The Padres have been linked to two shortstops this offseason. One was four years younger than the other, and still in some command of the tools that made him an All-Star-level player. But Ian Desmond is risky, and more expensive than $4 million guaranteed over one year with a mutual option for 2017. According to multiple sources, that’s the deal the Padres have agreed to hand Alexei Ramirez, who should be worth that price, no matter which Alexei Ramirez shows up.

One year, Alexei Ramirez hit 15 homers and stole seven bases. The next year, he hit nine homers and stole 20. And that’s not the only place where we’ve seen wild swings from Ramirez. He’s walked 2.6% of the time in a year, and 8.1%. He’s produced an isolated-slugging figure of .185, and also of .096. He’s swung and missed 10.7% of the time, and 6.5% of the time. He’s hit nearly one grounder per fly ball and also nearly two grounders per fly ball. He’s pulled the ball 38% of the time, and also 54% of the time. He’s shown below-average defense, and league-leading defense. He’s swung at 60% of the pitches he’s seen, and 49%.

Throughout it all, he’s recorded nearly 5,000 plate appearances and been above-average with the stick for a shortstop, and the third-best overall glove since he debuted in 2008. Even with all the oscillating, all the bad plate discipline, all the weird changes to his game, Ramirez has been above-average in all of his years save two — his first and his last.

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A year ago today, things were looking pretty good in Ian Desmond’s world. He was 29 years old and the starting shortstop for the Washington Nationals, heavy favorites to win the National League East. A few months earlier, Desmonds completed his third straight season of at least 20 home runs and 20 stolen bases. Defensive metrics indicated he was roughly average to above average at shortstop, and in terms of overall value, he was sitting on three straight seasons of more than four wins above replacement. In matters related to his bank account, he was just one season from free agency with no other big-name shortstops and a big payday.

But now, after a disastrous year, Desmond is still unsigned and his market is unclear.

There were some signs heading into last season that Desmond was in decline. His wRC+ went from 128 to 116 to 107 from 2012 to 2014, and his strikeouts moved in the opposite direction: 20% in 2012, 22% in 2013 and way up to 28% in 2014. Noticing a decline and expecting a collapse are two different situations, however. This is the list of players who, along with Ian Desmond, produced at least four WAR in each season from 2012 to 2014: Andrew McCutchen, Buster Posey, Dustin Pedroia, Ben Zobrist, Adam Jones, Alex Gordon, Robinson Cano, Miguel Cabrera, and of course, Mike Trout. A year ago at this time, MLB Trade Rumors rated Desmond as the fourth-best pending free agent and mentioned a potential $200 million contract with another good season.

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During the most recent baseball season, 389 players received at least 150 plate appearances. That’s a low and arbitrary threshold, but it will serve to make an important point: Austin Hedges was a terrible hitter. Among those 389 hitters, Hedges was dead last with a 26 wRC+. Taylor Featherston, Rene Rivera, David Ross, and Christian Bethancourt were the other members of the under-40 wRC+ club last year, if you’re looking for some indication as to its infamy.

To put it mildly, Hedges did not deliver at the plate. He slashed .168/.215/.248. By comparison, National League pitchers hit .132/.159/.169 (-16 wRC+). Hedges didn’t hit like an average pitcher, but he didn’t exactly hit like a position player either. Fortunately for the young catcher, baseball is a robust competition and there are other aspects to the game beyond hitting. While Hedges failed to provide value at the plate, he had occasion to provide value behind it, which he seemed to do. But when digging into some of the particulars on Hedges’ season, an odd fact surfaces: teams tried to steal many, many bases against the Friar backstop.

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After having typically appeared in the very hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have been released at FanGraphs the past couple years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the San Diego Padres. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other Projections: Arizona / Atlanta / Baltimore / Boston / Chicago NL / Cincinnati / Cleveland / Kansas City / Minnesota / New York AL / Philadelphia / Pittsburgh / Seattle / Texas / Toronto.

Batters
The Padres entered the 2015 season having placed a sizable wager against the importance of outfield defense, choosing to deploy a unit consisting of Matt Kemp, Wil Myers, and Justin Upton. It didn’t pay off particularly well: San Diego outfielders produced a collective -23.6 UZR, third-worst among all major-league clubs, while recording merely the 12th-best offensive line (107 wRC+) — i.e. not enough to compensate for the unit’s defensive shortcomings. Overall, the aforementioned triumvirate posted a combined 4.6 WAR, or 1.8 WAR per 600 plate appearances. Not terrible, that, but also not commensurate with the club’s financial investment in them.

Defense will be less of an issue for the team this year, according to Dan Szymborski’s computer. Jon Jay and Melvin Upton are both projected to provide slightly above-average defense as center fielders — and, owing to how the game is traditionally played, only one of them is likely to occupy center at any given time, meaning the second will probably be playing a very capable left field alongside the first. Travis Jankowski (439 PA, +8 DEF in CF) and the newly acquired Manuel Margot (518 PA, +7 DEF in CF) are also candidates to prevent runs at an above-average rate.

The flaw for the current iteration of the Padres isn’t so much outfield defense as it is almost all the other aspects of the club. This is perhaps best expressed by observing how Derek Norris (468 PA, 2.9 zWAR) receives the top projection among San Diego’s position players. Norris absolutely has his virtues. To say that he’s not an ideal franchise cornerstone, however, is to say a correct thing.

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At the winter meetings, I asked a small collection of managers about the evolution of the role, and all of them — save perhaps Mike Scioscia — spoke to the importance of communicating with the media and with their players.

But that story had a longer scope, and a more universal one. I also asked them about a smaller more immediate thing — I asked many of them what they had learned this year, on the job. And for those just coming to the job, what they have tried to learn before they first manage a game.

Of particular note was what former position players did to learn about pitching, and vice versa. Managers have to communicate with all sorts of different players, and yet they came from one tradition within the game. And each has spent time developing themselves in their present role.

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The Braves kept working the trade machine on Thursday, as they continue to tear down their team in hopes of building it back up. The club once again directed its attention to the National League West, this time getting the now-limbered-up Padres into the mix. And in doing so, they managed to get a couple of players in Casey Kelly and Ricardo Rodriguez who may have interest in the future for a player — Christian Bethancourt — whose interest probably has died out.

Once upon a time, Casey Kelly was going to be a star. If you’re looking for a player to whom you might point when attempting to characterize the risk inherent in prospects, Kelly would be a great example. As one of the prizes of the Adrian Gonzalez trade, Kelly was thought to be within striking distance of the majors heading into the 2011 season. After all, when the Red Sox had traded him to the Padres, Kelly had 21 starts at Double-A under his belt. That’s plenty these days. Jose Fernandez didn’t make any before he graduated. Neither did Carlos Rodon. Lance McCullers made five, and then graduated. Anthony DeSclafani made 21 in Double-A before graduating to Triple-A, and hit the majors after 13 starts there. I’m cherry picking, but you get the point: at the time of the trade, Kelly was (understandably) thought to be on the cusp.

He wasn’t. He made 27 starts in Double-A in 2011, and didn’t graduate to Triple-A or the majors. At 21, his 3.98 ERA wasn’t exactly blowing people away, nor was his 3.77 FIP or 17.1% strikeout rate. So he opened 2012 in the minors. He started at Triple-A, but he missed most of the season after straining his elbow during his second start of the season. That was probably the red flag for his career. Had he shut it down and had Tommy John surgery right then, he might be working on his second major league season already. But he didn’t. After sitting out from mid-April to late July, he came back and made six starts in the minors — striking out 14 against two walks in the last two, both at Double-A — before making his major league debut.

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Though baseball’s Winter Meetings seem like the playground of the front office executive, there is one other baseball man who’s ubiquitous: the manager. Semi-required to attend media events and an annual luncheon, most of the sport’s managers descend on the meetings to make their mark.

For the most part, they field questions about next year’s lineup, and try to deflect queries about front-office moves. They’ll do a little reminiscing about last year, and a little looking forward to next year. It’s a bit of a dance, since most of the reporters are looking to find out how the roster is going to look on paper, and the person in front of them is mostly in charge of putting that roster on the field.

Still, it’s a great moment to get access to many managers at once. This past August, I asked a collection of players and writers how Bruce Bochy and Joe Maddon — managers with distinctly different approaches and pasts — could both find great success. I thought it would make sense to ask the managers gathered here about their craft, as well.

What has changed about managing? How are the demands on the modern manager different than they once were?

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Dig around enough and you can make any transaction kind of interesting. Everybody in the upper ranks of professional baseball, after all, is only there because they possess extraordinary talent. Everyone has promise, so everyone can make a difference, so everyone deserves a certain amount of attention. Yet moves are considered relative to one another, and I’m not going to lie to you — Tuesday’s trade between the Padres and the Cardinals isn’t one you’ll think about very much. This is a move that’ll get lost in all the thoughts about dealing for Jose Fernandez.

From the Padres, the Cardinals are getting Jedd Gyorko and a bit over $7 million. From the Cardinals, the Padres are getting Jon Jay. Gyorko lines up to be a utility infielder, perhaps a platoon partner for Kolten Wong. The hope is that he does a little more than Pete Kozma or, earlier, Daniel Descalso. The Padres wanted out from under Gyorko’s long-term contract. Jay lines up to be a semi-regular outfielder, perhaps a platoon partner for Melvin Upton. He’s a free agent in a year, and the Padres seem unlikely to contend, and the Cardinals included Jay to offset some more money. Based on the intent of this deal, it’s forgettable. It’s an exchange of money and role players.

The shame, if you want to call it that, is both Gyorko and Jay are interesting. And I mean beyond just being professional ballplayers. Neither will be treated as much, but there are points of significance here. Jay has an interesting background. Gyorko might still have an interesting future.

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On the day of baseball’s non-tender trade deadline, the San Diego Padres traded first baseman Yonder Alonso and lefty reliever Marc Rzepczynski to Oakland in exchange for left-hander Drew Pomeranz and minor-leaguer Jose Torres. For those interested, Craig Edwards examined the trade in a general way earlier this morning. The point of this post is to look more closely at one part of the trade: Drew Pomeranz.

If Pomeranz is just a good reliever, then the deal amounts mostly to this: three years of control for a good reliever in exchange for two years of a first baseman who can be league average two-thirds of the time. Maybe, to make a trade like that even, you’d have to add a piece or two to get Alonso, but that’s when the deal makes the most sense for the Athletics.

The deal makes better sense for the Padres if Pomeranz is a starter. And it looks like the team is considering him a starting pitcher for the time being.

The question of whether or not Pomeranz can be a good starting pitcher for the Padres hinges on three things, most likely: his health, his changeup, and his curveball. Earlier this season, I talked to the pitcher about all three.

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With the non-tender deadline approaching on Wednesday, deals for arbitration-eligible players were going to be much more likely than the big free-agent contract we saw the Boston Red Sox hand David Price on Tuesday. Teams, especially small-market teams like the San Diego Padres and Oakland Athletics, have a tendency to move around players whose production on the field is becoming less valuable relative to the increasing expense (due to arbitration) of employing those players. The A’s and Padres completed a four-player deal on Wednesday. Not surprisingly, three of the four players were arbitration-eligible. The Padres will receive starter-turned-reliever Drew Pomeranz and minor-leaguer Jose Torres while the A’s will receive first baseman Yonder Alonso and lefty reliever Marc Rzepczynski.

The motivations for both clubs are fairly transparent. Last season, the Padres attempted an experiment that involved putting Wil Myers in center field and putting Matt Kemp and Justin Upton alongside him. The experiment did not go well. Myers, who had been a right fielder, was ill-equipped to handle center field. Placing the poor defense of Matt Kemp next to him did not help matters. The Padres have apparently seen the error of their ways and will not attempt a similar alignment next season. Myers recently said he would prefer to play first base, and this trade will allow him to do so and leave the Padres open to pursuing a new center fielder while they spend a few years waiting for Manuel Margot.

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