D-Backs "Scouting Report"

ROCKIES NATION!!!

As we prepare for the National League Championship Series, we here at ROCKIES NATION have decided to provide a scouting report on the Arizona Diamondbacks. It will come as no surprise that we haven't spent a ton of time tracking the D-Backs, but here goes:

Strange D-Back fact #1: in 2007 they scored 20 fewer runs than were scored on them by opposing teams and still won 90 games and the Division. By contrast, the Rockies outscored their opponents by 102 runs (Yankees blew away their foes by 191 runs!). I guess this means they win a lot of low scoring games and get their asses kicked about once a week. Let’s hope the Rockies treat them to more of the latter in the coming days.

Pitcher Brandon Webb has 18 wins and an ERA of 3.01. That means that when he pitches, they typically don't get their asses kicked. He somehow won the Cy Young last year with 16 wins which I guess is good in the National League. Watch out for him as he was able to set a record this year with over 42 scoreless innings in a row. Unfortunately for him they made him accomplish that feat over the course of a few games or else that would have been really sweet. Since the D-Backs only have a 3.5 man rotation, Webb could pitch games 1, 4 and 7.

The two people that scare me most on the Arizona Diamondbacks are Randy the Big Unit Johnson and Bob Wickman. They are fierce competitors with scary pitches and make up $15 million of the team’s $57 million salary. Now for the good news: both of them are out for the season. Whew! So on to the rest of the team. I really feel that you have to worry about a squad that makes $42 million (vs Yankees $200 million) and ended up with the best record in the National League. While this is indicative of a very good team of young players playing well together, it goes against the current credo in baseball that you have to buy wins like the Yankees, Red Sox and Mets. This means that good teams beat great players. The league may have to step in.

My favorite player on the D-Backs has to be Livan Hernandez. After he pitched the Florida Marlins to the World Series in 1997 (he was MVP), a reporter asked what it was like to come all of the way from Cuba to this great stage. Wasn’t his family proud of him? He said that he thought they might be happy but everyone knew that he wasn’t even the best pitcher in his family! His brother was. George Steinbrenner immediately dispatched a team of commandos in a speedboat to kidnap that brother and sign him to a contract. Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez went on to help pitch the Yankees to World Series victories in 1998, 1999 and 2000.

Another guy that could prove to be a factor is JD Drew’s Little Brother. JD Drew’s Little Brother really looks like a younger version of JD Drew and his swing is identical. JD Drew’s Little Brother hit for .238 with 12 dongs and 60 RBI while making $1.5 million. JD Drew’s Little Brother’s big brother, JD Drew, hit for .270 with 11 home runs and 64 RBI and made $14 million with the Boston Red Sox. I wonder what they say to each other when they are out for beers.

Lead off man Chris Young makes the league minimum ($380k), hit 32 home runs, 68 RBI and had 27 stolen bases. He’s very dangerous. Eric Byrnes is another big bat but he’s a journeyman who is known to be an atrocious baserunner. He should go back to the A’s where his hairdo is better suited.

Man for man, on paper it doesn’t seem to me that these guys stand a chance against the white hot Rockies. They lost their starting ace (Randy Johnson), their second basemen (Orlando Hudson), their third basemen (Chad Tracy) but somehow still went on to win their division with a wild late run. They are here, they are hungry, they are mostly underpaid and they’ve played well as a team which I guess means a lot in sports sometimes.