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    What is in store for the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2017?

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    Zack Greinke comments on his throwing session

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    Diamondbacks’ Patrick Corbin after spring outing vs. White Sox

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    D-Backs lefty Patrick Corbin after spring outing vs. Padres

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    Archie Bradley on strong outing vs. Padres

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    Robbie Ray on his spring training debut

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    Spring training story lines to watch

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    Taijuan Walker throws two innings in spring debut

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    MLB commissioner Rob Manfred on rule changes, MLBPA cooperation

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    Diamondbacks’ Ken Kendrick discusses team’s lawsuit

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    D-Backs manager Torey Lovullo on Goldschmidt, team’s core

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    Behind the scenes at Diamondbacks Photo Day

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    Cubs’ Joe Maddon on why it’s difficult to repeat

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    A look at Diamondbacks Fan Fest 2017

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    D-Backs skipper Torey Lovullo press conference

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    The best MLB lineup realistic money can buy

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Paul Goldschmidt and A.J. Pollock were drafted the same year in 2009. They were teammates in the minor leagues and reached the majors nine months apart. But during the five seasons they’ve spent together with the Diamondbacks – a half-decade, an eternity in baseball years – they have yet to experience a winning season.

This is, by and large, through no fault of their own, but their time together might be running out.

The Diamondbacks are sitting at what feels like a prolonged organizational crossroads. They brought in a new leadership group atop baseball operations in October. They hired a new manager. But they are bringing back largely the same team that faltered last season. The front office is hoping for better results. It seems poised to change direction if it doesn’t get them.

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The Diamondbacks will need a number of scenarios to play out this year. Fewer injuries. Better defense. Improved pitching. Further development from their young core and bounce-backs for their more established players. If enough of those things happen, it’s not hard to squint and see a contender.

But if they don’t, the Diamondbacks could find themselves residing in no-man’s land, a sort of anathema to the modern baseball executive: not good enough to contend, not bad enough to properly rebuild. Making matters worse, their farm system is lacking in impact talent. They have no position players whom scouts project as middle-of-the-order bats and few pitchers, if any, who might become eventual frontline starters.

No one with the Diamondbacks is spelling out what all of this, taken together, might mean. But, should the club fall out of contention, it seems clear it will have decisions to make. Three stand out. They involve the club’s most high-profile players: Goldschmidt, their MVP-caliber first baseman; Pollock, their impactful-when-healthy center fielder; and right-hander Zack Greinke, their high-priced ace.

New route to success

Since 2012, the year rule changes went into effect limiting spending on amateur players, clubs have found the most efficient route to rebuilding is via total teardown. Teams such as the Cubs and Astros have traded away the majority of their veteran players for prospects; fielded losing teams for several years at the major league level; then capitalized on the spending power that losing afforded them in the draft and on the international market.

Most executives seem to believe the worst place to be is in the middle. They say clubs that try to simultaneously win and rebuild tend to do a poor job of one or the other – and often both.

But rebuilds are painful. Owners tend to dislike them. Fan bases hate them. And, despite the rousing success of the World Series-champion Cubs, there are no assurances a club comes out the other side a winner.

“It’s tough to feel like you’re committing to a direction where you feel like you may not be competitive in the short term,” said White Sox General Manager Rick Hahn, whose club entered a rebuilding phase over the offseason. “You have to remain focused on the long-term benefit of the club and that it’s going to lead to several brighter days in the future, even if it’s a little bit dark in the early going.

“But it’s hard. You’re emotionally attached to some of the players you’ve been around … and those players that you always envisioned winning with. There is a bit of an emotional element to it, a bit of a competitiveness element to it.

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“But ultimately people who run clubs aren’t charged with doing the best emotional thing or the best thing for their own ego or the best thing for their own desire to win immediately. They’re charged with putting the organization in the best position over the long term.”

But, as Diamondbacks General Manager Mike Hazen noted, the collective bargaining agreement released during the winter makes it somewhat less beneficial to bottom out, with draft and international spending limits more flat than before. But it still has its benefits.

“Picking first is a lot better than picking fifth,” Hazen said during a panel discussion at the SABR Analytics Conference this month. “From a long-term building standpoint, there are clear advantages to being in those positions over a period of time. The majority of your superstars, by and large, are going to come in those areas of the draft and the international market. I think having access to that type of talent year in and year out, whatever period of time you are there, whether it’s two, three, four years, is going to pay dividends down the road.”

And even if the new rules, which prevent clubs from international spending sprees and from wielding massive financial clout in the draft, might make talent acquisition more difficult in some ways, it could make it easier in others.

“The harder it is to acquire talent from those channels, the more valuable it is being able to acquire guys like that in trades,” Dodgers GM Farhan Zaidi said. “A guy who has multiple years of control should be able to bring back even more in a trade now. I think it’s just a different set of rules. The dynamic will be a little bit different and the challenges will be a little bit different, but I don’t think it necessarily makes it harder.”

Dealing with reality

If the Diamondbacks decided it was time to rebuild, they would have two enormous trade chips to dangle that could jumpstart the process.

Goldschmidt, who is signed to a deal that is widely regarded as among the most team-friendly in baseball, is under contract through 2019. His production over the past four seasons is on par with nearly every top hitter in baseball. Last July, FanGraphs writer Dave Cameron ranked Goldschmidt the ninth-most-valuable trade asset in the majors; by comparison, the 15th-most valuable on his list, left-hander Chris Sale, netted Baseball America’s Nos. 2 (Yoan Moncada) and 32 (Michael Kopech) prospects in the majors when traded in December.

Pollock’s value isn’t quite so high in large part because he has one less year of team control. But when he’s been on the field over the past three seasons, he’s rated among the best all-around players in baseball. If he shows he’s healthy this year, he, too, could land a significant return.

Greinke is a different matter altogether. Entering the second year of a $206.5 million deal, his velocity was down in the first half of spring training, an alarming development for a pitcher who had shoulder issues last year. His contract would make him difficult to trade, and the Diamondbacks likely would have to include significant money in any deal.

But given how large of a chunk of their payroll Greinke is eating, the Diamondbacks seemingly will have to consider doing whatever is necessary to move him. Last year, Greinke’s $34 million salary constituted 34.6 percent of the club’s payroll, according to financial data available at Baseball Prospectus. That’s the largest chunk any one player has taken up in baseball over the past 10 years.

Teams that have one player making such a disproportionately high amount tend to struggle. Since 2007, 42 teams have had one player making 20 percent of total payroll. Just five of those teams (12 percent) made the postseason. Two of those five – the 2009 Dodgers (Manny Ramirez) and 2016 Mets (Yoenis Cespedes) – were already-talented teams that essentially gave huge, one-year deals to those players to put them over the top.

The Diamondbacks’ payroll, which this year is expected to be around $100 million, would have to grow to north of $170 million in order for Greinke’s $34 million salary to eat up less than 20 percent.

So just win, now

In theory, the Diamondbacks could stave off such decisions with their play on the field, and the pervading belief in the clubhouse is that such an outcome is entirely possible.

“I think we’re a year better, a year smarter,” third baseman Jake Lamb said. “I think our pitching is going to be better, our defense is going to be better. I think our offense is going to be even better. I just have a tough time thinking what happened last year is going to happen again. Whether it’s injuries, people having down years, all that stuff. I think we’re going to be all right.”

Hazen, too, has expressed confidence his team could surprise. He has noted that there is not much difference between the club that entered last year with high expectations and that this year seems almost an afterthought. That team lost Pollock to injury for all but 12 games and saw several players regress from their career norms, including Greinke and right-hander Shelby Miller. Even Goldschmidt had, for him, a down year.

“We know we won 69 games last year and that is a motivating factor for me every day,” manager Torey Lovullo said. “I think the rest of the organization feels the same way. We’re turning the page on what happened last year and we’re ready to go out there and prove that we’re prepared for the season.”

The Diamondbacks are hoping a focus on catcher defense can help the pitching staff. They’re looking for several of their talented but inconsistent starters to emerge. They are hoping a dependable bullpen somehow takes shape.

“I think we’re actually in a pretty good place,” Hazen said. “I think we have a lot of talent at the major league level. A lot of it is young talent at the major league level. I think there are a bunch of guys that can win and are ready to win now at the major league level, hopefully over the next few years.”

But if they don’t, Hazen will be tasked with his first big test in his new position, with the future of the franchise on the line.

Reach Piecoro at (602) 444-8680 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @nickpiecoro.

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