News Diamondbacks Team Notes

Corbin Carroll has missed the Diamondbacks’ last four games due to a sore left hand, after the outfielder was hit by a pitch in Wednesday’s 8-1 loss to the Blue Jays. X-rays were negative and manager Torey Lovullo indicated today that Carroll’s hand was improving to some extent, but the skipper told MLB.com’s Steve Gilbert and other media that Carroll would undergo an MRI as an extra precaution. “Just because it’s not progressing as quickly as we wanted it to, and because of what we’ve just gone through with [Gabriel Moreno] and several of the injuries that we’ve been taking on, we want to definitely get a baseline,” Lovullo said.

In Moreno’s case, what apparently seemed like a minor hand injury ended up leading to a much longer expected absence, as a second MRI revealed a hairline fracture in the catcher’s right index figure. Such an outcome for Carroll would be devastating, as the young star has bounced back from a fairly ordinary 2024 campaign to hit .255/.341/.573 with 20 home runs in his first 323 plate appearances of 2025. Only 12 players in baseball have a higher wRC+ than Carroll’s 148, so naturally even losing him for a few days has been a hit to Arizona’s lineup. Losing Carroll to a more serious hand issue might well change the trajectory of the Diamondbacks’ season, as it would make it even harder for the Snakes to make up ground in both the crowded NL West or in the NL wild card picture.

More from around the NL West…

  • Tyler Glasnow and Luis Garcia each began minor league rehab assignments today, with Glasnow tossing two innings for the Dodgers’ Triple-A Oklahoma City and Garcia throwing an inning with the Dodgers’ A-ball affiliate in Rancho Cucamonga. Glasnow has been on the injured list (first the 15-day and then the 60-day) since late April due to shoulder inflammation, and is expected to make at least three rehab outings before a potential return to the Los Angeles rotation. Garcia has been out since late May due to an adductor strain and probably won’t need as much of a build-up to return to his bullpen role, so a return before the end of June seems possible.
  • Kyle Freeland is hoping to return from the 15-day IL when first eligible on Friday, the Rockies left-hander told MLB.com’s Thomas Harding and other reporters. Lower back stiffness led to Freeland’s IL placement, but he said “everything felt great” after a 50-pitch bullpen session today. The plan is for a shorter bullpen session on Tuesday as the final step in an abbreviated recovery process, and the extended 50-pitch outing today was meant to get Freeland into something of a simulated game environment without the need for any rehab starts.
  • Sticking with the Rockies, another quick return of a more unusual fashion may be occurring if Bud Black rejoins the organization. Fired as Colorado’s manager on May 11, “Black is a strong candidate to rejoin the Rockies as a pitching director or special assistant,” USA Today’s Bob Nightengale writes. While some managers are occasionally re-assigned to a new role within an organization in lieu of being altogether axed, such shuffling usually happens at the time of a managerial change, not a little over a month afterwards. Black managed the Rockies to a 544-690 record over eight-plus seasons, as playoff appearances in 2017-18 gave way to six straight losing seasons, plus Colorado’s current 18-60 record under Black and interim manager Warren Schaeffer.
 
Corbin Carroll has been diagnosed with a “chip fracture” in his left wrist, manager Torey Lovullo told D-Backs’ postgame host Todd Walsh (h/t to Jody Jackson). It’s unclear how long he’ll be out of action or whether there’s any consideration of surgery. Nick Piecoro of The Arizona Republic had reported shortly before Lovullo’s announcement that the D-Backs would place Carroll on the injured list tomorrow. According to Piecoro, Jake McCarthy will be recalled from Triple-A Reno to take his spot on the roster.

It’s the latest hit to an Arizona team that has been battered by injuries. In this month alone, they’ve lost Corbin Burnes and top relievers A.J. Puk and Justin Martinez to season-ending elbow surgeries. Starting catcher Gabriel Moreno went down with a broken index finger last week. They’ll now be without one of their top two hitters for what seems likely to be at least a few weeks.

Carroll was injured during last Wednesday’s loss to the Blue Jays. Toronto reliever Justin Bruihl hit him on the left wrist with a 91 MPH sinker. The D-Backs lifted him for a defensive replacement in the following half-inning. Carroll hasn’t played since and wasn’t recovering as well as hoped. The Snakes sent him for an MRI that revealed the bone break. It’s unfortunately similar to the situation that played out with Moreno, who initially continued to play after a first round of x-rays didn’t catch the hairline fracture in his finger.

The 24-year-old Carroll has had a fantastic season, hitting .255/.341/.573 with 20 homers in 72 games. He got out to a blistering start, cooled a bit in May, and had rebounded to reel off nine extra-base hits in 13 games this month. Carroll has been a fixture in the top two spots in Lovullo’s batting order all season. They’ve bumped Geraldo Perdomo to the leadoff spot, at least against right-handed pitching, in his absence. Randal Grichuk has drawn into the lineup as the right fielder.

Grichuk is a solid role player but obviously isn’t going to come close to replacing Carroll’s production. If there’s a silver lining, it’s that the Diamondbacks still have a strong nucleus. A lineup including Ketel Marte, Eugenio Suárez, Josh Naylor, Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and Perdomo should remain capable of scoring runs. They need an elite offense to compensate for the struggles of the injury-riddled pitching staff, though, and that’s much more difficult without Carroll at the top.

Arizona bludgeoned the White Sox for a 10-0 victory tonight. That brought them to 40-38 on the season. They’re in fourth place in the NL West but are just 2.5 games out of the final Wild Card spot. Few teams have more at stake over the next five weeks as they hope to remain in position to add at the deadline.
 
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The Diamondbacks have signed outfielder Albert Almora to a minor league contract and assigned him to Triple-A Reno. The move was announced by the minor league affiliate. Almora had been playing in Triple-A with the Marlins but was released last week.

A former sixth overall pick by the Cubs, Almora played parts of five seasons with Chicago as a light-hitting defensive specialist in center field. He logged a bit of time with the Mets in 2021 and appeared in 65 games for Cincinnati three seasons ago. The right-handed hitter turned in a .223/.282/.349 line through 235 plate appearances with the Reds in what remains his most recent big league action.

Almora spent all of last year in the Arizona system. He tallied nearly 600 plate appearances with Reno, batting .292/.349/.438 with nine home runs. That’s a solid slash line on the surface but is below average once one accounts for Reno’s status as one of the most hitter-friendly parks in affiliated ball. Almora never got an MLB look from the Snakes and signed a minor league deal with his hometown Marlins over the winter. He was batting .240/.289/.315 with their top affiliate in Jacksonville when they released him.
 
The Diamondbacks announced that right-hander Tayler Scott has been designated for assignment. Fellow righty John Curtiss will take Scott’s place on the active roster, as Arizona selected Curtiss’ contract from Triple-A.

This is the second time in a month and a half that Scott has entered DFA limbo, as his previous designation from the Astros led to Scott electing free agency (he had the right to reject an outright assignment) and then signing a minor league deal with Arizona. The Snakes selected that minors contract to their active roster on June 10, but Scott’s struggles in Houston have continued with his new team.

Scott has an ominous 6.66 ERA over 25 2/3 total innings this season, breaking down as a 5.40 ERA in 16 2/3 frames with Houston and a 9.00 ERA in nine innings for Arizona. That brief time with the D’Backs has already included three home runs allowed and four walks, adding to the control problems that have nagged at Scott throughout his five MLB seasons.

Scott somewhat came out of nowhere to post a 2.23 ERA in 68 2/3 innings with the Astros last season, as it seemed like he had finally found a foothold in the majors at age 32 after a journeyman career that includes stints in Japan and independent baseball. Unfortunately, his lack of results this year may be sending him on another transactional carousel. Because Scott has been outrighted in the past, he can again decline an outright assignment in favor of free agency if he clears waivers.

Curtiss signed a minors deal with the D’Backs in February, and he is now in line for his first big league action of the 2025 campaign. Once Curtiss gets into a game, it will mark his eighth MLB season, and Arizona will be his eighth different team of a peripatetic career. Curtiss has a 4.06 ERA, 22.7% strikeout rate, and 7% walk rate over 108 2/3 career innings, and his most recent action in the Show was three appearances (and a 15.43 ERA in 2 1/3 innings) with the Rockies in 2024.
 
The Triple-A Reno Aces placed Jordan Lawlar on their seven-day injured list on Thursday, and the infield prospect is facing another extended stint on the sidelines. Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo told reporters (including Alex Wiener of Arizona Sports) that Lawlar is expected to miss “weeks” recovering from a Grade 1 hamstring strain. For a more specific timeline, Sports Illustrated’s Jack Sommers heard from an unnamed D’Backs official that Lawlar will be out for at minimum one month.

Selected sixth overall by the D’Backs in the 2021 draft, Lawlar has had cups of coffee in the majors in both the 2023 and 2025 seasons, with only an .080/.179/.080 slash line to show from a sample size of 56 plate appearances against MLB pitching. This includes an 0-for-19 stretch over 22 PA this season, as the Diamondbacks made the somewhat curious decision to promote Lawlar despite not really having a regular spot for him in the lineup. Lawlar’s struggles made the situation somewhat moot, as he was optioned back to Triple-A at the end of May.

The nature of the injury is a little ominous, given that hamstring problems cost Lawlar a huge chunk of the 2024 season. Between a thumb surgery that delayed his 2024 debut in Reno until late May, and then both an initial Grade 1 strain and then a re-aggravation of that same hamstring, Lawlar ended up playing in only 23 total games across three of Arizona’s minor league levels. A Grade 1 strain is the least-serious level of injury, yet with last season certainly still lingering, the D’Backs figure to be particularly cautious with Lawlar’s recovery this time around.

Lawlar has been obliterating Triple-A pitching when healthy, and he is now hitting .334/.420/.590 in 388 plate appearances over parts of three seasons with Reno. There seems to be little left for the 22-year-old to prove in the minors, though the rather extreme nature of his early struggles in the majors suggests some more seasoning is required. That said, Lawlar would’ve surely gotten an extended look in the big leagues at this point if he played for a team with a less-productive mix of position players. The Diamondbacks have been arguably baseball’s best offensive team over the last two seasons, particularly in the infield.

Losing Lawlar through at least July robs the D’Backs of their chief candidate for a call-up in the event of an infield injury. (Perhaps in a case of “when it rains, it pours,” first baseman Josh Naylor left yesterday’s game with neck tightness and is expected to sit out this weekend’s action.) Lawlar’s health could also impact any potential ideas Arizona had about moving third baseman Eugenio Suarez at the trade deadline, should the 41-40 Diamondbacks fall out of the race. Suarez is a free agent after the season and is therefore a natural candidate to be moved in the event of a sell-off, and dealing Suarez would’ve naturally opened up third base. It is entirely possible that the D’Backs plan to have Lawlar as their regular third baseman in 2026 if Suarez headed elsewhere in free agency, though a Suarez deadline trade would give Lawlar some steady playing time in the Show.
 
Arizona governor Katie Hobbs has signed off on legislation committing up to $500MM (plus an annual inflation adjustment) in sales tax revenue over the next 30 years towards Chase Field renovations (link via The Associated Press). The bill had passed the state legislature on Tuesday. Hobbs has been a longtime supporter of the project, so her approval was largely a formality.

The next step is for the organization to agree to a lease extension with Maricopa County. Their current lease at Chase Field runs through 2027. “This could all be for naught if we don’t have a new lease extension, and we’re going to start negotiating that,” D-Backs CEO Derrick Hall told Arizona Sports this week. “I don’t see any issue there.”

The public funding will go towards infrastructure upgrades to the stadium. Hall told Craig Harris of 12 News that improving the air conditioning system and installing a new video board are among the initial priorities. The team has stated that they’ll commit $250MM to the project.

As noted by Arizona Sports’ Alex Weiner, the legislation includes financial penalties if the D-Backs leave Chase Field before 2050. They’d face a $10MM fine for leaving before 2035 with lesser penalties if they leave between 2036-50. In February 2024, when the team was encountering resistance in their pursuit of public funding, owner Ken Kendrick had remarked that they “may run out of time in Phoenix.” They still need to finalize the lease extension but now seem likely to stay for the long haul. Phoenix had lost its NHL team, the Coyotes, in a relocation to Salt Lake City before the 2024-25 NHL season.
 
June 27: Garcia was outrighted back to Reno, per the MLB.com transaction log. He’ll have the right to elect free agency but may decide to accept the assignment as he did earlier in the year.

June 23: The Diamondbacks have announced their signing of catcher James McCann, which was reported yesterday. Fellow backstop Aramis Garcia has been designated for assignment as the corresponding move.

Garcia, 32, went 0-for-4 in his limited time with the D-backs. Arizona selected him to the 40-man roster last week after Gabriel Moreno was placed on the injured list due to a broken finger. It appeared as though he might get a bit of runtime with Jose Herrera — typically Moreno’s backup — struggling in an increased role since Moreno was first banged up. Instead, the D-backs scooped up the veteran McCann, who’s been playing with Atlanta’s Triple-A affiliate but had a rolling opt-out/upward mobility clause in his minor league deal there.

Garcia has played in parts of six major league seasons and carries a career .208/.245/.321 batting line in 331 trips to the plate. He hit well with the Diamondbacks’ top minor league affiliate in Reno this year, slashing .250/.399/.524 in 38 games. Garcia is a lifetime .235/.306/.430 hitter in parts of seven Triple-A seasons.

This is the second time the D-backs have designated Garcia for assignment this year. He cleared waivers the first time and accepted an outright assignment back to Reno. Arizona will have five days to trade him before he has to be placed on waivers, although he can be placed on waivers at any point prior to that as well. Waivers are a 48-hour process, so we’ll know within a week’s time how his latest DFA will play out. If Garcia again passes through waivers unclaimed, he’ll have the right to reject an outright assignment in favor of free agency (although he also had that right last time around and opted to stick with the D-backs).
 
Veteran infielder Nicky Lopez triggered an opt-out clause in his minor league deal with the D-backs, reports Robert Murray of FanSided. Teams typically have 48 hours to decide whether to add a player to the 40-man roster or grant him his release when the player triggers an out clause, but Murray adds that Lopez will hit the open market, so it seems Arizona has already made up its mind.

The 30-year-old Lopez hit just .267/.303/.317 through 109 turns at the plate in a supercharged offensive environment with Arizona’s Triple-A Reno affiliate. He continued showing strong contact skills, fanning in only 8.3% of his plate appearances, but Lopez showed no real power and walked at only a 4.6% clip. He went 1-for-24 in 19 games between the Cubs and Angels earlier this year while receiving sparse playing time as a glove-first option off the bench.

Lopez is a defensive-minded utility infielder who can handle either middle infield spot or third base. He’s made a few brief cameos in left field as well but has just 17 major league innings at the position. Back in 2021, he posted an out-of-nowhere .300/.365/.378 batting line with 22 steals (in 23 tries) and plus-plus defense at shortstop. Baseball-Reference valued that season at 4.4 wins above replacement, and FanGraphs credited him with an even gaudier 5.5 WAR. Since that time, Lopez has proven 2021’s offensive output to be an outlier; he’s slashed only .229/.300/.283 in 1215 subsequent plate appearances.
 
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