D-backs owner Kendrick 'very impressed' with team's offseason

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- The Diamondbacks held their first full-squad workout of the spring Sunday morning at Salt River Fields and managing general partner Ken Kendrick and team president/CEO Derrick Hall gave their annual state of the franchise press conference.

Here's a breakdown of what they had to say:

Message to the team

Kendrick and Hall both addressed the full squad before the workout with different messages.

"I talked to the guys about my feeling about how competitive I think they can be," Kendrick said. "Obviously, it's a big challenge with the folks over in L.A. [the Dodgers] being, as I said to someone the other day, the 900-pound gorilla, but my memory of the way it works in the jungle, the gorilla doesn't win every fight. So I think we're going to have a group of guys who are going to bust their butts through the year, and as I said to them, I expect and I hope our fans will see that we have a competitive club that's going to be playing baseball in October this year."

Hall pointed out that in years when the Diamondbacks seem to be counted out in preseason predictions they have had their best years and that this year they should embrace that little bit of disrespect by outsiders.

Moves made in the offseason

Part of Kendrick's message to the team was also that he thought the baseball operations department, led by GM Mike Hazen, deserved a lot of credit for putting the team together given all the challenges he faced this offseason.

Hazen had numerous holes to fill on the roster after selling off veterans at last year's Trade Deadline and with a number of top performers on the pitching side of things like ace Corbin Burnes and co-closers Justin Martinez and A.J. Puk set to miss months this season due to Tommy John surgeries last summer.

"I commented to the players, and I wanted them to hear this, because they don't really, as a group, observe what Mike and Mike's team really do, especially in an offseason setting," Kendrick said. "I think this offseason has been one of the most challenging to Mike and his team. And I told the players, they should be really, really pleased to all be there, and many of them [are here] because of work Mike and his guys did in the offseason. I'm very impressed. It wasn't easy to do both getting it done and doing it within some level of financial responsibility. So I'm very respectful of the work that went on in the offseason, and we made it clear to our players that they should be too."

On the payroll

The Diamondbacks had a club-record Opening Day payroll in 2025 of around $195 million and Hall said the team lost money, so the expectation was that the payroll would come down in 2026.

However, that went out the window last Friday when the team brought free agent Zac Gallen back on a one-year, $22.5 million deal. The Opening Day payroll now projects to be close to last year's and Kendrick said the Diamondbacks will be pushing closer to the first luxury tax threshold than ever before.

"We spent more than I thought we would," Kendrick said. "I don't want to overplay it, but to a degree, we're in a partnership with the fans. That's the way I see what we do. They generate revenue by buying tickets and coming to ballgames and supporting us. And as a good partner, we need to take the money they spend and invest it wisely, and that's what we're trying to do."

Stadium renovations

Following the passage of a state law last year that provides a funding mechanism for renovations to Chase Field, Hall said the team is studying plans and hopes to have one in place that will lay out which parts of the ballpark will get worked on first.

One of the biggest things the team wants to address is the air conditioning system, which is a very complicated and expensive process. While the same amount of air is being pumped into the piping system, Kendrick said the pipes themselves have decayed and will need to be replaced. It could take up to two offseasons to fully upgrade it, but the team is committed to getting it right.