Diamondbacks vs. Angels discussion

Roster moves

The Arizona Diamondbacks made the following roster moves. The D-backs’ 40-man roster is at 40.

• Reinstatedfrom the 10-day injured list: OF Lourdes Gurriel Jr. (strained left hamstring)
• Optioned to Triple-A Reno following yesterday’s game: OF Ryan Waldschmidt

As expected, Gurriel’s return requires Waldschmidt to go back to Reno. After a good start, his numbers have sharply regressed over the recent weeks, with his OPS+ for the season dropping to 87. On the other hand, that’s still better than the woeful 65 OPS+ Gurriel posted over his twenty-five games between one injured list stint and the next. But he has a major-league contract. It’s also better than the 53 OPS+ Jorge Barrosa has put up. But he is out of minor-league options, and there are times when considerations other than purely current performance, need to be taken into account with regard to roster construction.

The team could certainly do with a boost offensively, from anywhere. We are now basically half-way through June, and the Diamondbacks have scored just 36 runs across 13 games. There’s only one other calendar month in franchise history where Arizona has averaged fewer than three runs per game. That came in May 2018, when they played 27 games and scored 77 runs, a slightly higher rate than this month. The team simply isn’t hitting. The collective average for June is .203, the third-lowest ever. They hit .193 in May 2018, and a mere .181 over the first 22 games in 2022.

By sOPS+ (which is OPS+ relative to the league, so takes offensive environment into consideration), things are worse still. Discounting the shortened campaign of July 2020, when the D-backs played only eight games, this is the second-worst month ever for Arizona, with an sOPS+ of just 69. The only lower figure was the May 2018 campaign, which was all the way down at .160. There are only three Arizona regulars with an OPS even at .700 for the month: Corbin Carroll, Gabriel Moreno and Geraldo Perdomo. It goes all the way down to Ildemaro Vargas, former NL player of the month, who is 1-for-25 in June. Hopefully, the only way is now up for the offense.

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