From Miami to Arizona, Zac Gallen reflects on rookie season

The Arizona Diamondbacks finished the 2019 season with a better record than the previous year thanks to the trades that were made before the season and during it.

During the trade deadline, the Diamondbacks sent their ace in Zack Greinke to Houston but potentially gained another one in Zac Gallen.

While the title of the ace doesn’t concern Gallen, he does in fact believe that he can do what the ace is expected to do on a consistent basis.

“When it’s your day to pitch, you’re the ace,” Gallen said.

Gallen finished his rookie season with a 2.81 ERA and 96 strikeouts in 80 innings but he never thought it would begin in Miami but end in Arizona. The weekend leading up to the trade deadline, Gallen was in the home dugout watching his Marlins dispatch the Diamondbacks 3-1 in a four-game series while wearing the 1997 World Series throwback threads.

Two days later, he joins them.

“It was kind of crazy,” Gallen said. “I was going in, getting ready. I pitched the night before so I was getting my flush run in. [Marlins pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre Jr.] had called me into the office, thought we were going to go over last night’s outing which you usually do as a starter. And then we go to [Marlins manager Don Mattingly’s] office and I’m like, ‘alright, this is a little different.’ I’m sitting there and at first, I thought they were sending me down, it stinks, whatever, and as the conversation when on, [Marlins president of baseball operations] Michael Hill was like, ‘Hey, we actually made a move. We traded you.’

“It was a lot of nice stuff but at the time he didn’t say where I was going,” he added. After being told that he was going to Arizona, “The first thing that went to my head was I got to pack up my apartment, I gotta get ready to go so everything was a bunch of whirlwind emotions.”

After phone calls with his agent and Diamondbacks general manager Mike Hazen to sort out the travel plans, Gallen went from a young rebuilding team in the bottom of the standings to a slightly older team that was in the middle of the playoff hunt.

Despite the statistical strength he brought to the table, Gallen was once again the new guy and at the time felt more like a rookie than in Miami.

“I really didn’t know what to expect,” Gallen said. “I kinda kept to myself for a few days, just kinda saw how things were going. Guys were giving me some stuff about not talking or anything like that but it’s just my personality, kinda feel things out, what the deal is.”

The good news was that he was welcomed with open arms by the team.

“I think I was telling one of our veterans, Steven Souza Jr., I think it kinda helped that I came from the big leagues to the big leagues,” Gallen said. “A little bit of more credibility kind of deal.”

This was a season for Gallen to get his feet wet in the big leagues and be a part of the Marlins latest rebuild, that was until August and September came around and he found himself in a different black uniform on the other side of the country pitching in meaningful games as a key component of Arizona’s playoff chase. He recorded a 2.72 ERA in seven starts with the Marlins and a 2.89 ERA in eight starts with the Diamondbacks.

“I think it kind of elevated my performance a little bit more,” Gallen said, “just kind of brought even more of a competitive side out of me.”

So where does this leave the Marlins? It seems as if the Diamondbacks appear as a mirror image of what the Marlins may, or should, look like in the next phase of the rebuild plan. Arizona has a core of young players and a potential 1-2 punch on top of the rotation in Gallen and Luke Weaver, who came in the Paul Goldschmidt along with catcher Carson Kelly and recorded a 2.94 ERA in 12 starts. Gallen came to Miami as part of the Marcell Ozuna trade in the 2017 offseason and still believes that the Marlins are on their way.

“I think in Miami, they have a front office and staff that’s in place and gonna carry out the plan that they have,” Gallen said, “so in that sense, fans in Miami should 100 percent be in on the Marlins. I mean I’ve played with some of those guys who came up this year in [Triple-A] New Orleans and had some success in the big leagues and there are still guys that I haven’t played with this year in Double-A that are having really good years, had really good years. I think the fans should be excited. I think there’s a good system in place that’s gonna be fruitful in years to come.”