Derrick Hall has seen a sartorial evolution in 12 years as Arizona Diamondbacks president. When he joined the team's front office in 2005, parents and their children routinely showed up at games in Cubs, Yankees or Red Sox garb. Now diversity is the norm. Moms and dads still pay homage to Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant in Cubbie blue, but the kids prefer jerseys with Paul Goldschmidt, Jake Lamb, Zach Greinke and Robbie Ray etched across the back.
In his first year as Diamondbacks general manager, Mike Hazen sees a similar phenomenon at play in the Arcadia Little League, where Charlie, John, Teddy and Sam Hazen and their peers all gravitate to the D-backs' color scheme of Sedona Red, Sonoran Sand and black.
Mike and Nicole Hazen's four sons range in age from 7 to 11, and they formed an early bond with the Boston Red Sox players while dad was working in the team's front office. But they're quickly gravitating to the Snakes.
"My kids grew up Red Sox fans because they went to all the Red Sox games," Hazen says. "Now every morning it's all D-backs: 'Did we win last night? Did Robbie finish it off? Lamber [Jake Lamb] hit a home run late in the game? That's awesome.' Then they'll grab a phone and go watch the highlights.
"They still watch the Red Sox because they're so attached to Mookie Betts and Dustin Pedroia and the other players. They still follow them and see what they're up to. But they're locked into the D-backs now."
In both the adult and children's sizes, it's less about the jerseys than the emotional investment of the people wearing them.
The Diamondbacks and their fans have reason to feel sanguine these days. After falling 21 games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers on Aug. 25, the D-backs narrowed that gap to nine thanks in part to a 13-game win streak that finally ended against San Diego over the weekend. While they'll have to advance to the National League Division Series as a wild card, they're in the advantageous position of hosting the game with Greinke, who is 13-1 with a 2.31 ERA at Chase Field this season, as their starting pitcher.
The long-term outlook is promising. Sixteen years after Randy Johnson, Curt Schilling and Luis Gonzalez led Arizona to a World Series victory over the New York Yankees, the 2017 Diamondbacks are winning hearts and minds and kick-starting tradition with impetus from a Boston-based brain trust.
Hazen, 41, grew up in suburban Boston and had his hopes raised and extinguished by the 1986 Red Sox. He played college ball at Princeton, spent two years as an outfielder in the Padres' system and parlayed a summer job scouting the Cape Cod League for Peter Gammons into an internship with the Cleveland Indians. After 16 years as a scout and executive in Cleveland and Boston, Hazen landed the Arizona job and brought in former Red Sox colleagues Amiel Sawdaye and Jared Porter to help implement his vision.
Arizona's new front office looked to Fenway for its first big addition, hiring former Red Sox bench coach Torey Lovullo to succeed Chip Hale as the eighth manager in the franchise's 20-year history. Lovullo has emerged as a National League Manager of the Year contender while strengthening a rapport with Hazen that took root during their days together in the Cleveland and Boston organizations.
"Times have changed," Lovullo said. "The newer front offices are engaged and involved on an impressive level, and the key point is the relationship between the manager and the front office. To me, it's like a marriage. You've got to have a relationship where you share the good and the bad. From Day 1, Mike and I had aggressive, understanding, learning conversations. There's never, ever a judgment. We're doing this for one reason -- their players and their performance on the field. We checked a lot of boxes quickly."
The new dynamic is everything that Hall and Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick envisioned when they interviewed Hazen after the Red Sox lost to Cleveland in the 2016 American League Division Series. Hazen spent a Friday afternoon in Phoenix and wowed Kendrick and Hall with his franchise-building vision and in-depth knowledge of the Arizona organization, and he quickly separated himself from the pack.
"I took Mike outside so he could grab his wife to go to dinner, and I went back in and looked at Ken and I said, 'Do you feel as strongly about this guy as I do?'" Hall said. "Ken said, 'Oh yeah, he's my guy too.' We both knew as soon as we met with him."
Hazen quickly hired Mike Fitzgerald, a 28-year-old MIT mathematics grad and quantitative analyst with the Pittsburgh Pirates, to build a new analytics system in Phoenix. He also has shown the self-awareness to listen, incorporate multiple viewpoints and embrace the role of scouts. Arizona's farm system has taken enough hits in recent years that ESPN's Keith Law ranked it No. 30 in baseball entering this season, and it's going to take more than statistical analysis to replenish the pipeline.
Hazen and his group were fortunate to inherit some nice building blocks. Josh Byrnes was general manager and Tom Allison the scouting director when Arizona selected A.J. Pollock and Goldschmidt in a killer 2009 draft. The Kevin Towers regime added Lamb in the sixth round of the 2012 draft and signed David Peralta as an obscure international free agent, and the Dave Stewart-Tony La Russa combo took the plunge on Greinke's six-year, $206.5 million deal in December 2015. That contract still looks exorbitant, but Greinke has rebounded nicely after an uncharacteristically poor performance last season.
The new front office has added some pivotal pieces. Hazen made a bold strike before Thanksgiving, sending shortstop Jean Segura to Seattle in a five-player trade that brought pitcher Taijuan Walker and shortstop Ketel Marte to Arizona, and the Diamondbacks pulled off a non-waiver-deadline coup when they added J.D. Martinez from Detroit for three minor-league infielders. Martinez, a pending free agent, has slashed .269/.342/.701 as a D-back and homered four times in a recent 13-0 rout of the Dodgers.
The Diamondbacks also have benefited from some more nuanced decisions. Outfielder Gregor Blanco and catchers Jeff Mathis and Chris Iannetta added veteran stability to the roster. Former No. 1 pick Archie Bradley has enjoyed a breakout season in his transition from starter to reliever. And the D-backs resisted the temptation to panic when 40-year-old closer Fernando Rodney sported a 12.60 ERA in 9⅓ innings in April. Before blowing a ninth-inning lead in an 8-7 loss to San Diego on Saturday, Rodney had held opponents to a .129 batting average over 43 appearances since May 1.
The Diamondbacks have gone from last in the NL in ERA (5.09) in 2016 to second behind the Dodgers (at 3.61) thanks in part to bounce-back seasons from Greinke and Patrick Corbin, Zack Godley's surprise contribution and Ray's emergence as an All-Star, but they have also benefited from some upgrades in the catching department. Mathis, who suffered a fractured hand in late August, ranks eighth in the majors in pitch framing, and Iannetta is 15th.
"For me, it's been one of the common denominators that's helped our pitching staff," Lovullo said. "That was a priority -- getting a couple of veteran guys in here who had a history of handling staffs and could frame pitches and call games and read swings and develop rapports with pitchers. Without Jeff Mathis and Chris Iannetta, we would not be where we are."
The Diamondbacks' fan outreach efforts begin with Goldschmidt, who has become a pillar of the lineup and the Phoenix community. Goldschmidt is signed to a club-friendly five-year, $32 million extension that includes a $14.5 million club option for 2019. His 31.4 wins above replacement (WAR) are third-best in MLB behind Mike Trout and Josh Donaldson since 2013, and he has a chance to snag his first NL MVP award after finishing second twice.
"We're lucky in our community to have a player like Shane Doan, who just retired after playing his whole career with the Coyotes, and Larry Fitzgerald with the NFL team, and then Paul Goldschmidt with this team," Hall said. "That's how you build a fan base. Paul Goldschmidt was homegrown. He's All-American -- someone to look up to. He and his wife are at Phoenix Children's Hospital all the time and they're constantly giving back. Everything adds up to say, 'This guy is a fan favorite and a household name.'
"His teammates love him. I've never heard a bad thing said about Goldy. The thing I've always said about Paul is, he doesn't realize how good he is, and that's part of what makes him what he is. He doesn't take anything for granted."
That mentality permeates the organization. Whenever Hazen feels the least bit self-satisfied, he reflects upon the Aug. 18-20 series at Minnesota in which the Diamondbacks lost three straight by a combined score of 27-8. Lovullo has ingrained his players with a short-term memory loss that's prevented small setbacks from mushrooming into something bigger. Arizona's longest losing streak -- five games -- took place before and after the All-Star break.
"We've focused on what Torey talked about from the beginning of spring training -- go out and play 162 games to the best of your ability, as hard as you can. Bring it every night, and see where it goes from there," Hazen said. "The Dodgers could have run away from us. But that's what we continued to say, and we continue to say it now. Where it leaves us at the end, we don't know. But we're going to bring it."
Hazen navigated some early culture shock in Arizona as an East Coast guy, but he hasn't lost his Boston accent or his competitive zeal. The new front office has set a tone of high expectations in Phoenix.
"It's pretty cool," Hall said. "You take a guy who's from Boston. He was a Red Sox fan his whole life and he worked for the Red Sox. He picked up his family and moved them out to the desert, and now they're all-in. Mike is as diehard a D-back as there is. I think it was his time -- and it was Torey's time."
Judging from recent events, this just might be the Diamondbacks' time as well. Come the postseason, Arizona fans will make sure to dress for the occasion.