No Luck on the Arizona Diamond

The Arizona Cardinals are making history and creating excitement around their franchise, but the same can’t be said for the baseball team that occupies the state of Arizona. The Arizona Diamondbacks have been desperately looking for rotation depth this off season and have been failing miserably. The DBacks were competitive in 2008, would of been National League West Division champs had one Manny Ramirez not joined the Los Angeles Dodgers. They look to be strong in 2009 again bringing back two amazing starters in Dan Haren and Brandon Webb. So why can’t they entice players to join them? Simply put, money.

The Diamondbacks have been, well ummm cheap this off season. Call it the economy, call it small market, call it what you want. I still just call it cheap. The Diamondbacks are trying to bring in a veteran starter to add depth to a young rotation but aren’t willing to spend to do so. Rumor has it the team has only been looking to spend around $4 or $5 million to do so. When wanting to bring in a quality veteran that is just not going to do it.

Last week, Arizona made a push to bring in Jon Garland. Garland made $12 million last season with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. The Diamondbacks were rumored to have offered only a fraction of that number. While his statistics would show he wasn’t an outstanding pitcher, he’s proven that he’s worth more then the $4 million the DBacks have left in their budget. I still can’t understand why Garland turned down arbitration from the Angels, but that’s a whole different issue. Regardless, Garland rightfully turned down the Arizona offer and made them turn to Plan B.

Plan B, was Randy Wolf. Wolf has been statistically more impressive then Garland over the past couple years although that was against National League hitting. Wolf has turned down numerous offers from other teams this off season, including a 3-year, $28.5 million offer from the Houston Astros. You did notice I said “Plan B, was Randy Wolf”. Yea, Wolf has already told the Diamondbacks no thanks. With a budget of only a few million and an asking price of close to ten, you could see why Wolf wants no part of Arizona.

The next option for Arizona is Braden Looper. This one could be the first legitimate possibility as Looper only made $5.5 million last season. By upping their offer just a little bit they could bring Looper in on a one or two year deal. Something to tide him over till the salary climate in baseball changes again. Looper had the best season of the three and could be a solid number three starter behind Haren and Webb.

Looking at Arizona’s search makes me wonder what is really going on in baseball. Yes, the economy is horrible we all know that but is the economic client in baseball really that bad? It’s been proven that fans still flock to sporting events in economic down turns, it acts as an escape for reality. Sponsorship money isn’t as big as it once was but advertisers are still spending on sporting events as it’s the easiest way to reach large amounts of people at once. Teams are refusing to spend money, but at the same time players are refusing to lower their demands. This off season has the greatest amount of free agents left this close to Spring Training. With that being said you could see why teams are playing hardball, but don’t you really think some players should just starting meeting these teams at half way? Even if it’s for just one year?

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Tags: Arizona Diamondbacks, MLB