Boston Globe sportswriter Nick Cafardo died tragically on Thursday at the age of 62. He was a friend — Nick had countless friends throughout the baseball community — and his Sunday Baseball Notes has long been a must-read. This column is dedicated to his memory.
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Aaron Loup has forged a solid career since being drafted by the Blue Jays out of Tulane University in 2009. The 31-year-old southpaw has made 378 relief appearances — all but four with Toronto — and put together a 3.49 ERA and a 3.49 FIP. Seven years after making his MLB debut, he’s now a member of the San Diego Padres.
Had he not changed his arm slot, he probably wouldn’t have made it to the big leagues.
“I wasn’t getting it done over the top,” admitted Loup, who dropped down in high-A. “For whatever reason, my stuff went away. It kind of sucked. My sinker flattened out. My breaking ball became a dud.”
When you’re getting hit around in the Florida State League, you listen to suggestions. Especially strong suggestions. The lefty recalls being told by then pitching coordinator Dane Johnson, “Give it a chance, because what you’re doing now isn’t working.”
After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for more than half a decade. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the San Diego Padres.
There’s no way to talk about the Padres’ offense while ignoring the elephant in the room, San Diego’s big infield acquisition this winter. I’m talking, of course, about Ian Kinsler, who remains one of the most underrated players in baseball. The last time Kinsler failed to put up two WAR in a season was 2006, and even as his bat has declined — to a wRC+ of 93 in 2017 and 87 in 2018 — his glove has continued to add a whole win to his bottom line. He’s a really good transitional pickup as the Padres shift towards their Luis Urias/Fernando Tatis-based future.
Oh, right, you probably want to hear about the other dude! Manny Machado projects better as a third baseman than as a shortstop. Simply put, based on his age, his brief history at short and more lengthy one at third base, and a few other indicators — when you know nothing about a player, generalized speed data does have a relationship with defensive performance — Machado played worse defense at shortstop than ZiPS projected going into 2018. While we’d need to see a few years of him back at third to know whether this was due to a general defensive decline on his part or something shortstop-specific, ZiPS believes he’s a bit more valuable at third right now.
Overall, the projections for the Padres indicate a strong group of position players, no matter how the playing time actually sorts out in 2019. I know I rag on Eric Hosmer’s contract, but from a pure baseball standpoint rather than one of efficiency, if first base is really San Diego’s biggest lineup problem, the team’s probably in a good place. Read the rest of this entry »
According to those estimated franchise values at Forbes, the San Diego Padres are in the bottom half of baseball’s 30 organizations. Perhaps even more relevant, the Padres are routinely among baseball’s bottom ten spenders. The Padres have pretty much never behaved like a big-market team, and after long enough, that creates a pretty rigid impression. One thinks of the Padres the way one might think of, say, the Reds. When it comes to high-profile free agents, you feel comfortable ruling them out. Why would you think the Padres would be a player?
Of course, teams can choose to change. And as much as we might still think of free agency as directing players toward certain big spenders, you never know when someone might surprise you. One offseason ago, the biggest free-agent contract went to Eric Hosmer, and it was given by the Padres. And now this offseason, the biggest free-agent contract so far is going to Manny Machado, and it’s being given by the Padres. According to reports, the deal will be worth $300 million over ten years, with an opt-out after year five. It’s close enough to the contract we’ve always expected. I just don’t think anyone really expected the team.
The Padres read the market, and they chose to be aggressive, where other clubs were more cautious. Now the door could be open a year ahead of schedule.
Pitchers learn and develop different pitches, and they do so at varying stages of their lives and careers. It might be a curveball in high school, a cutter in college, or a changeup in A-ball. Sometimes the addition or refinement is a natural progression — graduating from Pitching 101 to advanced course work — and often it’s a matter of necessity. In order to get hitters out as the quality of competition improves, a pitcher needs to optimize his repertoire.
In this installment of the series, we’ll hear from three pitchers — Ray Black, Tanner Scott, and Matt Strahm— on how they learned and developed their sliders.
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Ray Black, San Francisco Giants
“When I was in high school, I had the privilege of working with Andy Ashby, who is pretty much a legend around Wilkes-Barre. We messed around a little bit with a slider at the time, but I really started developing it more coming back from my Tommy John surgery. I blew out my senior year.
“My curveball was too big, too loopy, and easy to distinguish. I think I was throwing it almost 20 mph slower than my fastball. When you’re younger, you see this big breaking ball, somebody is diving out of the way, and you’re like, ‘Man, that’s nasty.’ But when you get up to the higher levels, you realize it’s more deception; it’s not just movement. I tried to develop a slider like a cutter. That’s what I think when I throw my slider: cutter. If I don’t, I always end up trying to make it bigger than it should be. I need to try to keep it tight, keep it small. Read the rest of this entry »
The Cincinnati Reds did more than hire a new manager over the offseason. They also revamped their coaching staff. Two of the additions will be entrusted with optimizing the offense. Turner Ward, formerly with the Dodgers, is now the hitting coach. Donnie Ecker, who came over from the Angels, will serve as the assistant hitting coach. Neither will be faced with the challenge of helping Billy Hamilton turn a corner. The Reds non-tendered the enigmatic speedster, who subsequently signed with the Royals, back in November.
I recently asked Dick Williams about the decision to cut ties with Hamilton, who slashed .245/.298/.333 in his five seasons as Cincinnati’s centerfielder. Before we get to that, here is the team’s President of Baseball Operations on Ecker:
“We’ve had some really interesting sessions the last couple of days, where coaches have gotten up and talked about their areas. Donnie Ecker is a movement specialist. He has a bio-mechanical approach to the swing. We had some great hitters in the room, like Barry Larkin and Eric Davis. Donnie gave a bio-mechanical explanation of some of the things he sees in hitters, using descriptions and examples that all of us could understand.”
Would Ecker, along with Ward, have been able to transform Hamilton into the productive hitter he’s thus far failed to become? Read the rest of this entry »
When publishing our lists — in particular, the top 100 — we’re frequently asked who, among the players excluded from this year’s version, might have the best chance of appearing on next year’s version. Whose stock are we buying? This post represents our best attempt to answer all of those questions at once.
This is the second year that we’re doing this, and we have some new rules. First, none of the players you see below will have ever been a 50 FV or better in any of our write-ups or rankings. So while we think Austin Hays might have a bounce back year and be a 50 FV again, we’re not allowed to include him here; you already know about him. We also forbid ourselves from using players who were on last year’s inaugural list. (We were right about 18 of the 63 players last year, a 29% hit rate, though we have no idea if that’s good or not, as it was our first time engaging in the exercise.) At the end of the piece, we have a list of potential high-leverage relievers who might debut this year. They’re unlikely to ever be a 50 FV or better because of their role, but they often have a sizable impact on competitive clubs, and readers seemed to like that we had that category last year.
We’ve separated this year’s players into groups or “types” to make it a little more digestible, and to give you some idea of the demographics we think pop-up guys come from, which could help you identify some of your own with THE BOARD. For players who we’ve already covered this offseason, we included a link to the team lists, where you can find a full scouting report. We touch briefly on the rest of the names in this post. Here are our picks to click:
Teenage Pitchers
Torres was young for his draft class, is a plus athlete, throws really hard, and had surprisingly sharp slider command all last summer. White looked excellent in the fall when the Rangers finally allowed their high school draftees to throw. He sat 92-94, and his changeup and breaking ball were both above-average. Pardinho and Woods Richardson are the two advanced guys in this group. Thomas is the most raw but, for a someone who hasn’t been pitching for very long, he’s already come a long way very quickly.
The “This is What They Look Like” Group
If you like big, well-made athletes, this list is for you. Rodriguez was physically mature compared to his DSL peers and also seems like a mature person. The Mariners have indicated they’re going to send him right to Low-A this year. He could be a middle-of-the-order, corner outfield power bat. Luciano was the Giants’ big 2018 July 2 signee. He already has huge raw power and looks better at short than he did as an amateur. Canario has elite bat speed. Adams was signed away from college football but is more instinctive than most two-sport athletes. Most of the stuff he needs to work on is related to getting to his power.
Advanced Young Bats with Defensive Value
This is the group that produces the likes of Vidal Brujan and Luis Urias. Edwards is a high-effort gamer with 70 speed and feel for line drive contact. Marcano isn’t as stocky and strong as X, but he too has innate feel for contact, and could be a plus middle infield defender. Perez has great all-fields contact ability and might be on an Andres Gimenez-style fast track, where he reaches Double-A at age 19 or 20. Ruiz is the worst defender on this list, but he has all-fields raw power and feel for contact. He draws Alfonso Soriano comps. Palacios is the only college prospect listed here. He had three times as many walks as strikeouts at Towson last year. Rosario controls the zone well, is fast, and is a plus defender in center field.
Corner Power Bats
Nevin will probably end up as a contact-over-power first baseman, but he might also end up with a 70 bat. He looked great against Fall League pitching despite having played very little as a pro due to injury. Lavigne had a lot of pre-draft helium and kept hitting after he signed. He has all-fields power. Apostel saw reps at first during instructs but has a good shot to stay at third. He has excellent timing and explosive hands.
College-aged Pitchers
It’s hard to imagine any of these guys rocketing into the top 50 overall. Rather, we would anticipate that they end up in the 60-100 range on next year’s list. Gilbert was a workhorse at Stetson and his velo may spike with reshaped usage. Singer should move quickly because of how advanced his command is. Lynch’s pre-draft velocity bump held throughout the summer, and he has command of several solid secondaries. Abreu spent several years in rookie ball and then had a breakout 2018, forcing Houston to 40-man him to protect him from the Rule 5. He’ll tie Dustin May for the second-highest breaking ball spin rate on THE BOARD when the Houston list goes up. We’re intrigued by what Dodgers player dev will do with an athlete like Gray. Phillips throws a ton of strikes and has a good four-pitch mix.
Bounce Back Candidates
The Dodgers have a strong track record of taking severely injured college arms who return with better stuff after a long period of inactivity. That could be Grove, their 2018 second rounder, who missed most of his sophomore and junior seasons at West Virginia. McCarthy was also hurt during his junior season and it may have obscured his true abilities. Burger is coming back from multiple Achilles ruptures, but was a strong college performer with power before his tire blew.
Catchers
We’re very excited about the current crop of minor league catchers. Naylor is athletic enough that he’s likely to improve as a defender and he has rare power for the position.
Potentially Dominant Relievers
These names lean “multi-inning” rather than “closer.” Gonsolin was a two-way player in college who has been the beneficiary of sound pitch design. He started last year but was up to 100 mph out of the bullpen the year before. He now throws a four seamer rather than a sinker and he developed a nasty splitter in 2017. He also has two good breaking balls. He has starter stuff but may break in as a reliever this year.
There was already plenty to like about what Matt Chapman did as a rookie in 2017. But his introduction to the majors looked all the more encouraging upon further and deeper review. It’s long forgotten now, but Chapman got off to a miserable start. Through the middle of July, he had a wRC+ of 64, to go with nearly 40% strikeouts. The defense was there — the defense was always going to be there — but it was fair to wonder whether Chapman’s bat had what it would take to succeed. It was early, yes, but Chapman had been exposed. He seemed to be overmatched.
And then, in a flash, he turned the tables. The rest of the way, he carried a wRC+ of 120, and he trimmed his strikeouts all the way to 26%. The way Chapman finished set him up for a breakout and breakthrough 2018, with a 137 wRC+ and a superstar WAR. The strikeout issues were nowhere to be found. Not that Chapman exactly qualifies as a traditional contact hitter, but he makes enough contact to tap consistently into his power. Chapman put the rough intro behind him, and he hasn’t looked back.
With Chapman in mind, allow me to shift the conversation toward Franmil Reyes. Unlike Chapman, Reyes is never going to win a Platinum Glove. If he’s going to have a career, it’ll have to be a career in which he hits. But the good news is that he just made a strong impression. Like Chapman the season before, Reyes just used the final two months to set himself up for a dazzling campaign.
On the public side, there are few opportunities to see the precise financial machinations of major league baseball teams. The Atlanta Braves are a publicly traded company so we have some information on their inner-workings. And a recent piece by Kevin Acee at the San Diego Union Tribune provides a little bit more information. Acee was granted access to some of the Padres’ finances, though as Acee noted, the league keeps a close watch on financial information and generally doesn’t want it to get out:
The caveat from the club was that many of the numbers shared herein had to be “general.” The Padres are a private company and one of 30 members of a greater private organization. One member does not have the prerogative to make public financial data Major League Baseball has not approved for release.
The Padres’ decision to grant a reporter access to some of the team’s financial information is an unusual one, though the motivation is fairly clear. The Padres are still in the midst of a rebuilding process that isn’t likely to end this season. The club believes their window of contention isn’t yet open and as a result, they aren’t likely to spend big right now. A peek into the books, and the team’s debt, helps them provide further justification for that lack of spending. There is a lot of financial information disclosed in the article, and it is probably best to break things down a bit.
The Debt
The crux of Acee’s article involves a refinancing of the debt the team’s current owners have carried since purchasing the Padres. According to the article, that debt amounted to roughly $193 million at the time of the purchase back in 2012 — it was no doubt factored into the purchase price — and the interest rate on the loans was something like 8.5%. Due to the nature of the loan, which included a make-whole provision that would require paying extra for paying down the loan early, refinancing it to get a lower interest rate would have meant an extra payment of close to $70 million. As a result, the team elected to make payments on the loan, including interest payments of $13 million in 2015 alone.
By 2017, the make-whole penalty was down to $28 million and the club made a cash call for about half of that amount and used some of their MLBAM money for the rest. Reading between the lines here, the piece mentions a total of $68 million in money coming from the sale of BAMTech, with $50 million of that amount presumed to have been received last year. That means that the first sale of MLBAM to Disney, which netted the league one billion dollars, likely resulted in some smaller payment, perhaps $18 million, that was used by the Padres in their refinancing in 2017. The team appears to have further used about $45 million of the $50 million BAMTech proceeds to pay down additional debt. The club has now paid down 40% of the original $193 million, reducing interest payments to around $4 million, a savings of around $8 million per year, plus additional savings on principal payments. In short, the club took $15 million of owner money. plus nearly all the BAMTech money it received, and used it to make $10 million or more per year for the foreseeable future. It has obviously been a good investment for the owners, and the tenor of the article suggests that that money will be invested back into the club at some point in the future, likely, if team officials are to be believed, when the club is closer to contention.
The Minors
In 2016, the Padres were coming off a minor debacle in 2015 (more on that in a bit), having expended a decent amount of cash and prospect capital to attempt to contend. That attempt failed, and the Padres decided not to invest any more money in the major league ball club. Under baseball’s old international spending rules, teams could splurge on international prospects for a year before being restricted to more expenditures in the following two seasons. The Padres splurged like nobody had splurged before, spending around $40 million on prospects and around that amount on penalties. Between the major league payroll and the bonuses for the draft and international amateurs (and the penalties that followed), the team probably spent close to $200 million in 2016, with Acee’s piece indicating the owners pitched in about $20 million to make that happen.
As for the results, the Padres now have one of the best farm systems in baseball, and that 2016 class is a big reason for their success. As of the end of last season, the Padres had 12 players from that class alone receive a graded rank, including three who already project as average despite the fact that most of these players are under 20 years old. Those 12 prospects, including Adrian Morejon, Luis Patino, and Michael Baez, were already worth roughly $100 million by the end of last year. While it hasn’t impacted the results at the major league level yet, that investment should pay huge dividends going forward. As for investments that didn’t go so well…
The First Prellering
The Padres hired A.J. Preller in the middle of the 2014 season, and Preller aimed to make the team a contender the following year. He essentially traded Yasmani Grandal for Matt Kemp, then sent prospects to Atlanta for Justin Upton. He traded Joe Ross and Trea Turner, among others, for Wil Myers and others. James Shields was given a four-year contract. Right before the season started, he took on the money owed to B.J. Upton to get Craig Kimbrel. Those deals added about $20 million in payroll over the previous year and about $40 million over the 2013 campaign. The moves weren’t successful, although they weren’t quite the disaster the Union-Tribune piece and Padres ownership make them to be.
In the piece, the club claimed to have spent $40 million more for the season. That is partially true given they spent that much in new salaries, but when compared to the previous season, the additions were about half that much. Interestingly, the club indicated that all that movement netted the team an extra $15 million in ticket sales and concessions. While that number isn’t too far off from the payroll increase, we can glean more from that bit of information. From 2014 to 2015, the Padres increased attendance by 265,000 fans. Some simple math has the increase in revenue at about $57 per attendee. What’s interesting about that information is just how the attendance increase happened. The Padres’ gambit almost worked.
On June 13, the Padres had a .500 record, were five games out of first place, and three games out of the wild card. Over the next month, they went 9-17 and fell out of the playoff race. Through the trade deadline that season, the club was averaging 31,782 fans, but after the season went south, attendance the rest of the way dropped to 28,200. If the team had remained competitive and drawn the same amount, that potentially would have meant another $6.5 million in revenue, making the increase in payroll worth it. If the team had made the playoffs, the club would have come out ahead. Adding the declining Kemp, the unproven Myers, a one-inning closer in Kimbrel, and getting a below-average performance from Shields sunk the club in 2015, but the decision to go for it wasn’t necessarily bad; it just turned out that some of the players underperformed or were poor fits on the roster. And the added salary commitments ensured the team would spend millions on players who wouldn’t even be with the team after another season. Preller’s first go at building a contender failed; the second, as noted, had to take a different approach.
Revenue Estimates
The article doesn’t come out and say how much the Padres make, but there are a fair number of estimates. First, the piece says that interest payments went from 5% ($12.6 million in 2015) to 2% ($4.6 million in 2018) of the budget, which would put revenues somewhere between $252 million and $230 million, though a few decimal points of difference on the interest percentage significantly changes the total. Looking at their larger expenditures and the percentage of expenses might be more helpful. Roughly one-third of revenues have gone to major league salaries over the last four years, which would put average annual revenue at around $295 million. They have spent around 22% of revenue on operating expenses — that number is listed at $68 million, which would put revenues at around $310 million. Forbes last year estimated the Padres’ revenue at $266 million, which now looks like that might be a little low. I should also note that the team does spend money on stadium maintenance and improvements along with all those debt repayments, but that those amounts are taken out of net local revenue and serve to increase the amount of revenue sharing they receive from the league.
Looking Ahead
Acee’s whole piece is fascinating, and I recommend reading it in full. All of baseball has seen a considerable increase in revenue over the last few seasons, an increase from which the Padres have benefited. With their revenues, they have opted to pay down debt and make an international splash. Their payroll has been lower due to those decisions, and the amount of payroll we actually see on the field has been lower still, due to bad contracts taken on in trades and free agent signings for players who were later dealt with money attached. The explanation offered in the piece is pretty clear, and while the team wasn’t completely forthcoming, most of the information checks out. The team is asking fans to be patient for one more year. Building up the minor league system should eventually create a better on-field product at Petco, but the team’s debt reduction and refinancing does more to add to a franchise value that has already doubled since Executive Chairman Ron Fowler’s group took over seven years ago. The club will need to continue to invest in the big league product to demonstrate that this is more than just perpetually shifting fans’ expectations off into the future. It’s up to the fans to determine how much more losing they can stomach.
In 2018, I once again had the pleasure of interviewing hundreds of people within baseball. Many of their words were shared in my Sunday Notes column, while others came courtesy of the FanGraphs Q&A series, the Learning and Developing a Pitch series, the Manager’s Perspective series, and a smattering of feature stories. Here is a selection of the best quotes from this year’s conversations.
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“My slider will come out and it will be spinning, spinning, spinning, and then as soon as it catches, it picks up speed and shoots the other way. Whoosh! It’s like when you bowl. You throw the ball, and then as soon as it catches, it shoots with more speed and power. Right? “ — Sergio Romo, Tampa Bay Rays pitcher, January 2018
“One of the biggest lessons we learn is that iron sharpens iron. That is 100% how we try to do things with the Rockies — hiring people that are smarter than we are, and more skilled, and have different skills that can complement, and train people to be better at their jobs than I am at my job. That’s how you advance an organization.” — Jeff Bridich, Colorado Rockies GM, January 2018
“We could split hairs and say, ‘Hey, you’re playing in front of a thousand drunk Australians instead of 40,000 drunk Bostonians, and you’re living with a host family instead of at a five-star hotel.’ But The Show is The Show, and in Australia the ABL is The Show.” — Lars Anderson, baseball nomad, January 2018
“Baseball is heaven. Until our closer blows the game.” — Michael Hill, Miami Marlins president of baseball operations, January 2018Read the rest of this entry »
The Padres have been connected to big names like J.T. Realmuto, Noah Syndergaard, Nathan Eovaldi and even Bryce Harper, all of which suggests that after three straight seasons of 90-some losses and eight straight with records below .500, they’re ready to get out of the business of losing. So far, no dice on the marquee additions, and last winter’s big Eric Hosmer contract isn’t sitting so well, but on Friday, they did score something of a bargain, signing second baseman Ian Kinsler to two-year deal worth $8 million, with a club option of unspecified value also included, according to The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal. The implication is that Kinsler’s days as an everyday player are numbered, and that he’s ready instead for that sage veteran mentor/utility role, à la Chase Utley with the Dodgers.
(Or maybe he just wants to knock back some quality craft beers and fish tacos. San Diego is great for that, but perhaps I’m just projecting.)
The 36-year-old Kinsler was last seen making a mess of things in the World Series, going 1-for-10 for the Red Sox and most notably committing base running and fielding gaffes in the epic, 18-inning Game 3. As pinch-runner for J.D. Martinez, he was thrown out at home plate on the back end of an inning-ending double play in the 10th, and then, after the Red Sox had taken the lead in the top of the 13th, he threw away a Yasiel Puig grounder that allowed the tying run to score. Not great. The Red Sox lost that game, and while they won the Series, Kinsler didn’t make another appearance.
Aside from winning that elusive championship ring, it really wasn’t a season to write home about for Kinsler. After being traded from the Tigers to the Angels last December 13 (for minor leaguers Wilkel Hernandez and Troy Montgomery), he scuffled, and once the Angels fell out of contention, he was dealt again on July 30, this time to Boston, in exchange for relievers Ty Buttrey and Williams Jerez. He had started the year so slowly that in June I explored whether he was cooked, though his bat perked up long enough for him to be of interest to a Dustin Pedroia-less Boston team that featured Eduardo Nunez and Brock Holt scraping by with replacement-level production. It must have been contagious, because Kinsler went from hitting .239/.304/.406 (97 wRC+) with 2.2 WAR in 391 PA with the Halos to .242/.294/.311 (62 wRC+) with 0.0 WAR in 143 PA with the Sox. The saving grace of his season was his defense; he was 9.4 runs above average according to UZR, 10 above average via DRS, and over the past two years, he’s been +17.5 and +16 by those two metrics while batting just .238/.308/.397 for a 90 wRC+ but 4.9 WAR. That’s still an above-average player, if not a terribly sexy one.
The bat is worrisome, though. According to Baseball Savant, Kinsler’s 85.3 mph average exit velocity ranked in the bottom 8% of the league, and his xwOBACON (expected wOBA on contact) plummeted from .350 in 2017 to .303 in 2018. As I noted in June, his downturn owes largely to two major problems: first, he’s struggled against four-seam fastballs, particularly ones 95 mph or higher; and second, he’s stopped hitting lefties. Despite a career 135 wRC+ against heaters as a group, he’s been at 88 and 94 over the past two seasons, and as for the high-velo stuff, here’s an updated version of a table I made for the previous article:
Ian Kinsler vs. 95+ MPH Four-Seam Fastballs
Year
wOBA
lg wOBA
wOBA dif
xWOBA
lg xwOBA
xwOBA dif
2015
.305
.309
-.004
.315
.311
.004
2016
.337
.315
.022
.353
.316
.037
2017
.223
.312
-.089
.298
.318
-.020
2018
.271
.306
-.035
.312
.308
.004
SOURCE: Baseball Savant
The trend isn’t uniform, but it isn’t good. Neither is hitting .191/.236/.250 for a 33 wRC+ in 144 PA against lefties, especially when you’re a righty. That aspect of his performance may well have been a fluke, the flip side of his .278/.357/.539 (135 wRC+) line against southpaws in 129 PA in 2017. For his career, he has a fairly typical split (127 wRC+ against RHP, 101 against LHP), but over the two-year period, his 81 wRC+ against lefties is in the 24th percentile among righty swingers, which is worrisome.
Here’s the thing, though: the Padres got less than nothing out of their second basemen in 2018. Jose Pirela, Carlos Asuaje, Cory Spangenberg and three other guys combined for a 78 wRC+ and -0.1 WAR at the spot. Spangenberg was released in November, and Asuaje was just claimed off waivers by the Rangers, so they’re out of the picture. Luis Urias, who hit .208/.264/.354 in 53 PA for the Pad squad, is the future, a 55 FV prospect who is currently number three on the Padres list (behind shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr and lefty MacKenzie Gore) and number 21 overall. He’s just 21 years old, though, and while MLB.com’s A.J. Cassavell recently reported that he’s expected to open the season at the keystone, it would surprise nobody if he were to start the year back in Triple-A. Since Tatis is just 19 and hasn’t played above Double-A (and has just 102 games there overall), there’s talk that Urias could even start the year at shortstop, a position he’s continued to spot-start at as he’s moved up the ladder.
All of which is to say that Kinsler, a 13-year veteran with 47.7 WAR, four All-Star appearances, and a pair of Gold Gloves to his name, could be Urias’ double play partner, or his placeholder, or his backup/mentor, depending upon how things unfold. He might even get a chance to play third base in a utility role, if and when both Tatis and Urias are in the bigs. Maybe he’ll become such a natural in this capacity that the Padres will view him as a surrogate dad, as some of the Dodgers did with Utley. The Padres’ padre? Why not?
Considering that Kinsler was projected to produce 1.8 WAR in 490 PA — though now, it would be a surprise if he got that much playing time — and that in our free agent preview the estimates for his salary ran for $6-8 million for a single season, two years and $8 million seems quite reasonable for San Diego. His presence probably won’t change the course of the Padres’ 2019 season, but if he helps Urias adapt to the majors and fulfill his potential, it’s a small price to pay.
