| Betting Overview | |
|---|---|
| Divisional Odds | +4000 |
| Pennant Odds | +5000 |
| World Series Odds | +12000 |
| Regular Season Wins | 75.5 |
| To Make Playoffs | Yes +430 / No -620 |
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Best Bet: Over 74.5 Wins
Anthony Dabbundo: Stolen base attempts are up 20% in spring training this season compared to last year’s spring training. From a team speed perspective, few are better positioned to take advantage of the stealing enhancement than the Diamondbacks.
Corbin Carroll was the fastest player in all of MLB in his debut last September. Jake McCarthy is projected to swipe 25-plus bases. Josh Rojas stole 23 last year, and Alek Thomas is in the 95th percentile for sprint speed on Baseball Savant.
Arizona could also turn to Jordan Lawlar — one of its top prospects — in the middle of the season, and he’d add more speed to the basepaths as well.
This team will put a ton of pressure on opposing defenses because of its speed, and the Diamondbacks are also projected to be a well above-average defense too. By outs above average, no team was even close to Arizona last season with a +44 rating. The next best was Houston at +36.
The defense and the speed are small difference-makers that season-long projections can sometimes miss on a team.
The upside for this roster comes from its young pitching. Ryne Nelson, Drey Jameson and Brandon Pfaadt all add depth to this starting rotation behind the solid front three of Zac Gallen, Merrill Kelly and Madison Bumgarner. Nelson registered a 117.8 Stuff+, per Eno Sarris’ model from The Athletic, and paired that with above-average command. He has three good pitches and could become a rotation regular.
Pfaadt struggled with homers in the PCL in the minors, but his high fastball should be electric in a more friendly pitching environment. Jameson doesn’t have overwhelming stuff but locates well and has a decent floor as a back-end starter because of it.
Last season, The Diamondbacks were one of the most profitable first-five teams in the whole sport but couldn’t carry it through nine innings. The bullpen once again is a weakness on paper, but the natural variance and randomness to bullpens on a year-to-year basis suggest there’s room to regress positively.
There’s some disagreement in the models on Arizona this season. ZiPS has it at 81 wins, PECOTA is at 73.8 and FanGraphs is at 77.
I love the young pitching, and the Diamondbacks are my favorite win total of the season at over 74.5 wins. I’d play the over at 75.5 but no higher than that.
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