2025 Diamondbacks Player Reviews: #9 Blaze Alexander

• Rating: 7.28
• 2025 MLB Stats: 74 G, 266PA .230/.323/.383 95 OPS+, 99wRC+, .313 wOBA, 1.7 bWAR/1 fWAR
• Date of Birth; June 11th, 1999 (age 26 season)
• 2025 Earnings: $498,507
• 2026 Status: Pre-arbitration eligible, 2031 Free Agent

Background

Blaze Alexander was drafted by the Diamondbacks in the 2018 draft with the 339th overall pick, out of IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida. Blaze’s biggest setback in his minor league career was the pandemic, but he’d work his way up through the Diamondbacks farm system and reach AAA by 2022. He’d then spend the next two years shuffling between the Arizona Complex League, the injured list, and AAA Reno, before finallt making his debut in 2024. That year he’d play in 61 games and hit .247/.321/343 with an 89 wRC+.

2025 Season

Blaze’s 2025 season actually got off to a bad start right out of the gate, as he’d be placed on the injured list on March 27th with a right oblique strain. A couple weeks on later on April 8th, he’d be activated and start his rehab stint with the Reno Aces. Blaze would remain with the Aces until he was called up on June 25th. Overall, Blaze was fine in the 54 games he spent in AAA Reno, where he began his 2025 season. He’d hit .284/.413/.479 and was a solid speed and power threat with eight homeruns, six doubles, a triple, and eleven stolen bases. His overall offensive contributions work out to a 118 wRC+ or about 18% above average. Calling his work in Reno ‘fine’ is a bit of a disservice to Mr. Alexander, as it was a major improvement on the 91 wRC+ he put up in AAA in 2024, and the highest mark he’d put up outside of very small cup of coffee at the level in 2022.

In the 74 games, Blaze played at the Major League level, he hit .230/.323/.383 with 7 HRs, and curiously, he had the exact same number of doubles (12) and triples (1) in MLB as he had in AAA. The biggest knock on Blaze’s play at the MLB level in 2025 was the extremely poor baserunning, with only four of his stolen bases attempts out of ten being successful. Considering he was only caught once in AAA and the third base coach was removed from that role, I would put the poor success rate entirely on Blaze.

If I just went over the season stats, it wouldn’t tell the whole story of Blaze’s 2025 season, and there are quite a few things that need to be highlighted. The first thing worth pointing out about his 2025 season is that all seven of the homeruns Blaze hit in the big leagues in 2025, came in the month of August, in addition to half of his doubles. He played in all 29 games the Dbacks played in August, hitting .255/.361/.520, which works out to a 145 WRC+ and a .379 wOBA, but he cooled off significantly the rest of the season and was horrid offensively overall outside that month stretch.

Prior to August, Blaze had just a 57 wRC+, and once the calendar changed to September he put up just a 65 wRC+. The second thing to point out is that this all came right after the Dbacks traded thirdbaseman Eugenio Suarez to Seattle, which opened up a spot for Blaze to get regular playing time in the first place. Blaze stepped in and admirably filled Geno’s shoes, and the lack of drop off after the trade allowed the D’Backs to miraculously stay in the hunt for a playoff spot. Unfortunately, Blaze’s September wouldn’t go all that well, as not only did his bat cool off significantly, but he’d get injured in a game on September 27th and finish his 2025 being placed on the injured list.

One thing that I haven’t really seen discussed is the fact that Blaze was tied with Geraldo Perdomo for second in HBP on the 2025 Dbacks, with both players getting plunked 10 times. Eugenio Suarez still managed to lead the team with fifteen hit bt pitches, despite getting traded at the deadline. The ten HBPs may not seem like a lot, nor all that notable considering Perdomo was hit by pitches just as many times as Blaze. However, Perdomo also had over 700 plate appearences and played in 161 games, while Suarez still had 437 plate appearances and played in 105 games before he was traded. Compare that to Blaze Alexander, who appeared in just 74 games with just 266 plate appearances. On a rate stat basis, Perdomo was getting hit once per 72 PAs, and Suarez every 29 PAs, but Blaze Alexander was getting hit once per 26.6 PAs, by far the highest frequency of any hitter on the team. Unsurprisingly that puts him up there with the MLB leaders, and actually just behind MLB HBP leader Randy Arozorena, who was plunked 27 times at a rate of 26.2 plate appearances. Based on what I could find, despite being 29th in HBPs, Blaze Alexander was HBP the fifth most often per plate appearance in MLB in 2025.

(Blaze hasn’t been HBP nearly as often in AAA though, getting hit at a rate of once per 38.75 PAs on average in AAA the last two seasons. Using an even larger sample of all his AAA statistics and it’s even less frequent. I wouldn’t expect this as a repeatable skill that will last long term, more than likely it’s just a statistical oddity. I’m unaware of any changes he made that would increase his HBP, I just found interesting)

Looking at the defensive side of the game, Blaze played primarily third base, with 54 games at the hot corner but he also played 14 games at second base, three games in left field, and three in centerfield. It’s hard to evaluate his defense at third with a sample of 54 games, let alone the even smaller samples at the other positions. Despite make seven errors in 2025, specifically three fielding errors and four throwing errors, all at third base, Blaze still managed to put up positive defensive value. The small sample at second shows that he’s a much better defender (and hitter) at that position than he is when he’s playing the hot corner. I wouldn’t put much of any stock into the defense stats until there’s at bare minimum a full 162 game season worth of appearances at a position, and ideally I’d want twice as many games as that to have any confidence in those stats.

2026Outlook

As the roster stands, Blaze is probably a good bet to get some playing time at third base in 2025. If he can hit like he did in August, he obviously stands a chance at an everyday player. He stands to face some stiff competition from the prospects coming up behind him in the farm system, and Spring Training may be the last for him to establish himself as more than a streaky, fringe utility player with a cool name. With the offseason being very quiet so far for the Diamondbacks and GM Mike Hazen needing to make some moves, I’m not confident in making any predictions bolder than that.