Heading into the final day of the 2026 MLB regular season, the Arizona Diamondbacks still had an outside chance of making it to the postseason. However, the Philadelphia Phillies won their final game anyway, which made the Diamondbacks' 9-4 loss to the San Diego Padres a moot point in the end. They finished the season with 86 wins, which would have been good enough to have them in the postseason had they been in the AL instead of the NL.

Now, the Diamondbacks have to watch the postseason from the comforts of their couch, relegated to thinking about the what-ifs that could have made the difference as far as their postseason fate is concerned. For instance, how much of a difference would Ketel Marte have made if he didn't suddenly leave the team in the middle of the season, leaving them wondering where he is and whether or not he intends to play for the team again for two weeks.

On Thursday, Diamondbacks general manager Mike Hazen opened up on how the Marte saga didn't adversely affect the team and he revealed just how proud he is that the team banded together and gave it a fight until the very end.

“I thought those players demonstrated a level of welcomeness back, forgiveness, understanding, and professionalism that, again, is something I think I'm pretty proud of from a characteristic standpoint,” Hazen said, via José M. Romero of AZ Central. “To what degree any of that had any impact on where our final record was, I don't know. But I was very proud of the guys, the way they handled all that.”

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The Diamondbacks coaching staff and the front office were obviously frustrated with Marte's ghosting of the team. But at the end of the day, Marte seemed to be very remorseful of his actions, and the team knew that they had to lock in if they were to challenge for a postseason spot.

Marte finished the 2026 season with 22 home runs and 76 runs batted in on an OPS of .748, which is a huge decline from his production during All-Star seasons in 2024 and 2025.