JABO: The Padres Should Go For It
It’s safe to say that the first half of 2015 hasn’t gone the way the Padres would have hoped. After making a number of surprisingly aggressive moves over the winter, the organization expected to contend for a playoff spot, but after another loss last night, the team now stands at just 37-42. Entering July at five games under .500 puts them closer to rebuilding teams like the Braves and Diamondbacks, and they’re only barely ahead of the Reds, who are widely expected to start moving some of their best players as the trade deadline draws near.
Over the next month, General Manager A.J. Preller and his staff will have to make some tough decisions. For instance, Justin Upton is a free agent at the end of the year, and a return to San Diego seems unlikely, so if the Padres don’t trade Upton before August 1st, they risk letting him leave for nothing more than a single draft pick as compensation. In a trade market with few sellers, and even those who are selling lacking impact hitters to sell, Upton could fetch a nice return, perhaps bringing back a decent approximation of what Preller sent to Atlanta to get Upton in the first place.
But despite the fact that we currently estimate their odds of making the playoffs at less than 10%, I don’t think the Padres should sell Upton, or any of their other players who would be attractive chips on the trade market. Even with the odds stacked against them, I think the Padres should keep this group together and hope for the best.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
I kind of suck at this GMing thing.
How much salary would they have to eat if they just gave away both Uptons, Kimbrel and Kemp? Then they could basically just start over.
I would think they’d have to eat minimum 80% of the salary, which sort of defeats the purpose.
So you’re saying nobody would take Justin Upton and Craig Kimbrel if they went on waivers? Because those two are more than 20 percent of the total owed to all 4. I’d say both have surplus value.
I think you could start at 80 percent if you’re just talking about Kemp and Upton (Kemp is very overpaid but far from worthless). Upton and Kimbrel sweeten the pot considerably.
I was overestimating M. Upton and Kemp’s share of the total. Looks like they’re owed about 76% of the remaining balance, after factoring in the Dodgers’ payments. So a starting point might be more in the range of paying 65% of that outstanding money, and getting basically nothing of value in return.
three months ago, Kimbrel got a decent chunk of bad Upton (after factoring in Quentin and Maybin) a draft pick and a few decent prospects. You really think he doesn’t have that much value because of 29 good, not great, innings?
And three months of prime Justin Upton for 7 million dollars? You can’t see a team valuing him at 2 WAR, and valuing those 2 WAR at $20 millionish?
You’re still wildly off.
Bad Upton – owed 40 million. worth – let’s say 1.5 million (replacement level)
Good Upton – owed 7 million. worth 20 million
Kimbrel – owed 29.5, worth 45 million (I basically ignored the option)
Kemp – owed 63.5 (by SD), worth 30 million
I think that is being conservative. That’s 140 million owed that is probably worth about 95-100 million. I think at most they’d have to pay for the rest of this year and most, but not all of the 2016 obligations. But there’s a decent chance they could find a sucker that would take a lot more than that.
start over without 13 of their 15 top prospects.
sunk costs.
Maybe their pitchers should throw batting practice. It could help the hitters’ confidence
It’s certainly helped batters on other teams’ confidence when playing the Padres this year.
The comments on the JABO articles never disappoint. I know stereotyping is generally frowned upon, but the idea exists for a reason.
Dave, unless what Amir is suggesting is your thing, which if it is, right on, I instead suggest something delicious like a cannoli or a churro.
hahahahha rick porcello
Once again, Dave’s advice is spot-on.
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/its-time-for-the-royals-to-trade-james-shields/
The Royals going on a ridiculously unlikely run in the regular season, followed by an unlikely run in the playoffs does little to disprove Dave’s arguments concerning whether the Royals should have sold Shields last year. If your retirement plan is to just buy a bunch of lottery tickets, the fact that you happened to win the lottery on one of those tickets does not mean that you had a good retirement plan. It means that you had a bad plan and got lucky.
Yes, that must be it.
It has to be that the Royals were buying “lottery tickets” instead of pursuing a team philosophy built on an offense of contact/speed, starting pitchers who take advantage of the Royals’ massive defensive advantage and a historically great bullpen – all of which are not prioritized (either as much or at all) by other teams.
To recap: the Royals are not zigging while others are zagging, they are blindly swinging at a pinata. Believing otherwise would entail admitting that we don’t 100% know how to properly value every skill in baseball, which of course we do because science/understanding stops evolving, right? RIGHT?!
And they likely would have been in a similar situation had they sold James Shields last year (unless that >6 ERA was accompanied by great veteran presents). In fact, they would have a better team this year.
The analogy was simply to give another example of how good results does not justify bad process. I did not mean to imply that the events that led to their winning so much were random. Rather, they were extremely unlikely. When Dave wrote the article, the Royals were something like 48-50 with bad rest-of-the-season projections. The fact that they went on an incredibly unlikely run does not hurt Dave’s argument.
I’d rather have Odorizzi, Montgomery, and Myers
I guess there are times, like many of us, that I don’t agree with Cameron or another writer here at FG. But, if those times get people to comment, then agreement should too. As a LONG-time Padres fan, this article really resonated with me… and it makes 100% sense. I agree completely. Look, the Padres knew they probably hadn’t caught the Dodgers on paper on Day One. So, I think realistically this team has pretty much been shooting for the Wild Card since Preller decided to go for it. The Wild Card standings say they are 5.5 out. It’s July 1. That’s not far enough back to pack it in. I agree with Dave.. push all the chips in and see if it can take a tick upward in July and August and get the fan-base behind a Wild Card push in the final month.
Also helps that the Padres still play 20 games against the Marlins, Phillies, and Brewers, almost all of which will happen after the trade deadline. I doubt the Padres make a meaningful run and there’s a chance they’re out of it before those games even start, but the schedule at least presents an opportunity for the kind of charge the Padres need to make if they’re to snag a wildcard.
Respectfully disagree. I certainly understand your point of view, and it’s not a “bad” plan. But being a seller’s market, there is enough trade value with players like Shields, Cashner, Ross, Upton, Norris, Kimbrel, Benoit, Middlebrooks and Venable that an aggressive GM can break up the band while returning a very nice haul of cost-controlled assets and/or dump the ugly Upton and Kemp contracts.
It’s very possible that 2016 is shot regardless, but this looks more like a downturn than an out-and-out rebuild if they take advantage of the seller’s market to make smart long-term moves.
completely off topic… you know what sucks????
when you are reading a webpage, and it keeps scrolling back to the top as some stupid F’ing ad/video/link keeps loading, and F’ing up your “enjoyment” of your favorite website.
I’m using Chrome. Latest version. Been using it for years. Been loving your website for years.
But if this is how it’s gonna be now, please just let me know.
I could start a piece of crap website about Sabrmetrics… and it would be more anjoyable than this one if you can’t get your ads/videos under control.
OK Dave?
FIX IT!!!!!
How rude!
My name is my new favorite word.
Out of respect to fangraphs, that receives money from the ads and in turn gives us great info, I’ll be somewhat cryptic here. You can easily fix this problem yourself with a widely available Chrome browser plugin.
enjoyable. I can’t even look at my post to make sure I don’t have (too many) stupid F’ing typos now. UGH!
Sorry you’re having a bad day, but your angry posts come off like a toddler throwing a temper tantrum. Please stop?
Looks like good ol Cammy Boy has been laying off the tonic water. I was wrong old sport, chug away, chug away, chug away. The good ol Padres, or Fathers were I’m from, have too many darn holes that neither tonic water nor LSD can solve. That infield is the equivalent of a french maid who has no hands.
Where does this rank on worst off seasons by a GM? You go from bad/mediocre with a solid farm to bad with no farm and taking on hundreds of millions in bad contracts.
I know this will sound unpopular, but I’m going to say it anyway.
It’s my belief that, despite the Padres, pre season mantra, “we want to win, now”, Preller/Dee, weren’t so obsessed with the postseason, as much as they were obsessed with getting the ticket buyers/fans, to take the team seriously again.
As much as many say, “ah, Preller is clueless”..he was only doing what Dee and the owners wanted him to do…ACQUIRING “NAMES”, that would get the attention of the fanbase. With a team in the position like they were at the conclusion of last season, they backed themselves in a corner..so the trades, basically became mandatory.
All of them aren’t bad, despite what fans are saying. And Preller did emphasize the importance putting a core together. Even if Upton is traded, they still have a core that I think they’ll keep together.
Don’t forget the ASG, next year…so, yea, Upton will probably be traded for a shortstop, a pitcher and something else..but I don’t think they trade Norris, Shields, Kimberly or someone like Maurer. And no one will want Kemp, so he stays too.
But, I do think Cashmere is gone. Maybe Gyorko too, if they can package him in an ensemble trade, that has them eating some of the money on his deal. We know Kennedy ‘ gone.
Wanna hear a shocker?…the Padres don’t have the 1-2 punch that LA, SF have…well, in the midst of him swinging deals at the deadline, I wouldn’t be shocked, if Preller went after Cole Hamels again, and snagged him.
The Padres are done for 2015….let the trades, commence.