The perception of the inner-workings of the Diamondbacks front office over the past four years has been that of General Manager Mike Hazen hunkering down with assistant GMs Jared Porter and Amiel Sawdaye as decision-time loomed.
The reality, Hazen said recently, is that there always was a fourth involved in those meetings: analytics director Mike Fitzgerald. With Porter having departed last month to become the GM of the New York Mets, Fitzgerald will take on an even more significant role in baseball operations — and he is fully prepared for it, Hazen said.
“He has been a part of every single one of these conversations,” Hazen said, “at every single level from the second he got here.