Watching the baseball playoffs on television is must-viewing for Diamondbacks General Manager Mike Hazen. As in, he must do it because it’s part of the job, perhaps the least enjoyable part.

“It’s hard to watch,” Hazen said in a conference call with reporters on Tuesday. “It’s hard  to sit here, two days after the season, in an empty baseball stadium. It is not an ideal day for anybody in this job, or in our organization.”

Worse, it’s becoming a habit for Hazen and his organization.

It’s the third consecutive year the Diamondbacks have missed the playoffs, the third consecutive year Hazen and manager Torey Lovullo held news conferences days after the final game to answer questions about what went wrong and how to fix it.

Hazen spoke for 30 minutes, and it was clear from the outset that he thinks more of the Diamondbacks roster than almost anyone else.

That’s not a surprise, I guess, since he built it.

“I do think this team, still, in my mind, has the building blocks of a being a good, competitive baseball team that is capable of making the playoffs, plus,” he said. “And we’re going to start from that base position.”

Others (well, me) see a roster that’s plentiful in players who at their best are solid and steady, but short on the star players required to make the playoffs and win there. That’s the “plus” Hazen referred to.

It was a roster of complementary players who had no one to complement.

Almost all of these solid, steady players underperformed, and the Diamondbacks finished 25-35 in a season shortened by COVID-19.

It’s questionable if Hazen could make major changes, even if so inclined. Last week, CEO Derrick Hall said it was “far-fetched” to think the 2021 payroll would approach the $120 million or so it would have been this year if a full season had been played.

So what the Diamondbacks will be selling in 2021 will be tweaks and hope.

Maybe they can add a right-handed power hitter, improve depth in the starting rotation and form a better bullpen. Mostly, however, they appear to be counting on rebound seasons from nearly every significant player: Madison Bumgarner, Luke Weaver, Merrill Kelly, Carson Kelly, David Peralta, Eduardo Escobar, Ketel Marte, etc.

That’s a lot to ask, but with a payroll that figures to be significantly reduced, maybe Hazen won’t have much of a choice.

Those decisions, he said, haven’t been made. Hazen didn’t want to go into detail on the team’s needs or predict how active the Diamondbacks might be this off-season. As he noted, he usually ends up doing more in the off-season than planned.

Both Hazen and Lovullo said they will spend the coming weeks evaluating what went wrong in 2020. One exploration project: finding reasons why the last three seasons have been defined by losing streaks.

In 2018, the Diamondbacks collapsed in September after leading the division for most of the summer. In 2019, it was losing 9 of 12 during a stretch in May and then six consecutive games in September. This season, it was a 2-18 stretch in August and September.

“We have good hitters in our lineup,” Hazen said. “It’s hard to put your finger on. I think we need to do a better job of night-to-night consistency. We need to do a better job of getting ourselves out of those ruts and back into more consistent play. There are going be periods of the season where you don’t hit. We still need to do a better job of scoring runs, and I believe that is possible.”

The solution is not a lineup overhaul, Hazen said, but he left open the likelihood of changes.

He reiterated a point he made at the trade deadline: The Diamondbacks have good hitters who too often impatient at the plate.

The constant talk about hitters taking poor approaches at the plate suggests changes on the coaching staff could be coming. Lovullo said those evaluations had not been completed. 

Like Hazen, Lovullo is going to force himself to watch playoff games.

“These couple days are going to be difficult for me,” Lovullo said, “but I want them to be. I deserve that. That’s how I look at it.”

It’s also difficult to be a Diamondbacks fan these days. Three seasons out of the playoffs. Installment payments for some season ticket holders are due Wednesday. And management apparently is taking the position that numerous players will prove their performances in 2020 were aberrations.

It’s a gamble, but the Diamondbacks tend to perform better when little is expected of them. If that holds true, 2021 could be their year.

Reach Kent Somers at [email protected]. Follow him on twitter @kentsomers. Hear Somers every Monday and Friday at 7:30 a.m. on The Drive with Jody Oehler on Fox Sports 910 AM.

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