This is gonna look weird for a bit.
I mean, some of the big acquisitions this year might look odd by themselves (Edwin in Chicago? Didi in Philly?), but the weirder ones are gonna be the guys who've been with only one team for a long time, and now have to play for someone entirely different. Felix Hernandez in Atlanta is gonna be a weird thing to get used to.
And...somehow the Diamondbacks have a TON of players like that. Been with one team forever, now on the Diamondbacks. The most obvious one is Madison Bumgarner, famed...rodeo rider, jack of all trades...you know, he's one of the most interesting men in baseball now. But he's now on the Diamondbacks, looking to head up their rotation in Zack Greinke's absence, and even though it's probably gonna be a smashing success for the big guy, seeing him in non-orange-and-black is gonna be weird. And will be until he starts making a name for himself there.
Same with Starling Marte, famed Pirates star, who'll be the second Marte in the D-Backs lineup this year. Marte's not as big of a name as MadBum, but he's on a lot of Pirates leaderboards now, and he's done a lot for the team since coming up in 2012. I've also accumulated two different Starling Marte relic cards in the last eight years, just from pulling them in packs. He's popular in that respect. In terms of where he fits into the D-Backs picture, he'll probably have a 30-homer season, but I'm not expecting HUGE things from him this year.
And then there's the sleeper, Kole Calhoun, who was an Angels hero for a bit til his average dipped, and who's expected to go in the same direction in Phoenix. I'm thinking Calhoun might surprise the most amount of people this spring. He might pull a Christian Walker and start piling up RBIs when no one's looking and get himself a solid year when nobody thought he would. That'd make the Angels feel silly for not wanting to re-sign him.
The bottom line is that a year after losing Goldschmidt and Greinke, the D-Backs have repopulated their team with stars, and look pretty worth-a-damn going into the year, perhaps looking to chase the Dodgers for first. And hopefully all of these guys will eventually look less weird to me in Diamondbacks colors.
Coming Tonight: One of the two big Japanese imports to hit the MLB this year- this one's the one that Tampa scooped up.
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