Diamondbacks face Blue Jays for first time since hooking up for December blockbuster trade

TORONTO — When the Arizona Diamondbacks open the second half of the season in Toronto on Friday, it will mark a homecoming of sorts for catcher Gabriel Moreno and outfielder Lourdes Gurriel Jr. It will also provide an opportunity to take stock of the deal that sent them to Arizona in December 2022.

The Diamondbacks entered last offseason with more outfielders than positions available. They saw the surplus as a chance to round out the rest of their roster. Months of trade talks culminated in a deal that sent outfielder Daulton Varsho to the Toronto Blue Jays in exchange for Moreno, a young catcher, and Gurriel, a veteran outfielder.

As with most trades, conclusions can be hard to draw after only a few months of games. Neither of the principal players in the deal are having standout years, but it is hard to say it hasn’t paid dividends for either team: Both clubs would advance to the playoffs were the season to end today.

“I feel like that trade has worked out for both sides,” Diamondbacks General Manager Mike Hazen said. “I think both teams got what they wanted.”

Moreno was the key piece coming back for the Diamondbacks, who saw him as a future frontline catcher. He was thrust into a larger role than expected to open the season and has stood out for his strong throwing arm and his contact skills at the plate. After a strong start offensively, his production has slipped over the past six weeks. He is hitting .267/.312/.343 with two homers.

Gurriel, who is eligible for free agency after this year, enjoyed a generally productive first half, hitting .263/.316/.493 with 15 homers and making his first All-Star team. He has alternated between hot and cold stretches at the plate; he entered the break in a funk that has lasted more than a month.

As for Varsho, he has played his typically strong defense for the Blue Jays — one metric, defensive runs saved, has him as the best outfielder in the majors — but has yet to get going at the plate. He is hitting .214/.277/.368 with 12 homers.

Moreno’s surface numbers probably do not properly reflect what he has contributed to the Diamondbacks this year. The club had expected to ease him in as a part-time player, but Carson Kelly’s injury late in spring changed those plans, and Moreno had little trouble adjusting.

As of mid-May, Moreno was hitting .304 with a .741 OPS. He has earned high marks from Diamondbacks pitchers for his handling of the staff. And he has changed games with his throwing arm, which has served as a sort of a running-game deterrent in a year that has seen increased aggressiveness league-wide.

Hazen said the team needs to be cognizant of workload — Moreno already has caught more games (58) than in any other season of his professional career — and believes the heavy usage played a part in recent struggles.

“He has a great swing,” Hazen said. “He makes great contact. (But) we need to get him to shrink the strike zone. Once he matures into that, he’s going to be a really good hitter. I don’t know where the power is going to take us — and don’t really care — but I think we’re going to be looking at a really good hitter.”

Hazen said that at the time the deal was made just before Christmas, he had perhaps two other potential trades “at the 5-yard line” that might have been completed. However, he said the Diamondbacks focused on the Blue Jays’ talks after determining Moreno was going to be the best player they could get back in any deal.

“I think the overriding factor was we felt that Moreno was the guy we needed to acquire given his ability and position,” Hazen said. “Part of what we were attempting to do was make our team, in aggregate, better by diversifying where everybody plays. So Gabi sort of fit every single one of those boxes. He was a position we didn’t have underneath Carson, and he obviously had a ton of talent and pedigree.”

The Diamondbacks had looked for years for an impact right-handed hitting outfielder before finally landing Gurriel. With free agency looming, Gurriel's performance raises questions about how aggressive the Diamondbacks might be in trying to retain him.

In trading Varsho, the Diamondbacks stripped away their most proven outfielder, as well as a source of athleticism, dominant defense and power.

Hazen said he had hoped Gurriel would help replace the power being lost — and thus far he has — and hoped others on the roster, namely outfielder Jake McCarthy, would contribute in different ways.

“I think what we had seen, specific to Jake, were all the things he does to create runs,” Hazen said. “We felt, if he was still that type of guy, that there was going to be some huge net positive over the course of the season. Yeah, he’s had his ups and downs, but you see when he’s in there at the bottom of the lineup and he gets on base, it changes the game for us.”

Read more: Questions facing the Diamondbacks as they try to build on first-half success

McCarthy was optioned to Reno in late April after a slow start but performed better since returning a month later. He owns just a .674 OPS, but he has been a disrupting force on the basepaths, stealing bases on 20 of 23 attempts.

Though Varsho has yet to catch fire the way he did for stretches during his time with the Diamondbacks, Hazen is confident it will happen.

“He’s going to go off in the second half,” Hazen said. “He’s an elite defender. He’s the same dynamic player he has always been. I hope it’s on Day 4 of the second half that he starts going off.”

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Diamondbacks to face Blue Jays for first time since offseason trade