The Diamondbacks are betting big on a few new faces

After their first season in 1998, Arizona put together a stretch of five good seasons, in which they complied a record of 459-351 (.566), but since then, they have yet to replicate that success.

Instead of heading to the bay area, or back to the Dodgers, Greinke committed to the Diamondbacks for six years.

After adding Greinke, Stewart and La Russa wanted to shore up the front of their rotation, and did so with a trade.

Swanson was the number one overall pick in the 2015 draft (and is ranked as the 17th best prospect by Baseball America); Blair was the 36th overall pick in the 2013 draft (and could be MLB ready this year); and Inciarte is an elite defensive outfielder who had a breakout 2015 season in which he hit .303/.338/.408 in 561 plate appearances.

After trading for Segura, Stewart had this to say about his new player.

“‘What I like most about [this deal] is that we added a guy who can give us some offense after we lost some’, said Stewart, indicating that the acquisition of Segura came in the wake of having to ship outfielder Ender Inciarte to Atlanta in the deal for right-hander Shelby Miller.

Stewart has proudly touted the fact that his team is a “true baseball team” rather than one concerned with analytics and “those type of things” before, but even he should be able to see that Segura is not a top-of-the-lineup hitter.

Despite adding Greinke, Miller, Clippard, and Segura to a team that already has Goldschmidt, Pollock, David Peralta, and Brad Ziegler, the Diamondbacks still have a considerable number of holes in their lineup.

His performance worsened as the season progressed, which could be tied to the fact that the Cuban season is much shorter than that of the major leagues.

The Diamondbacks certainly have some issues that will need to be addressed, but if a few players continue to get better, and Greinke, Miller, Corbin, Goldschmidt, and Pollock produce at the level we’ve come to expect, Arizona could be headed for a competitive season.