as a youngster, a toolbox, and that means spin and (changing) speeds to be able to navigate a lineup two to three times around. I think what’s happened is the entire industry is chasing the velocity aspect of things and people forget how to compete with what they have.”

With so much focus on throwing harder, Strom thinks pitchers are arriving in the majors not just with less command but also with unrefined repertoires and less in the way of pitching acumen.

It is hard to blame the pitchers themselves: Throwing hard and generating swings and misses is paramount to getting drafted high and thus paid well.

Starting pitching:Why it remains Arizona Diamondbacks’ top offseason priority

Teams might also be showing less patience when it comes to developing starters. Given the increased usage of bullpens, clubs are always looking for relief help, and when a pitcher looks like he has a chance to contribute in relief right away, some are getting pushed to the bullpen early in their careers.

Sawdaye pointed to right-hander Slade Cecconi as an example. Sawdaye said he expects the Diamondbacks to continue to develop him as a starter, but he could see a situation where a club would look at Cecconi, who throws hard with a good slider and prefer to fast-track him into a relief role, where he might end up anyway, rather than fill a bullpen job with a free agent who costs $5 million.

“I think more teams are doing that,” Sawdaye said. “Relievers are more valuable now than they ever have been.”

Despite the dearth of inventory, Hazen sounds optimistic that he will be able to find the starter he needs to add depth to a rotation that already includes Zac Gallen, Merrill Kelly and Brandon Pfaadt. The club is known to have made a run at right-hander Sonny Gray before he signed with the St. Louis Cardinals, and the Diamondbacks reportedly have shown interest in right-handers Michael Wacha, Seth Lugo and Lucas Giolito.

“I'm confident that we are going to work very hard to make something come to fruition,” Hazen said. “When you’re talking about both the free-agent market and the trade market, you’re at the mercy of the other teams in a lot of cases. But I think there is starting pitching that is going to be out there.”