Staff wraps productive end-of-season meetings

PHOENIX -- An exhausting, but productive day and a half of meetings for the D-backs baseball staff wrapped up earlier this week.

D-backs general manager Kevin Towers met with manager Kirk Gibson and some of the key members of the baseball operations staff, including farm director Mike Bell and scouting director Ray Montgomery.

"We talked about Major League needs, Minor League needs, targeted some free agents and identified some trade partners we thought we matched up well with," Towers said. "Talked a little bit about [coaching] staff, talked a little bit about the season, things we need to do to get better. It was a long day and a half, but it was worthwhile meetings."

There has been no announcement about the coaching staff, all of whom have contracts that expire at the end of the month.

"We're not going to drag it out," Towers said of a decision on the staff. "It will probably be within a week's time."

There was a thorough review of what went wrong in 2013 and how to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Towers had already said the team needed to cut down on wild pitches and grounding into double plays along with allowing fewer home runs, but during the meetings a few other areas came up.

"Fundamentally, we need to be a little more sound," Towers said. "Better baserunning. Baserunning, once again, was a weakness of ours. We didn't get picked off as much, but we were kind of a stationary station-to-station club. We didn't utilize the speed we had very well and the times that we did, we weren't very successful at it."

Toward the end of the season, Towers said he wanted to add a power bat during the offseason and that got a little more specific after the meetings.

"We're probably in need of a left-handed bat," he said. "We're a little more right-handed dominant other than [Adam] Eaton and [Gerardo] Parra."

If they are to pick up a bat this winter it will likely be via trade rather than free agency.

"We're going to look at free agents, but I think this is one of the weaker free-agent markets I've seen in some time, so that might lead us toward looking at trade partners more," Towers said. "I think there's some clubs we might match up pretty well with, considering they've got depth in areas we have needs and we have depth in areas where they have needs."

The D-backs made a couple of minor roster moves Thursday as they outrighted right-hander Matt Langwell to Triple-A Reno and outfielder Keon Broxton to Double-A Mobile. That removes the pair from the 40-man roster, which is now at 38.