January 27 – February 16, 1962

Joey Dee and the Starliters

The Peppermint Twist – Part I

Mark Reynolds was certainly adept at hitting Home Runs, and as a Diamondback, he hit 121 of them, including a 44 Home Run campaign in 2009.  His power puts him on this list, but his game was not multifaceted and was marred by many deficiencies.  Reynolds struck out in more than one-third of his plate appearances, and he exceeded 200 three times with Arizona, all of which were National League leading.  His 223 whiffs in 2009 remain a single-season record.  

Reynolds also made a lot of errors, as he was a league leader in that twice as a D-Back.  Despite that, his power game is strong enough to keep him on this list for a while.

Chad Tracy played six seasons for the Arizona Diamondbacks and arguably he lands on this list based on the strength of his second and third season (2005 & 2006) where he was a 20 Home Run hitter.  Tracy’s best season was in 2005 where he had 27 Home Runs with a .308 Batting Average, which was good enough for seventh in the National League that year.  Unfortunately for Tracy he never came close to replicating his two good seasons with Arizona and would be relatively mediocre for the three years after.

Tracy had 654 Hits while batting .280 as a Diamondback.

Omar Daal was an expansion pick by the Arizona Diamondbacks, and based on the seasons that he already had in the Majors, there were limited expectations for the Venezuelan southpaw.  For the first time, Daal became a regular starter, and while he won only eight games in the Diamondbacks’ inaugural season, he posted a sweet ERA of 2.88, which ranked fifth in the NL.  He won 16 Games the following season, while eating 214.2 innings with a 3.65 ERA.

Daal faltered the following year and was traded during the season to the Philadelphia Phillies, leaving a record of 26-31 with 325 Strikeouts.