The History of the Arizona Diamondbacks: Every Era, from the First Season to Today
A franchise history of the Diamondbacks in eras, from the 1998 expansion team through the 2001 championship, the long rebuilds, and the 2023 pennant, with the managers, stars and numbers behind each stretch.
The Arizona Diamondbacks took the field for the first time in 1998, and by 2001 they were world champions. No expansion club before them had won a World Series so quickly, and the historical record still shows how unlikely the whole thing was: a team that began with 65 wins and 97 losses beat the three-time defending champion Yankees four seasons later, in seven games, with the Series decided in the bottom of the ninth inning of the last one.
Since then the story has been less steady. Through the 2025 season the franchise has played 28 seasons, with 2,167 wins and 2,267 losses, a winning percentage of .489. It has won five division titles, two pennants and one World Series, and it has also lost 110 or more games in a season twice. The club is best understood as a series of short, intense windows separated by rebuilds.
This history walks through those windows in order: the expansion years and the first contenders, the championship team, the long Randy Johnson decade, the Kirk Gibson and Torey Lovullo years, and the 2023 run to the World Series. For the best individual players and the best seasons in detail, the related articles on the club's all-time greats and its best seasons and every October run go further. The live record, schedule and roster are on the Diamondbacks team page.
How a desert expansion club was built, 1995 to 1998
Major League Baseball awarded a franchise to Phoenix in 1995, and the club began play in 1998 alongside the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, the last expansion in the league's history to that point. The Diamondbacks were placed in the National League West, where they have played ever since. The first manager was Buck Showalter, who ran the team from 1998 to 2000 and finished 250-236 across those three seasons.
The home park was Bank One Ballpark, which the franchise used from 1998 through 2005 before it became Chase Field. It was built with a retractable roof, a practical answer to Phoenix summers, and with a grass field that was unusual in a roofed park. The opening season drew 3,610,290 fans, still the largest single-season attendance in club history, and it is a reminder of how much a new franchise, a new building and a novel place to see a game can bring in during the first year.
The on-field results that first season were what an expansion club usually produces: 65 wins, 97 losses, last place in the division. The same 65-97 record would come back in 2010, so the first season sits among the five worst in club history by winning percentage. It took until 1999 to look like a real team. What changed was a willingness to buy established players quickly, an approach that is unusual for an expansion club and one that explains why this franchise reached October so fast.
The 1999 breakthrough and a roster built to win now
The 1999 Diamondbacks went 100-62, the best record in franchise history, and won the NL West in only their second season. It remains the best record the club has posted in 28 seasons, ahead of the 98-64 team of 2002 and the 94-68 team of 2011. The pitching centerpiece was Randy Johnson, signed as a free agent from the Astros after the 1998 season, and he won the Cy Young Award that year.
Luis Gonzalez arrived in 1999 and began the career that would make him the franchise's all-time leader in home runs (224), hits (1,337), runs (780) and RBI (774). Steve Finley, a center fielder with range and power, joined him in the lineup, and Tony Womack, a leadoff man who stole bases, gave the club speed; Womack's 182 steals with the franchise remain the best total in club history. The roster also had Matt Mantei at the end of games, and Byung-Hyun Kim would soon take over that role.
The first postseason ended quickly. The Diamondbacks lost the 1999 NLDS to the Mets, 3 games to 1, and the series told the team something useful: a club that wins 100 games can still lose in five. The experience carried into 2000, when the team finished below the division winner, and into a trade that would reshape the staff. In July 2000 Arizona added Curt Schilling from the Phillies, and over the next three and a half seasons he won 58 games for the club and gave Johnson a rotation partner who was nearly his equal.
2001: the championship and the numbers behind it
The 2001 team finished 92-70 and won the division, a lower win total than the 1999 and 2002 teams, but it was the year everything lined up. Johnson won his third consecutive Cy Young Award. Schilling was the second ace, and the pair would be named co-Most Valuable Players of the World Series. Bob Brenly, in his first year as a big-league manager, ran the club through 2004 and finished 303-262 in 565 games.
The postseason went the distance. Arizona beat the St. Louis Cardinals in the NLDS three games to two, beat the Atlanta Braves four games to one in the NLCS, and then faced the New York Yankees. The Series ran seven games. In Game 7, in Phoenix, Gonzalez hit a soft single over a drawn-in infield against Mariano Rivera, the game's best closer, in the bottom of the ninth inning to win it 3-2. Johnson had started and won Game 6 and then pitched in relief in the decisive game, a remarkable use of a starter the day after he had pitched.
The title came in the fourth year of the club's existence. The Series was played weeks after the September 11 attacks, and the three games in New York carried an emotional weight that few World Series games ever do. That context is part of why the 2001 Series is remembered beyond baseball, and why the 2001 World Series deserves its own account.
Johnson, Schilling and the aging of a contender, 2002 to 2005
The 2002 team was nearly as good: 98-64 and another division title. But the postseason lasted only three games, as the Cardinals swept the NLDS 3-0. Schilling missed time in 2003, his last year with the club, and the team slipped. The roster aged, the supporting cast thinned, and the club fell from a championship team to a last-place one in three seasons.
The bottom came in 2004. The Diamondbacks went 51-111, the worst record in club history, and in the middle of it Johnson threw a perfect game against the Braves on May 18, at 40 the oldest pitcher ever to do so. Brenly was replaced during the season by Al Pedrique, who went 22-61 in 83 games. Johnson was traded to the Yankees after the season, and an era ended.
The team shed older salaries, drafted for the future, and prepared for a second window. One bright spot was Brandon Webb, a sinkerball specialist who would become the franchise's second-best pitcher. He won 87 games for the club between 2003 and 2009 and the 2006 Cy Young Award, the only one by a Diamondbacks pitcher who was not Johnson. Webb is second in franchise strikeouts (1,065) and wins, and his 3.27 ERA is the second-best among Arizona pitchers with 1,000 innings, behind only Johnson's 2.83.
The 2007 team and the youth movement
Under manager Bob Melvin, who went 337-340 in five seasons from 2005 to 2009, the Diamondbacks rebuilt around young players, most of them homegrown. Stephen Drew, Chris Young, Justin Upton, Conor Jackson and Mark Reynolds came through the system, along with Miguel Montero behind the plate. In 2007 the team went 90-72, won the division, and swept the Cubs 3-0 in the NLDS.
The NLCS ended abruptly. The Colorado Rockies, who had surged late in the season to reach October, swept Arizona four games to none. The division rivalry that existed then, between two clubs that came into the league within five years of each other, was one of the more interesting subplots of that decade; the Colorado Rockies franchise history covers the other side.
The late 2000s then turned. Chase Field kept drawing decent crowds, with a best season attendance of 2,509,924 in the new name, but the team missed the postseason in the years that followed. Reynolds was the extreme case of a power-and-strikeout hitter, and his 121 home runs in four seasons still rank seventh in club history. Upton and Young kept playing. Brandon Webb injured his shoulder in 2009 and never regained his form, which hurt as much as any single loss.
Kirk Gibson, 2011 and another short window
Kirk Gibson, known to baseball fans for his home run in the 1988 World Series, took over as manager in 2010 and managed through 2014, with a 353-374 record. A. J. Hinch had managed the club in 2009 and 2010 before leaving with an 89-123 record, and Gibson was promoted. In 2011 the club improved by 29 wins and finished 94-68, winning the NL West.
The 2011 NLDS went five games and the Diamondbacks lost to the Brewers 3-2. That was the club's last postseason series until 2017. The roster featured Justin Upton, Ian Kennedy (who still sits eighth in franchise wins with 52), Paul Goldschmidt in his first full seasons, and relief help from J. J. Putz and Brad Ziegler. Goldschmidt would become the best position player to wear the uniform in the 2010s: 209 home runs, 1,182 hits and a .297 average in eight seasons with the club.
Then came another slide. The club lost 98 games in 2014, finished 64-98, and the front office changed. Chip Hale managed in 2015 and 2016, posting 148-176 in 324 games. Ahead of 2016 the team signed Zack Greinke to a large free-agent contract, and he won 55 games in four seasons with the club, but the team finished 69-93 that year.
Torey Lovullo and the long middle, 2017 to 2022
Torey Lovullo became manager in 2017 and has held the job longer than any other Diamondbacks manager: 1,355 games and a 664-691 record through 2025, which puts him well ahead of Gibson, Melvin and Brenly. The 2017 team went 93-69, took the first NL wild-card spot, and beat the Rockies in the one-game wild-card playoff before losing the NLDS to the Dodgers in three straight games.
That roster had Goldschmidt, Pollock, Greinke, Archie Bradley in the bullpen and J. D. Martinez acquired at midseason, and it was one of the better teams in franchise history by wins. After 2017 the club did not make the playoffs again for six years. Goldschmidt was traded to St. Louis after the 2018 season, and the team that followed him was more modest.
A few things stand out about the middle of the Lovullo era. Ketel Marte emerged as a core hitter, ranking third in franchise home runs (168), hits (1,098) and RBI (537) through 2025. Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly became the pillars of a rotation that took over as the most reliable part of the club: Gallen has 65 wins and 1,017 strikeouts, and Kelly has 62 wins and 865 strikeouts, both with the club since 2019. The low point was 2021, when the team went 52-110, the second-worst record in franchise history.
2023: the wild-card team that reached the World Series
The 2023 Diamondbacks were the sixth seed in the National League, and the season ended four rounds later in the World Series. The bracket looks like a staircase: a 2-0 sweep of the Brewers in the wild-card round, a 3-0 sweep of the Dodgers in the NLDS, a seven-game NLCS win over the Phillies, and then a World Series loss to the Texas Rangers, 4 games to 1.
The run was powered by young talent and veteran arms. Corbin Carroll won the NL Rookie of the Year award, and his 123 stolen bases through 2025 already rank third in franchise history, behind Womack's 182 and Goldschmidt's 124. Gallen and Kelly led the rotation. The club's pennant was its second, 22 years after the first.
After 2023 the picture is incomplete in this sheet: through 2025, the historical data lists no further postseason series for the franchise. A club that reached the World Series came up short of October again in the next two years, another example of how thin the margin is for a team that does not outspend its division. For how the Dodgers and Padres have set the pace in that division, see the Dodgers franchise history and the Padres franchise history.
Chase Field and the club's numbers
The ballpark has held the team since 1998, under the name Chase Field since 2005, and it has a capacity of about 48,330, a retractable roof and an artificial-turf playing surface (the original grass was replaced before the 2019 season). The dimensions as listed on the site are 330 feet down the left-field line, 376 in left-center, 407 to center, 376 in right-center and 335 down the right-field line; clubs adjust walls over time, so treat the figures as a guide. The park sits at about 1,086 feet above sea level, higher than most parks but far lower than Denver, and its outfield swimming pool is the oddity most fans remember. The Chase Field ballpark guide and the ballpark page cover how it plays.
A short table of the franchise's best and worst seasons in the database makes the pattern clear.
| Season | Record or finish | How it ended |
|---|---|---|
| 1999 | 100-62 | Division title, lost NLDS to Mets |
| 2001 | 92-70 | Division title, won World Series |
| 2002 | 98-64 | Division title, lost NLDS to Cardinals |
| 2007 | 90-72 | Division title, lost NLCS to Rockies |
| 2011 | 94-68 | Division title, lost NLDS to Brewers |
| 2017 | 93-69 | Wild card, lost NLDS to Dodgers |
| 2023 | Wild card | Won pennant, lost World Series to Rangers |
| 2004 | 51-111 | Worst record in club history |
| 2021 | 52-110 | Second-worst record |
The postseason ledger is eight series won and six lost across seven postseason trips: 1999, 2001, 2002, 2007, 2011, 2017 and 2023. Three of the eight wins came in 2001 and three in 2023. In the other five trips the club won only two series between them, one of them the 2017 wild-card game.
Common questions
How many World Series have the Diamondbacks won? One, in 2001, when they beat the Yankees four games to three. They also reached the 2023 World Series and lost to Texas four games to one.
Who is the best Diamondbacks player ever? Randy Johnson is the only Hall of Famer with four or more seasons for the club, in eight, and he won four straight Cy Young Awards from 1999 to 2002. Among hitters, Luis Gonzalez leads in home runs, hits, RBI and runs, with Paul Goldschmidt right behind in most categories.
Has the franchise always been in Phoenix? Yes. The club was awarded to Phoenix in 1995, began play in 1998 and has used two names for the one home park: Bank One Ballpark through 2005 and Chase Field since.
Who has managed the most games? Torey Lovullo, with 1,355 games through 2025 and a 664-691 record. The next-longest tenure is Kirk Gibson's 727 games.
Where to go next
For a position-by-position look at the best players the club has had, start with the Diamondbacks all-time greats. The park has its own story in the Chase Field guide, and the format that made 2023 possible is explained in the history of the World Series. Current standings and results are on the Diamondbacks team page, and the full news feed is in the Diamondbacks topic.