VenomStrikes’ Diamondbacks Awards for the 2021 Season
VenomStrikes’ Presents their 2021 Arizona Diamondbacks Awards
The 2021 MLB regular season for the Arizona Diamondbacks is over. Unfortunately, they did not make the playoffs and endured a rather really tough season. They finished with the second-worst record in team history with a 52-110 record. As such, there wasn’t much to truly enjoy as a Dbacks fan, or was there?
Venom Strikes tends to be more positive and uplifting in their views of the Diamondbacks. As such, we wanted to highlight some players that deserve to be recognized for their performance as Dbacks players this year. So, without further ado, here are our rewards recipients.
MVP of the 2021 Dbacks: Ketel Marte
Are you really surprised that we chose Ketel Marte? I mean, it came down to Marte, Carson Kelly, Eduardo Escobar, and Pavin Smith. We wanted to choose Escobar, but with him not on the team, it felt rather rough to do that. Pavin did play plenty but struggled towards the end. Carson Kelly was the leader of the team and had a career year, but we have another award in mind for him. Thus, it left only the leader and star of the team, Ketel Marte left.
Marte did struggle through an injury-plagued season due to Arizona’s nonsense about starting him in center-field. Towards the end of the season, Marte started to play at second base a lot more often. Let’s hope that can carry over into next season. He’s under contract through 2024.
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Over 90 games this year, Ketel was a 1.8 WAR player, which if you expand that to a full 162-game season would be 3.24 WAR. Despite that, he was third on the team in WAR behind Eduardo Escobar (2.3) and Carson Kelly (2.2). His OWAR (offensive War) was 3.4, which is terrific in only 90 games. If we expanded that over a whole 162-game season, it would be 6.12. His offense is ELITE.
Of course, if we only looked at his main stats, we would see that. Over those 90 games, he had 340 at-bats with 52 runs, 29 doubles, 1 triple, 14 home runs, 50 RBIs, 2 stolen bases, 31 walks, 60 K’s, and 108 total hits. His batting line was .318, .377, .532, .909, and a 143OPS+. (100 is average).
Diamondbacks Cy Young Award: Merrill Kelly
I don’t think anyone truly expected when this season began that Merrill Kelly would be our steadiest, most reliable, and de facto “Ace” for the team this year. Yet, that’s exactly what happened. Our starting rotation struggled mightily throughout this year due to bad performances and loads of injuries. Zac Gallen, the expected player to take another huge leap this year, landed on the IL three separate times and struggled to maintain consistent results. Madison Bumgarner struggled early, then excelled, then got hurt, and did great upon his return. However, in the final weeks of the season, Madbum struggled.
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Merrill made the most starts of any pitcher on the roster with 27. In fact, he hadn’t missed a single start until he missed three to four weeks in August due to contracting Covid. Despite that, he returned and continued to pitch consistently. He’s a lock for his option to be picked up for next year. The 32-year old valley native led the team in Wins, Losses, innings, games started, FIP, batters faced, walks per 9 innings, Pitching War, and home runs allowed per 9 innings. He finished second in strikeouts and strikeout to walk ratio.
Overall, his stats across his 27 starts and 158 innings were 7-11, 4.44 ERA, 4.11 FIP, 163 hits allowed, 21 home runs allowed, 41 walks, 130 K’s, 96 ERA+, 1.29 WHIP, 9.3 hits allowed per 9 innings, 2.3 walks per 9 innings, and 7.4 K’s per 9 innings. That’s rather good for what many expected to be a back-end starter. His role is still that of a middle-rotation starter, but he certainly had a career year in many ways in 2021.
Who was Most Improved from the 2020 season on the 21’Dbacks?
In my opinion, there were two Diamondbacks’ players that really improved from 2020 to 2021. The first of those two is Carson Kelly. Carson struggled in 2020 with making contact, plate discipline, power, and not hitting ground balls. In fact, his ground ball percentage for 2020 was 40.9% of his batted balls. That’s entirely too high for a player whose attributes have not included “speed” since he was a child. At the end of 2021, his percentage for batted ground balls fell to 31.9%, the best in his career.
Since he was no longer hitting so many ground balls, naturally his batting average increased from .221 to .240. That’s a dramatic increase for a player that plays catcher normally. He became more patient at the plate too by increasing the on-base percentage from .264 to .343. That’s nearly a hundred points better! Secondly, he hit more balls to the gaps and in the air thanks to his swing change. He stopped killing worms and instead started to get more doubles and triples. His slugging percentage rose from .385 to .411 from 2020 to 2021. This meant his OPS rose from.649 to .754. That OPS of .754 is one of the best in the league for catchers.
His OPS+ was 73 in 2020 and 104 in 2021. 100 OPS+ is the league average, but most catchers only hit in the 70-80 range if that. The fact that Kelly hit above 100 is spectacular for a catcher. Due to these increases in his offense, his WAR rose from -0.3 to 2.2, one of the best on the team. All in all, this was a great breakout year for Kelly that could’ve been better had he not missed plenty of time due to a broken wrist/toe he suffered at separate times this year. I can’t wait for his next year.
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Additionally, I wanted to raise awareness of Josh Rojas’ play this year as well. Josh struggled badly during the 2020 season. He was sent to the Alternate Site, aka Minors, after only 17 games due to just how bad he was playing. In his 17 games at the MLB level, he hit .180, .257, .437, 22 OPS+, and 2 RBIs. As such, coming into this season, it’s understandable as to why we didn’t expect the world from him. He made some swing and mentality changes and killed the ball during Spring Training. Upon the start of the season, he struggled greatly until he hit a lead-off home run against the Nationals in late April.
From that point on, it was like he was a completely different player. He consistently was in every lineup, usually at a different position than the night before, and always found some way to impact the game. He hit .264, .341, .411, .752, 103 OPS+, and had 32 doubles, 11 HRs, 44 RBIs, and 9 SB’s. He led the team in doubles, stolen bases, and walks.
Josh Rojas is set to break out even further next year with a stable off-season and a chance to play even more his hometown and favorite team.
The Diamondbacks Rookies of the Year, Pitcher and Hitter?
The Diamondbacks had 12 players make their MLB debut this year and had around 15 rookies overall be on the roster at some point this year. Due to that, there were many options for who won Rookie of the Year for pitchers and hitters for this season. Yet, in my eyes, there were only two options, one at each award for this year. The winner of the rookie pitcher of the year is Tyler Gilbert, shocking I know. He missed roughly the final month of the season due to a fatigued arm after pitching more this year than any year before.
Of course, he didn’t play at all in 2020 and instead spent time throwing in the forest to his old coach. Yet he persevered and made his MLB debut this year. He pitched out of the bullpen for his first three games of the season and only had given up two hits. Yet, his next time on the mound would be history-making.
He made his first MLB start on August 7th against the Padres, and threw a NO-Hitter! The first in Chase Field history. It was also the first in team history since 2009, Edwin Jackson’s N0-NO against the Rays. He made five more starts after that in which he was a steady presence that pitched good innings and kept the Dbacks in the game. That’s all a team can ask for out of a rookie starter. Overall, he pitched 40 innings and went 2-2 while allowing 28 hits, a4 ERs, 13 walks, 25 K’s, 3.15 ERA, 4.27 FIP, 136 ERA+ (100 is league average), and was a 1.2 WAR player. I look forward to seeing him back out on the mound in Spring Training.
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Pavin Smith made his debut in 2020 but maintained his rookie eligibility due to not accruing enough service time in 2020. He was the obvious choice for rookie of the year since he was the only rookie on the team to play in nearly every game. Fun fact, Daulton Varsho completed his rookie year in 2020. Pavin displayed great patience, contact, and clutch hitting at the plate while demonstrating he can play multiple positions in the field.
Although, he probably shouldn’t play center field again. He filled in for many injuries on the big league roster and allowed Torey to have a player he could count on in the lineup. Pavin hit.267, .328, .404, .732, 98 OPS+, with 27 doubles, HRs, 49 RBIs, 42 walks, 106 K’s, and 68 runs scored. Overall, it was a solid rookie effort for the player that was the first-ever draft pick by Mike Hazen. I can’t wait to see him play next year!
Who was the Dbacks best Fielder, Hitter, and Dbacks Prospects?
The Diamondbacks had a lot of not-so-great fielders this year. This was quite opposite of how it had been for years. Arizona’s been known as a strong defensive team, but this year it was not. Yet, Carson Kelly was one of the best for the team. He showcased his great skills this year behind the plate with only 5 errors in 651 chances. That’s good for a 99.2% fielding percentage. He caught 23% of attempted base-stealers. That’s pretty good. Additionally, he allowed only 8 passed balls. Some other notable fielders are Christian Walker, Jake McCarthy, Nick Ahmed, and Pavin Smith.
The Dbacks best hitter was most definitely Ketel Marte. As mentioned earlier, he had an elite year at the plate. If he had been healthy, he would have been an All-Star and MVP candidate. He led the club at the end of the season, among the players on the roster, in HRs’, Batting Average, On-Base Percentage, Slugging Percentage, On-Base Plus Slugging Percentage, OPS+, and Intentional Walks.
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As for the Diamondbacks prospects o the year, well I thought that I would let the Arizona Dbacks share who they think did the best!
Congratulations to Alek Thomas on being named #Dbacks Minor League Player of the Year! pic.twitter.com/ly0c7lj70o
— Arizona Diamondbacks (@Dbacks) October 1, 2021
Congratulations to Ryne Nelson on being named #Dbacks Minor League Pitcher of the Year! pic.twitter.com/CNWJgAWTvn
— Arizona Diamondbacks (@Dbacks) October 1, 2021
As always,
May the Force be with You…