Diamondbacks general manager Mike Hazen did not want long to find a Christian Walker replacement, acquiring Josh Naylor from the Cleveland Guardians in a trade for for right-hander Slade Cecconi and a Competitive Balance Round B pick.
The deal was met with positive reviews, as the D-backs surrendered much of nothing for one year of an All-Star-caliber player. Then they took a portion of that $60 million the Houston Astros paid Walker and invested it in Corbin Burnes.
Speaking to Alex D'Agostino of Diamondbacks on SI, Hazen acknowledged he "gave up a lot of long-term value" but prioritized finding a first baseman of Naylor's caliber.
"I've said this a million times, if you're going to go out and get good players, you have to give up good players. There's no sneaking around these trades. If you want to go out and get a good player, you're going to have to give stuff up if you're going to get trades done."
With Walker reaching free agency and a strong possibility of losing him, the Diamondbacks were engaged in the first base market and activity ramped up the past few days. Two other first baseman changed teams that weekend, with Paul Goldschmidt and Carlos Santana signing with the New York Yankees and the Guardians.
Naylor is penciled in to be the Diamondbacks first baseman for the 2025 season. He's coming off a season in which he hit a career-high 31 home runs and made his first All-Star team with Cleveland. The team is betting on him to fill the power gap in the middle of their lineup with Walker and Joc Pederson gone.
"Felt like he fits into the middle of our lineup pretty significantly, the thump. He's a good hitter. He's got really good makeup. We felt like it was a nice fit in our clubhouse with the guys that we have. We think it's going to be a good match with all the work we did."
Hazen didn't appear too worried about Naylor's defensive fit. Listed at 5-foot-11 and 250 pounds, he doesn't look like an athletic defender, but the metrics aren't too sour on him. Defensive Runs Saved pegged him as a negative defender at -6 runs while Outs Above Average is more optimistic at +0. While it's a giant downgrade from the six Gold Gloves won by Goldschmidt and Walker, he's still a plausible fit.
The cost to land Naylor ended up being a high-upside arm in Cecconi. While he has yet to establish himself at the major league level, carrying a 6.06 ERA in 27 games (17 starts), he still has the full six years of control and his peak stuff can be very overpowering. With a fastball that sits 94-98 MPH early in games along with a slider and a changeup that flash the potential to be swing-and-miss offerings, he has the upside of either a back-end bullpen arm or a mid-rotation starter.
Hazen likened Cecconi's situation to one of another high-upside arm that started putting things together in the second half of the 2024 season in Ryne Nelson.
"He's going to be a really good player in this league. It's tough when you jump off right now because I've said this before. Look where Ryne Nelson is today versus where he was six months ago, right?"
Now the D-backs will have to address the bullpen. The team is looking for someone to fill the void left by the departure of Paul Sewald, who keyed their 2023 pennant run but struggled in the second half of the 2024 season and lost the job.
Nonetheless, Naylor is here, which was probably the more important need to fill, and now Hazen can shift to the bullpen in the new year.