The Desperation of the Diamondbacks Bullpen
From Austin Pope’s Instagram (@austinjpope18)
In the last home game of 2025, 27-year-old Austin Pope made his major league debut at Chase Field. He impressed in his Diamondbacks premiere, tossing two scoreless innings and managing to retire all-time greats Shohei Ohtani and Mookie Betts in the process. In these two innings during the 159th game of the 2025 season, Pope would become the 42nd pitcher to suit up for the Arizona Diamondbacks, the most pitchers ever employed by the franchise in a single season.
The 2025 season mercifully concluded three days after Pope’s debut with a series sweep by San Diego, ending an injury-riddled season for the much depleted Diamondbacks. Despite entering the season with a fresh ace in Corbin Burnes and a bullpen highlighted by closing committee Justin Martinez and A.J. Puk, the 2025 Snakes were stretched as thin as any team in the history of Major League Baseball. During a particularly brutal two-week stretch in June, the Dbacks lost all three of the aforementioned pitchers to various elbow surgeries, as well as Corbin Carroll to a broken wrist and starting catcher Gabriel Moreno to a fractured finger.
FanGraphs 2025 Diamondbacks Injury Report
After an injury-heavy June and a lackluster July, upper management had seen enough and began the Arizona firesale. Of the thirteen pitchers announced on the Opening Day roster, six of them were cut, traded, or gone under the knife by August; the remaining seven heavily underperformed. In total they produced a total of 6.1 WAR (Wins Above Replacement), with Ryne Nelson accounting for 3.5 WAR himself. Players were rarely at full health, and when they could play they did not live up to expectations.
Let’s get into the math of how depleted the Diamondbacks bullpen really was in 2025. While the saying usually goes “quality over quantity”, the Diamondbacks’ scriptwriter may have jinxed the club last year. Over the course of the 2025 season, Arizona had 16 individuals combine to blow 29 saves, which are franchise records in both quantity and lack of quality. The total of 29 ties Arizona’s franchise record for most blown saves in a season; only the 2023 Athletics have seen more individuals blow a save than the 2025 Diamondbacks. If you remember, that 2023 A’s team was actively trying to tank their way out of Oakland; the 2025 Dbacks had playoff aspirations at one point.
Left Image : Most Blown Saves in Diamondbacks History (Baseball Reference/Stathead)
Right Image : Most Players on a Team with a Blown Save in MLB History (Baseball Reference/Stathead)
In total, the Diamondbacks sent out 37 different pitchers in relief during the 2025 season, which on the surface is the third most of any team of all time; however, the club did not send out a position player to pitch in 2025. If we filter out position players from the two teams above them, we find that the 2025 roster employed the most “real pitchers” in relief in the history of Major League Baseball.
Image : Most Players on a Team with a Relief Appearance in MLB History (Baseball Reference/ Stathead)
Not only did last year’s team set the record for most relievers used in the history of a 150-year-old sport; they also set their franchise records in money spent, saves blown, and elbow procedures conducted; the Dbacks also lost their last five games and missed the playoffs for the second year in a row after a World Series berth. They were by far the worst performing bullpen for a team that had a chance at a postseason berth. Can we find a silver lining here? Maybe.
While the records the Diamondbacks broke were seeded in desperation, I’m still able to strain some kind of silver lining from this atrocious bullpen output. Before 2025, no team in the history of Major League Baseball had ever seen over fourteen or more individuals record a save in a single season; this pitching staff somehow managed to have seventeen different pitchers record a save in 2025.
Image : Most Players on a Team with a Save in MLB History (Baseball Reference/Stathead)
By giving more opportunities and withstanding more individual failure than almost anyone in the history of baseball, the Snakes also allowed for more individual success than ever before. Eight different players managed to record their first MLB save in Sedona Red last year, and there’s a solid chance we’re going to be seeing a lot of these same guys in the next couple months.
Austin Pope will unfortunately not be one of these guys. He was waived by Arizona following the World Series and is currently within the Atlanta Braves organization. He was a non-roster invitee to Spring Training, and as of typing, has a single scoreless appearance in Spring ‘26.
Good luck Pope; I hope I can look back and brag that I attended your one and only appearance in a Diamondbacks uniform.
About the Author
Will Peacock resides in Arizona and is an avid Diamondbacks fan. He still occasionally dreams of Alek Thomas’ poolshot in Game 4 of the 2023 NLCS. You can follow him on Instagram and YouTube under the handle @thebirdball, where he produces whimsical sports content.