Arizona Diamondbacks offseason: Expect an outfielder to be traded

It didn't take long for Arizona Diamondbacks general manager Kevin Towers to lay out his team's offseason plans after a disappointing 81-81 campaign. The first order of business is finding a replacement at shortstop for Stephen Drew and adding depth to third base.

Willie Bloomquist and John McDonald occupied the shortstop position after the D-backs traded Drew to the A's in August, but their confidence in them doing well for an entire season is low.

Ryan Roberts' lackluster season at third base led to the D-backs adding Chris Johnson in a late-July deal with the Houston Astros. Ryan Wheeler was also called up to play third.

"Chris Johnson was a nice kind of shot in the arm in the middle of the season, and you're always trying to upgrade your team if you can," Towers said. "The tough thing is when you look at the free-agent market, it's probably the area where there's less inventory. Probably those moves to upgrade those positions more than likely will have to come via the trade."

Towers also would like to use his depth in the outfield to fill other needs. With the likes of Justin Upton, Chris Young, Jason Kubel, Gerardo Parra, Adam Eaton and A.J. Pollock on the roster and all wanting to play, getting rid of one or two of them to help out the rest of the team is an option Towers will consider.

"That's something I'm going to have to deal with this winter," Towers said. "We've got a plethora of outfielders and they all want to play. It's my job to kind of clean up that problem. I don't think we'll go into Spring Training with six outfielders. Pollock and Eaton have probably done all they can do at the Triple-A level and it's my job to clean up what I would say is a good mess."

Adding a power arm to the bullpen, a veteran to the starting rotation and a left-handed pitcher are also items Towers would like to address this offseason.