By Jordan Long
The Arizona Diamondbacks ended their season at a disappointing 82-80, missing the postseason by 8.5 games. They decided the poor season was on hitting coach Dave Magadan for the lack of offense and decided it was best to part ways. Magadan has been with the Diamondbacks for the past 3 years.
The firing isn’t a surprise. Arizona was one of the worst hitting teams in all of Major League Baseball. They hit .235 ranking 27th in all of baseball. Their home stadium Chase Field is a hitters ball park. The offense was supposed to deliver at home. That didn’t happen. The Diamondbacks ended with a home batting average of .242, not a number they wanted to see. On the road, they were the third worst offensive team with a batting average of .228.
Magadan knew this team could smack home runs. They proved it with 176 total home runs, ranking 17th in Major League baseball. That is not a bad number, but not great either.
Even with the Diamondbacks poor offense, they stayed in the Wild Card race until September 23rd when they were officially eliminated from playoff contention. Once they failed to make back-to-back playoff appearances, it was clear they had to make decisions about their club house staff. This in hopes of making the postseason next year.
Arizona felt they didn’t have enough offense. According to azcentral.com, Magadan said, “ My job was to get guys to swing the bat well and score runs. We didn’t do that. It’s my job to make guys better and I feel like we did make some guys better, but some other guys didn’t meet the expectations of what we felt they were capable of doing, and, in the end, that’s what we’re all judged on.”
The Diamondbacks will start a search for a hitting coach. They hope whoever they sign will help improve the offensive numbers. Arizona knows they have players who can hit the baseball in Paul Goldschmidt and David Peralta. Hopefully a change with the hitting coach will end in a postseason birth next year.
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