Speculations continue to arise as a result of the questionable large contract delivered to outfielder Eric Byrnes and whether or not this was the right move. As a ball player Upton has proven that he knows what to do in dire situations. Last spring training he struggled and carried those challenges over into the regular season. While maturing as a player, he properly adjusted to be able to bring his “A” game to wherever the D-backs were playing in 2009.

Justin Upton seems to know his areas of improvement and knows what ne needs to do to remain healthy and in good shape to come to play everyday. As spring training kicks off, the Diamondbacks look to strengthen their team to be in the running in the National League West.

Conner Jackson, Mark Reynolds, Justin Upton, Chris Young –they make up half of the D-backs everyday starters. One thing they all have in common is they all came to the majors in the last few years with one thing in common, potential.

Any team in the majors would have been glad to have any of these players right as they were getting ready to break into the bigs. Each player while having a slightly different skill set than the others each looked to have a promising long pro career ahead of them. Each had early success when they came to the bigs until big league pitching figured them out. The problem is, what have they done since their arrival in Phoenix?

Have any of these players improved since they arrived in the big leagues? Have any of these player improved since opening day last year? The answer is no, they have not and that is what is so troubling with the Diamondbacks and their future.

In July of 2007 Arizona changed hitting coaches and named Rick Schu to replace Kevin Seitzer. The reason the Diamondbacks made the change was because of the lack of consistency the D-backs were showing. Have they made improvements over the last two years? Based on what we have seen over the last year and a half I would say no.

With four young studs like Jackson, Upton, Reynolds and Young the Diamondbacks should be the team to beat in the NL West for years to come, but unless they start showing improvements, that is not going to happen. Bob Melvin and the Arizona organization can no longer look at these players and think about how great the future will be, they need to look at these players and ask themselves how are they going to reach their potential. The answer may or may not be a new hitting coach, but the answer definitely is not keep doing what they have been doing.