The Arizona Diamondbacks aren’t in the World Series without Hazen, Lovullo

There’s a lot to know about the Arizona Diamondbacks as the club heads to the second World Series in franchise history. So you don’t get rattled, we’re offering a Q-and-A about the team, split into two parts. Today, we’ll discuss management.

QUESTION: Wait, the Diamondbacks are in the World Series? What happened? Aren’t the Diamondbacks terrible?

ANSWER: They were. Two years ago they lost 110 games. Let that soak in a bit. They lost 110 games in 2021, and now they’re in the World Series.

Q: But weren’t they terrible this year?

A: In July, yes. The rest of the season, they were pretty good and took the last wild-card spot in the National League playoffs.

Q: So, how did we get from 110 losses to the World Series?

A: Mike Hazen had a plan.

The Diamondbacks’ general manager was going to stockpile young talent, guys like Corbin Carroll, Brandon Pfaadt and Gabriel Moreno, to form the core of his team. He was looking for Diamond(back)s in the rough, and he found them.

Then, he was going to add veteran free agents with winning experience who wouldn’t command top-line salaries. A guy like Evan Longoria was perfect.

And he was going to add the right guys at the trade deadline, an American League closer like Paul Sewaldt, who was largely unknown to National League hitters, and right fielder Tommy Pham, who had a burning desire to play for a winner, plus the smarts of a veteran coach.

It all came together.

Arizona Diamondbacks general manager Mike Hazen during celebrations after clinching a wild-card playoff spot following their game with the Houston Astros at Chase Field in Phoenix on Sept. 30, 2023.

Q: Tell me more about Hazen.

A: He was once a hotshot young executive with the world on a string, coming to Arizona from Boston.

Hazen had it all. A wife. A family. A great job taking over for Tony La Russa and Dave Stewart. He hired his buddy Torey Lovullo, and they made the playoffs in their first year running their own show.

Hazen looked like a genius.

Things fell apart. His playoff team disbanded when all his best guys left to get paid. One of his top assistants was hired away by the Mets and immediately fired in a text-message scandal. Then, his wife got sick and died of cancer.

But Hazen didn’t quit.

He put the team back together. He focused on his young sons, who threw out the first pitch before Game 3 against the Dodgers. And he regards his late wife as a guardian angel, who’s helped guide the team so far.

Q: Wow.

A: I know, right? Pretty special.

Q: So, when was the last time Arizona made the playoffs?

A: That was 2017, and this team doesn’t have a lot in common with that team.

The 2017 squad was loaded with real-deal stars in their prime. Batters feared pitchers like Robbie Ray, Patrick Corbin and Zack Greinke. And the lineup featured guys like JD Martinez, Paul Goldschmidt and AJ Pollock. (Those guys all got paid as handsomely as Fabio in free agency.)

Those guys were holdovers from the La Russa-Stewart regime.

The current roster is all Hazen and his staff, a roster full of guys most fans haven’t heard of who will be together for a few years.

Regardless of how this season ends, this could be the start of a good run of success.

Q: Who’s left from that 2017 team?

A: Manager Torey Lovullo, second baseman Ketel Marte and first baseman Christian Walker. And Walker didn’t play that much back then since he was behind future Hall of Famer Paul Goldschmidt.

Q: How do you know the core will stay together?

A: Baseball players don’t usually get traded unless they’re in the final year of their contracts and on a losing team. And players don’t force trades like guys do in the NBA and NFL.

Most of Arizona’s top guys are signed for the next couple of years (under club control, as baseball people say).

And because so many guys are on their rookie deals, Hazen is going to have some flexibility to spend money in the offseason as well as being able to add some expensive guys at the trade deadline.

This club could get even better next year and the year after.

Q: Why are the players so nonchalant? It was like they didn’t even know what Game 7 was all about. Does Hazen target guys like that?

A: Hazen looks for guys who don’t scare easily or fold in big moments, for sure.

But it’s got a lot to do with the influence of manager Torey Lovullo.

Lovullo talks like a self-help guru about “staying in the moment” and “taking it all in” before “putting all that away and getting down to business.”

People who know him say he hasn’t aged a day in the last 15 years in a grindhouse of a sport where managers wear caps because all their hair falls out after their first season.

Arizona Diamondbacks head coach Torey Lovullo celebrates their 4-2 win over the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 7 of their NLCS at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia on Oct. 24, 2023.

Q: So, Lovullo’s pretty cool?

A: The guy grew up the son of a TV executive in Hollywood, and he was a big-man-on-campus at UCLA. If he’s not cool, then I submit to you that there is no such thing as cool.

But it’s not just that, he’s got moxie.

Without flinching, Lovullo will pull a starting pitcher before he gets into trouble or platoon a hitter who’s on a hot streak.

Then, he’ll joke with reporters after the game, saying he knows that people will call him “an idiot,” but that he’s going to do whatever he can to win a ballgame, regardless of what fans and observers might say.

We all might want to see if Brandon Pfaadt and Merrill Kelly can pitch into the eighth inning every start, but Lovullo would rather pull a guy too early, rather than too late.

Clearly, he knows what he’s doing.

And clearly, he hears what people are saying about him; he just doesn’t care.

See? Told you he’s cool.

Q: Where did Lovullo come from?

A: He and Hazen both came up with the Red Sox, making it all the more fitting that they beat the Phillies, who were put together by Dave Dombrowski, the architect of Boston’s success about a decade ago.

There’s nothing quite like ripping the torch out of your mentor’s hand, not that Hazen or Lovullo would ever see it or say it that way.

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Q: So, do you think Lovullo just does whatever Hazen tells him? Is he a “company guy,” so to speak?

A: I can only recall a time or two where I’ve ever seen Lovullo frustrated over the last seven years, not that I’ve been in the clubhouse every day.

My guess is if you want to see whether Lovullo has it in him to ask you to step outside and repeat yourself, you should ask him something like that.

Matter of fact, I’ll handle this one for him.

No, I don’t think Lovullo is a puppet for the front office.

I think he and Hazen have a similar thought process for how to win games in the big leagues, especially on a team that can’t just go out and buy whatever players are having the best seasons at the time.

More on the Fall Classic: Everything Diamondbacks fans should know about the World Series

Lovullo is a lifer who’s seen almost everything there is to see in the sport.

He knows that a good manager can turn an OK player into a legitimate pro, and he’s determined to help his guys maximize their talents under his watch.

He’s not shuffling his batting order or pulling his starters because the front office tells him to. He’s doing it because he believes it’s best for the team.

Up next: In part 2 we’ll look at the players who made this World Series trip possible.

Reach Moore at gmoore@azcentral.com or 602-444-2236. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @SayingMoore.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: What to know about DBacks’ Hazen, Lovullo ahead of the World Series