Arizona just made the call that most of baseball expected and a loud chunk of its fan base did not want. The Diamondbacks agreed to a two-year extension with manager Torey Lovullo, reported Thursday by Steve Gilbert of MLB.com, Nick Piecoro and Bob Nightengale.
The deal runs through 2028 with a club option for 2029. That lines Lovullo up with general manager Mike Hazen, whose own contract runs on the same track. His previous deal was set to expire at the end of this season.
So a manager who just missed the playoffs for the third straight year got job security through the end of the decade. Here is why that is the right call anyway.
The Record Says More Than the Standings Do
Arizona finished 86-76, third in the NL West, and watched October from home. That is a miss. It is also the most wins of any team that did not make the bracket, which is a very different kind of failure than the one the record implies.
Lovullo is 750-768 for his career, a .494 mark that makes him the winningest manager in franchise history, passing Kirk Gibson. Over the last four seasons he is 339-309, a .523 clip. The Diamondbacks have been a good team under him more often than they have been a bad one.
The season ended with a 9-4 loss to the Padres on September 27, which is a deflating way to go out. It does not erase the four years in front of it.
2023 Still Counts
Three years ago this same manager took a wild card team and swept the Dodgers in the NLDS, then won two road games in Philadelphia to take the pennant. Arizona lost the World Series to the Rangers in five, but that was the franchise’s first trip to the Series since it won the thing in 2001.
Managers who get a mid-tier payroll to within two wins of a title do not grow on trees. Arizona has made the playoffs twice under Lovullo, in 2017 and 2023, and both times it got there as a wild card and then punched above its seed.
He Said the Quiet Part Out Loud
What made the last few weeks awkward is that Lovullo did not pretend the uncertainty was fine. Speaking before the extension came together, he was blunt about where he stood.
“I want to win a world championship with this organization. But I want to be wanted,” he said.
He went further: “I’ve never felt unwanted, but there’s some decisions that need to be made, and it’s gotten this far.” And: “I don’t know where it’s at, and I have some decisions to make.”
He also made clear the affection runs both ways. “I love Arizona, and the people and the fans are spectacular. The group that I work for is amazing.” On keeping it out of the clubhouse: “My status should be minimized inside of that clubhouse. When it’s time to get to it, it’ll happen.”
The Verdict
Firing Lovullo would have been the easy, crowd-pleasing move, and it would have cost Arizona the one guy who has proven he can win a playoff series with this organization. Hazen has backed him for years and just backed him again.
No financial terms were reported, which is standard for manager deals. What was reported is the part that matters: the Diamondbacks looked at 86 wins and a decade of continuity and decided the problem is the roster, not the man filling out the lineup card. They are right.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.