Josh Naylor's Diverse Skill Set Keyed Diamondbacks' Comeback

Naylor was more of a free-swinger earlier in his career, with a chase rate of 33.8%, but that number has dropped to 28.6% in his first four games of 2025. If he sustains that for a full season, that should be close to a career-best. It's an area that saw massive improvement last season when he walked at a career-high 9.2% rate.

Adding more on-base ability to Naylor's game will make him more of a complete hitter. He's coming off a 30-homer and 100-RBI season with the Guardians, so this would add another dimension to the Diamondbacks' deep lineup.

The added patience already played a role in that game, as his walk to lead off the sixth resulted in the first run scoring. He also showed the willingness to trust the player behind him, drawing a left-on-left walk to load the bases in the seventh. While the Diamondbacks didn't score in the inning, it kept the lineup moving until their big eighth inning.

Naylor's patience earlier in the game was rewarded with an opportunity to give Arizona the lead in his final at-bat. With a runner at first, Naylor scorched a slider that missed over the middle of the plate off the center field wall to plate the game's deciding run.

Another area that gets overlooked in his game is opportunistic basestealing. While he's not particularly fast, ranking in the 13th percentile in Sprint Speed in 2024, he picks and chooses his spots. In the eighth inning, he chose the right moment as he caught Eli Morgan and the Cubs off guard and successfully stole third without a throw on a double steal.

"He picked off first attempt, and I had experience with him in Cleveland too. Second pitch, I guess he realized the pitcher was up and threw a pitch, and he's not very fast to the plate. So I took advantage of reading his time, took a leap of faith, and it worked," Naylor said.

Since the start of the 2022 season, Naylor has 23 stolen bases in 28 attempts. While he's not going to be known as a big threat on the basepaths, it is an example of him using his baseball IQ to pick up a critical 90 feet.

The Diamondbacks are expecting big things from Naylor this season, especially on the offensive side of the ball. That one game against the Cubs showcased exactly what he's capable of.