2025 Arizona Diamondbacks Player Reviews: #43 Andrew Hoffmann

Overview

Rating: 3.90

2025 Stats: 11 Games 1 W- 1L 6.00  ERA 12 IP 12SO 2.00  WHIP

Date of Birth: Feb 2, 2000 (age 25 season)

2025 Salary: League Minimum 2026 Status: Pre-Arbitration

History

The Dbacks began their mid-season sell off of impending free agents the week before the July trade deadline and the second domino to fall was the trade of Randall Grichuk to the Kansas City Royals. The return, was right handed reliever Andrew Hoffmann. Honestly before this trade, I had never heard of Hoffmann before, however it didn’t take long before I learned why the front office targeted him in the trade.

This was not the first time Hoffmann had been moved in his young career. In 2022 he was acquired by the Royals as a starting pitcher when they traded a competitive balance draft pick to the Atlanta Braves for Hoffmann, Drew Walters, and CJ Alexander. He immediately entered Kansas City’s top prospects ranks ranking as high as #14 on MLB Pipeline’s organizational ranks.

Hoffmann really didn’t have much success with the Royals posting a  5.53 ERA in 2023 and a 6.08 ERA in 2024. He new he needed to try something new, and so following the 2024 season he made a trip down to the Dominican Republic and pitched in the Winter League which allowed him to ‘restart as a pitcher’ in his words.  He made an adjustment in the Dominican to make his delivery simpler with a small mechanical cue and the results followed.

The biggest difference following the 2024 season however was the addition of his signature pitch, the kick-change.  After coming back stateside, Hoffmann went to the Driveline Baseball Academy and decided to try to throw the pitch during a throwing session. It quickly clicked for him and he soon realized that could’ve been exactly what he needed.

What is a kick change you may ask? The pitch has really only started to catch on at the big league level in recent years. Most notably with Giants starter Hayden Birdsong. The key to the pitch is in the modified changeup grip with the middle finger spiked up causing an  awkward spin on the ball at release. The pitch is usually thrown a little harder than most changeups  and it comes out of the hand looking like a fastball to the hitter, but the awkward spin leads to some serious late movement.

How much late movement do you ask? About 10 inches of additional downward movement compared to his changeup the season before going from 28 inches in ’24 to 37 inches! That is 3 freaking feet of late movement down!

On top of the Kick-change, Hoffmann was also able to add a tick or 2 of velocity making the fastball a serious pitch. It makes perfect sense with all of the helium Hoffmann had in the early going of 2025 due to the new pitch and added velocity why Dbacks GM Mike Hazen sought the pitcher in the deal.

2025 Season

In his Dbacks debut on 8/4 against the Padres, Hoffmann sat 95 mph touching 20” of IVB on the fastball and his kick-change got 3 whiffs against Manny Machado who looked visibly shook flailing away at the pitch.

Unfortunately for Hoffmann the results and the stuff started to fade in subsequent outings and on September 5th it was announced that Hoffmann had been dealing with some  elbow discomfort and was placed on the IL. Fortunately, he was just down a couple of weeks and was recalled back to the big league club the end of September and made an appearance 9/27 the second to last game of the season.

2026 Outlook

Its easy to look at Andrew Hoffmann and get really excited and project a backend shut down reliever. First off, the guy is massive at 6’5” with good deception thanks to above average extension and simplified mechanics. Secondly his stuff is trending up with the added velocity to his fastball and the new  kick-change. With how new the kick-change is, who knows how high the ceiling on the pitch can be as he throws it more.

The race for bullpen spots heading into 2026 should be wide open barring Mike Hazen going nuts this offseason. Look for Hoffmann to be a strong candidate to break spring camp with a bullpen spot. With any luck at all, the Dbacks could really have something here. The Dbacks are really due for a change of luck when it comes to pitching development and look no further than Andrew Hoffmann as a prime candidate to break out in 2026.