Arizona Diamondbacks Reveal Line-up: Final Two Spots Go To Hazelbaker And Chafin

Arizona Diamondbacks has finally announced their line-up. The last two spots have been given to Andrew Chafin and Jeremy Hazelbaker. According to D-backs manager, Torey Lovullo, “it was a very tough decision” to make, Arizona Sports reports.

Having Chafin on the final roster of Diamondbacks had not been too much of a surprise. Lovullo has expressed that they had always “liked the idea of having another lefty in the bullpen,” alongside Jorge De La Rosa, although it was notable that Chafin had been struggling a bit, with his ERA record at 6.10 for the 11 Cactus League appearances. Lovullo, however, remains positive about his performance because of his secondary pitches showing consistency.

“Inside each appearance, the fastball command and velocity was coming back. The secondary pitches were starting to show a little bit more consistency.”

Meanwhile, Silvino Bracho was beaten out by Chafin for the last pitching spot and is now optioned to Triple-A-Reno. Bracho had five scoreless appearances before Thursday where he was able to allow for two runs in one-third of an inning against the Cleveland Indians. He was also a part of Team Venezuela for the World Baseball Classic but has suffered an injury. Regardless, Lovullo said in reference to the decision made to pick Chafin over Bracho that “there are very strong arguments for both candidates. And they’ve made it hard on us.”

Overall, the Arizona Diamondbacks manager had a lot to say about the process of choosing the final line-up and therefore thanked his team.

“The final roster has taken a little while for us to drill down to because of how these guys have gone out and really performed and made this decision hard on a group of people that were set out to evaluate them. In certain cases, we wanted to let that process play out for as long as it possibly could have. I personally want to just say thanks to the guys. I want to acknowledge their hard work and their patience.”

In the final list of players for the Arizona Diamondbacks, 12 are named pitchers and the rest are position players. The catchers include Chris Hermann, Chris Ianetta, and Jeff Matthis. Infielders are Nick Ahmed, Daniel Descalso, Brandon Drury, Paul Goldschmidt, Jake Lamb, and Chris Owings, while outfielders in the team are tasked to Jeremy Hazelbaker, David Peralta, A.J. Pollock, and Yasmany Tomas.

In addition to that, Diamondbacks’ starting pitchers are Zack Greinke, Patrick Corbin, Taijuan Walker, Robbie Ray, and Shelby Miller, while the relief pitchers for the team are Archie Bradley, Andrew Chafin, Jorge De la Rosa, Randall Delgado, J.J. Hoover, Fernando Rodney, and Tom Wilhelmsen.

Jake Barrett and Steve Hathaway are currently placed on the disabled list.

This spring, the velocity of Arizona Diamondbacks pitchers has been a topic and has raised some concerns, as told by Arizona Sports. Although Shelby Miller has shown some increase in speed, Greinke, on the other hand, has shown a decrease in velocity. But it seems, however, that those behind Diamondbacks are not disturbed by Greinke’s reduced speed.

Another noted big surprise for the Arizona Diamondbacks is J.J. Hoover. After winning the exhibition game against Indians on Thursday, Hoover has recorded “12 strikeouts to two-walk with no end runs in 10 innings,” as detailed by Arizona Sports. Decisions were also made to include Hoover in the final line-up for Diamondbacks, and for Oscar Hernandez to be sent to Double-A Jackson, as well as have T.J MacFarland play for minor-league camp.

Players are now just looking at how they will come together as a team. And with this, player Tom Wilhelmsen has shared his thoughts.

“It’s definitely nice for guys to know (roles). In a job being a bullpen guy, in a position that’s really so volatile and you kind of live your life on standby, I guess the more you do know, the more you’re aware about the kind of role you have, the better prepared you can be so then you can kind of start to get a routine going, and I think that can help some guys quite a bit.”

Now, what is just left to know is how Lovullo will lay out the roles of Arizona Diamondbacks players and how great of a team they are.

[Featured Image by Darin Wallentine/Getty Images]