The Arizona Diamondbacks did not wait their turn. Awarded as an expansion franchise in 1995 and playing ball in 1998, they went from first pitch to World Series champions in four seasons — still the fastest any expansion team has ever climbed the mountain. While most newborn clubs spend a decade learning how to lose, Arizona bought an ace, built around him, and crashed the sport's biggest stage before the paint dried on the ballpark.
The 2001 team is the stuff of desert legend. Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling formed the most devastating one-two punch of the modern era, sharing World Series MVP honors after carrying Arizona past the mighty Yankees in seven games. The ending is frozen in baseball memory: Luis Gonzalez, the heart-and-soul outfielder whose number 20 hangs retired at Chase Field, looping a broken-bat single off Mariano Rivera — Mariano Rivera! — in the bottom of the ninth of Game 7. It remains one of the great upsets in World Series history, the dynasty slain in the desert.
Chase Field itself is part of the identity: a retractable-roof cathedral opened in 1998 with a swimming pool beyond the outfield fence, built for baseball in 100-degree June. The years after the title were leaner — a 2007 division crown with a baby-faced core, a 2011 West title under Kirk Gibson — but the franchise's second act arrived in 2023, when an 84-win underdog ripped through October, beat the Dodgers and Phillies, and carried the National League pennant before falling to Texas in the World Series. Corbin Carroll's Rookie of the Year explosion gave the rebuild a face.
What defines the Diamondbacks is the refusal to act like a small-market afterthought. This is a franchise that has twice played in the World Series, won one in stunning fashion, and keeps betting on young talent over excuses. The Sedona red says it all: this is baseball with an edge, played under a closed roof in the middle of the desert, by a team that has never believed it was supposed to wait.
Then came the heartbreak trilogy. The Diamondbacks have missed the postseason in each of the last three seasons — 2024, 2025, and 2026 — and each miss has been crueler than the last. The 2026 edition was the worst kind of almost: an 86-76 finish, eliminated on the final day of the season in San Diego, when the Philadelphia Phillies' 7-3 win over Tampa Bay slammed the door while Arizona fell 8-4 to the Padres. Justin Martinez — electric all year — gave up his first three runs of the season in that one. The what-ifs will haunt Chase Field all winter: a 4-6 final homestand with series losses to the Marlins and Rangers; two blown leads to the Dodgers in games two and three back in March; a roster with far too much top-end talent to be watching October from home.
The cruelest part was that the stars went quiet together. Corbin Carroll, Ketel Marte, and Geraldo Perdomo — the trio that carried the 2023 pennant run and lit up 2025 — all took a step back. Carroll, banged up for stretches, hit .239 with a .795 OPS, 22 homers and 21 steals: his worst full season since the 2024 sophomore slump. Perdomo's fall was steeper — fourth in MVP voting in 2025 with a 100-RBI, 20-homer campaign, down to .262/.370/.377 with nine homers, though he remained an on-base machine through September and elite with the glove. And Marte — three-time All-Star, two-time Silver Slugger, the 2023 NLCS MVP — hit .249 with a .748 OPS, his lowest average since 2022, while off-field noise (a casino sighting during a game, a controversial unexcused absence in Boston, a celebratory DJ video on social media the night the season died) turned the franchise's highest-paid star into its biggest offseason question mark, extension through 2030 with a 2031 player option notwithstanding.
It wasn't all gloom. Gabriel Moreno was a standout behind the plate and beside it. Newcomer Nolan Arenado — yes, that Nolan Arenado, acquired to anchor the infield — delivered a season worthy of his Hall of Fame trajectory. Eduardo Rodriguez was a revelation in the third year of his contract. And the bullpen, a quiet strength, turned loud: Juan Morillo and Brandyn Garcia were terrific young arms at the back end, and Justin Martinez came back from Tommy John surgery in August throwing pure electricity. That's a nasty core for years. The rotation, though, never held: Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly turned in substandard seasons, injuries bit, and ace Corbin Burnes — signed to be the hammer — never hit his All-Star-break return target from Tommy John surgery, making just three starts before going back on the injured list, unavailable for the season's most critical Saturday. He'll be the single biggest variable in Arizona's winter.
So the winter of 2026-27 is a real one for general manager Mike Hazen and manager Torey Lovullo, the steady hand through it all. The shopping list is clear: a left-handed power bat — ideally a first baseman — and rotation depth, with Gallen, Michael Soroka, Kevin Ginkel, and Jonathan Loaisiga among the notable free agents. The deadline already showed the plan: Lars Nootbaar was the lone significant addition, and when the players told Hazen to buy by ripping off their best two-week stretch of the year, the light buy felt like a half-measure. The blame pie, as the local press has it, is mostly Hazen's to eat. But the window isn't shut. The NL West runs through the two-time defending champion Dodgers and their 100 wins, and that's a mountain — but the 2023 pennant DNA is still in this building: Carroll, Marte, Perdomo, Moreno, a young bullpen with fangs, and, maybe, a healthy Corbin Burnes. The Diamondbacks have never believed they were supposed to wait. Now they have to prove it again.
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