Diamondbacks GM Addresses Deadline Plans after Naylor Trade

On Thursday, the Arizona Diamondbacks kicked off their Trade Deadline early, trading first baseman Josh Naylor to the Seattle Mariners in exchange for a pair of pitching prospects.

On Friday, GM Mike Hazen met with the media to address the deal and what might be yet to come for the Diamondbacks as July 31 gets closer.

Arizona Diamondbacks' Mike Hazen Addresses Josh Naylor Trade

"Unfortunately, trading Josh was not something that we really intended to do when we started out this season," Hazen said. "But where we stand today, we felt like it was the right thing to do."

"This is this is not the position I anticipated us being in. It's not a very comfortable position to be in. I'm not very happy we're in this position. Nobody's happy we're in this position."

"It just forces me having to take calls in fields, you know, scenarios that that become part of your job. And it is part of your job, and [you] can't just want to win. We have to go out there and do that, too. That's been sort of the conversation that we've had all year."

In exchange for Naylor, the D-backs brought back left-handed reliever Brandyn Garcia and right-handed starter Ashton Izzi, two of Seattle's top 20 prospects.

Garcia is a left-hander that can touch 97. He made his MLB debut on July 21, and posted a 3.51 ERA across Double- and Triple-A this season, with 42 strikeouts in 33.1 innings.

Izzi, meanwhile, has a 5.51 ERA in High-A, but is still only 21 years old.

Related Content: Did Diamondbacks Get Enough Return in Josh Naylor Trade?

Early Strikers

Despite the deadline still being six days away, Hazen opted to strike early, hoping to begin to set the market for potential future deals.

With just how many assets Hazen has been receiving calls on, he said he wanted to take advantage of a deal that had already materialized before focusing on other potential deals or packaging multiple players.

"I think when you're the selling team in this situation, you can dictate the pace at which you want to work," said Hazen. "And we just called everybody in yesterday and basically told them we got a deal that we were willing to do."

"I wanted to be able to focus our attention and energy appropriately as we move through the week.

"Trying to make two or three trades, a lot of times with the same teams, with the same players, I didn't feel like we were going to be able to do as good of a job. So we decided to push the market yesterday to see what was going to happen."

Rest of Deadline Plans

With a bevy of expiring contracts still left, Hazen remained noncommittal about the extent to which Arizona will sell going forward.

"I haven't decided what it's going to look like, honestly. I'm open-minded to a number of different things," he said.

"At some point, I have to take a step back from what I want to do and focus on what the what the greater good for the organization is. But that doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to be everything."

Hazen said that he's been taking calls on some of the non-expiring players as well, but that the majority of conversations surround those pending free agents.

"Of the guys [like] Ketel, Corbin, Moreno, Perdomo, Pfaadt, Nelson, like the younger group that's under long-term control, they're all calling me about them too.

"Most times at the deadline, anytime you're talking about controllable guys, you can have some conversations around them sometimes," Hazen said.

But while he did not rule out entirely the possibility of a trade involving one of those pieces, Hazen made it clear that those conversations have not made it to any tangible stage.

"If I say, 'well, depends on what you're talking about, it would be a haul.' That usually shuts the conversations down pretty quickly.

"Invariably everybody just says, 'well, this is something that doesn't have to happen right now. We can kick it to the offseason if it's something we want to talk about.' But I'm not as inclined to do those things," Hazen said.

Hazen also said the D-backs are still in the market to buy controllable players, despite their appearance as sellers.

Hazen referenced the trade that brought A.J. Puk over to the Diamondbacks in 2024, saying if a deal like that were to surface, he would pull the trigger without question.

"if the A.J. Puk deal is on the table for me today, I'm still doing that deal, regardless, 100%. Even with that premium, having paid for it at the deadline, I would still make that trade to put AJ Puk on this team now," Hazen said.

Hazen said that he's looking for ways to improve the D-backs' run prevention. That starts with pitching, of course, but Hazen specifically pointed out Arizona's drop in its usually-sharp defense.

"I think the most disappointing thing I've seen has been the play of our defense," Hazen said. "And I think that's something that I'm going to need to focus in on going into the end of this year and into the offseason about how we're better suited from a run-prevention standpoint."

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