Why D-backs made latest McCarthy move

This story was excerpted from Steve Gilbert’s D-backs Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

This is becoming a bit of a recurring theme, but here we are again talking about major roster moves. Last time it was Madison Bumgarner, and this time it’s right-hander Drey Jameson and outfielder Jake McCarthy, who were both sent to Triple-A Reno. We’ll start with the McCarthy move and some things to know about it …

McCarthy has been down this road before

The D-backs demoted McCarthy twice during the 2022 season and he improved each time. In fact, he was the D-backs' best player the final two-plus months of last season, so if anyone knows how to deal with this, it’s McCarthy.

“You know, last year he looked me square in the eye and told me, 'I'm not the right guy to send down right now, but I'll go,'” D-backs manager Torey Lovullo said. “This year was a little bit different version of that. I think he felt like there was something that needed to go down there and work on. We identified that. We’ve been working hard over the past couple of days and there was a hitting session that involved him today.”

The D-backs kept expecting him to turn it around

After watching him perform so well at the end of last season, the D-backs continued to believe that each game would be the one that McCarthy got on track.

Plus, he brings things to the table defensively as well as in the clubhouse so he got a longer leash as a result.

“Because we value what he does for our team and who he is and all the other stuff, we tried to continue to make it work,” D-backs GM Mike Hazen said. “We felt like we weren’t seeing a ton of progress. We didn’t really know how long to keep it going, but at some point over the last probably week, but [especially] the last few days, really starting to have the conversation that, we need this guy right for our baseball team. And at some point we need to bite the bullet and try to help him to do that.”

McCarthy is viewed as someone who is still going to have big impact this year

Especially given how he responded to his demotion last year, the D-backs made the move now because they think he’ll be back sooner than later and will play a big role.

“We need Jake McCarthy to get to where [we want to go],” Lovullo said. “He's a good player. I firmly believe he's one of our best outfielders in the system and needs to be at the big league level to help us win baseball games.”

The standings influenced the D-backs' thinking

I wrote the other night in a story about Jameson’s surprise demotion that there’s a sense of urgency given the fact that they’re off to a good start and believe they have the talent to compete for a playoff spot.

That was a factor in the McCarthy decision as well.

“Look, internal competition is more robust here than we’ve ever had it,” Hazen said. “Yes, I would love to have a 26-man roster where it’s just 26 guys or an injury makes it 27 or 28, but I don’t think that’s the way we’re constructed right now. I think our roster requires us to maximize every player’s performance. We are not relying on two or three players to make us a good team.”