Somers: Owner Ken Kendrick heads list of Diamondbacks who need to step up this offseason

It didn’t take long for the Diamondbacks to scatter to their respective homes after the season ended Wednesday in Milwaukee. That’s why media members outnumbered players about 4-to-1 in the clubhouse at Chase Field on Thursday in the last scheduled availability of the year.

Such occasions demand introspection, and the few Diamondbacks in attendance cooperated.

Infielder Josh Rojas talked about improving his defense. General Manager Mike Hazen said he has to do a better job building a bullpen. And Manager Torey Lovullo promised to take a careful look at his performance over the season, saying it was a factor in at least a few of the team’s collapses late in games.

There’s another prominent Diamondback who needs to improve if the franchise is going to build upon the improvement it made in 2022: Managing General Partner Ken Kendrick.

It’s time for him to step up by paying up. The excuses we’ve heard for the team’s restrictive player payroll no longer apply. The pandemic has passed, at least for now. And, according to Kendrick's bio on the team's staff directory,  $350 million of debt has been eliminated under his watch, which began in 2004.

Both were reasons given over the years for one of the more restrictive budgets in baseball. Under Kendrick, the Diamondbacks have never been among the top half of the league in payroll, and they have almost always resided in the bottom third.

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In 2022, they spent around $100 million on players and are projected to be around $100 million in 2023, based on the Diamondbacks calculations. By far, that’s less than any other team in their division. It’s $180 million or so less than the Dodgers, $111 million less than the Padres, $55 million less than the Giants and $30 million less than the Rockies.

It’s unreasonable to expect the Diamondbacks to spend like the Dodgers, but there’s no reason they should lag so far behind everyone else in the division.

“We'll have those conversations of exactly what the payroll looks like,” Hazen said on Thursday. “I'm not too concerned. Yes, it gives you some idea of how you're going to be able to maneuver in the offseason, but I'm not really fixated on exactly what that number is. We can do a good job no matter what that number is.”

This is what a general manager is supposed to say, and it can be true. The Rays, for instance, have spent considerably less than the Diamondbacks over the years and have been considerably more successful.

But a lot of things have to go right for that to happen. The margin for error is thin.

Now is a perfect time for Kendrick to not just check that his wallet is safe in his hip pocket, but to pull it out and let the leather crack.

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Yes, the Diamondbacks drew just 1.6 million fans in 2022, the fewest in a full, non-pandemic season in their history. But that’s no reason for going cheap in 2023. That attendance figure ranked 21st in baseball, which isn't bad for a team that has now gone five seasons without a playoff appearance and hasn't won a postseason game since 2011.

The 2021 team was awful, winning just 52 games and giving fans little, if anything, to be excited about entering this season. No wonder they stayed away, especially during the first half of the season. The Valley has never been a market that bought tickets with blind faith that a team was going to produce. We want to see it before we buy into it.

As prospects were called up this summer, the Diamondbacks' style of baseball changed. It went retro. The Diamondbacks hit to all fields. They stole bases. They tracked down balls in the gaps. Young pitchers threw with confidence and gave every indication the Diamondbacks might finally fill the rotation with home-grown talent.

They won 74 games, 22 more than the year before, which Hazen and Lovullo correctly noted wasn’t worthy of a downtown parade. They still lost 88 games, including 42 games in which they were either tied or ahead at the start of the sixth inning.

The bullpen was an obvious problem. The Diamondbacks need someone there who can get strikeouts. Or just outs.

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But Lovullo and Hazen said it’s unfair to place all the blame there. There were too many errors late in close games, which gave a struggling bullpen less margin for error.

Hazen said the Diamondbacks will explore all avenues to fix the bullpen: trades, free agency, waiver claims and perhaps eventually moving one of the young starters into the role.

Offensively, the Diamondbacks are heavy with left-handers, so they could use a right-handed hitter, preferably one with some power.

They also could benefit from the addition of another veteran or two who could serve as both a calming influence on the field, and a mentoring one off of it.

Successfully addressing most of the above might mean 15 or so more victories, and a wildcard berth, in 2023.

Hazen said he’s “tired of being the young team. I want to be the winning team.”

Let’s hope his boss feels the same way, because no one is handing out rings for debt elimination.

For subscribers: 2022 MLB playoff primer: Everything you should know

Reach Kent Somers at Kent.Somers@gannett.com. Follow him on twitter @kentsomers. Hear Somers every Monday and Friday at 7:30 a.m. on The Drive with Jody Oehler on Fox Sports 910 AM.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Somers: Now is the time Ken Kendrick must prove he values winning