Scrap Heap Wonders Of SD
The San Diego Padres have started the season 6-2, surprising almost everyone. They weren’t pegged as a preseason contender by anyone, and opposing teams were already circling the calendars for when Jake Peavy and Brian Giles would be made available in trade talks. The main reason the Padres have started strong has been their pitching – the team’s 3.51 FIP ranks 5th best in MLB.
However, more interesting than the fact that they’ve pitched well for eight games are how the Padres put together this rag tag bunch. They’ve redefined dumpster diving, cornering the market on pitchers that other teams are discarding.
On March 15th, they signed Duaner Sanchez to a minor league contract. He had just been released by the Mets.
On March 23rd, they signed Shawn Hill to a minor league contract. He had just been released by the Nationals.
On March 25th, they acquired Eulogio de la Cruz in exchange for cash. He had just been designated for assignment by the Marlins.
On April 1st, they acquired Edward Mujica for a player to be named. He had just been designated for assignment by the Indians.
On April 10th, they claimed Luis Perdomo on waivers. He had just been let go by the San Francisco Giants.
On April 11th, they signed Chad Gaudin to a minor league contract. He had just been released by the Cubs.
In the span of the month, the Padres have added six pitchers to their organization, with the total acquisition cost being a player to be named later and some cash. And that’s just the recent additions. Kevin Correia was signed to a minor league contract over the winter. Walter Silva was signed out of the Mexican Leagues. Edwin Moreno was signed as a minor league free agent. Cha Seung Baek was acquired for cash after the Mariners designated him for assignment last year.
The Padres have essentially assembled a pitching made up mostly of rejects from other organizations. They’re operating like the baseball version of an outlet store. And so far, it’s working. You can only smoke-and-mirror your way to first place for so long, but at the least, the Padres are proving that you don’t have to invest heavily in the pitching market to find useful arms.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
They are arguably the only team that can (sort of) get away with operating that way, thanks to the desirability of:
a.) living in San Diego
b.) pitching in the best pitcher’s park in baseball
For most pitching reclamation projects being offered only 400K league-wide, those are two key difference makers.
It’s also interesting that the Padres are the only team in baseball who opened the season with 13 pitchers.
28 other teams opened the season with 12 pitchers, which clearly has become the status quo if teams are doing almost unanimously even in April with off days.
Which rogue team opened the season with only 11 pitchers? The Nationals, who also have 3 catchers on their 25-man roster, 5 middle infielders, and half the outfielders in the NL East. I’m speechless.
The Giants almost opened the season with 11 pitchers and 3 catchers on the roster – they said they were going to multiple times at the end of spring training but apparently thought better of it…
Speaking of which, pitching against the Giants will generally make a pitching staff look pretty good, the real surprise is that the Padres hitters weren’t returning the favor to SF’s pitching staff…
They didn’t open the season with 13 pitchers, they just got there recently when they picked up Perdomo off waivers and sent down Drew Macias (who was up for Cliff Floyd).
Shawn Hill is actually a good pitcher but injury-prone. I thought he was snagged by the Jays but if u check his FIP he could be on any staff except perhaps the Red Sox
It does help a little when teams like Washington throw treasure instead of trash onto the scrap heap.
The Nationals are an absolute joke. If they don’t take Strasburg #1, I will never again acknowledge their existence, other than to say “the Nationals are an absolute joke.”
Anybody want to take bets on how long it’ll take for Strasburg to blow out his arm? 2 years? 3?
anyone know anything on Walter Silva? Did he pitch in mexico before the states? was he any good? any comparable MLB pitchers?
Walter Silva
2006 Monterrey 3.93 126.0 130 7 50 59
2007 Monterrey 3.40 84.2 83 5 45 58
2008 Monterrey 4.21 115.1 118 7 49 60
Monterry is in the high altitude high offense northern part of Mexico, but he hasn’t allowed more than 7 HR’s. A little above avg on BB, way below avg on SO. Looks like a soft tossing sinkerballer.
A bullpen full of retreads isn’t that big of a deal I don’t think, I’ll bet most relievers have been “retreads” at one point in their career. In fact, I think the entire Padres pitching staff (with the exception of Peavy and mabye Cla Meredith) could be classified as retreads. Heath Bell was essentially dumped in the Mike Cameron for Xavier Nady trade and Chris Young was dumped twice (by the Pirates and then the Expos). If this is representative of other teams, maybe what the Padres are doing isn’t such a big deal — although instead of spreading the pickups over a few seasons they are doing it all at once.
Heath Bell was acquired along with Royce Ringe in exchange for Ben Johnson and Jon Adkins.
That’s right. I guess that makes him a castoff as well. Throw in Meredith (who was traded with Josh Bard for Doug Mirabelli) and the entire pitching staff consists of cast-offs and a 15th round draft pick.
@steve:
Here is a webpage where you can view Walter Silva’s Mexican League stats from last season. I’m not sure what the offensive context of the league is, but a guy who strikes out about five per nine in what may well be equivalent to AA ball (being charitable) is likely not long for the majors…
The site:
http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?n=Walter%20Silva&pos=P&sid=milb&t=p_pbp&pid=477581
…what’s that say about the Jays who claimed Matt Bush from San Diego’s scrap heap?
I was really hoping he’d make the cut, alas, no love for bush.
It’s amazing they were able to get guys like Sanchez, Gaudin, Hill, and De La Cruz. Paul De Podesta FTW
Nice article. While the Padres lack of pitching after Peavy and Young will get exposed this season at times, Towers shows you that you can always find some arms that can be useful to round out your pitching staff given limited resources.
While Towers generally had a hammer in the pen (Hoffman) to end games, there is probably no GM in baseball the past 10 years or so who has been better at finding useful/serviceable bullpen arms that were under the radar.
Hill and Gaudin are actually pretty good pitchers. They would be 3’s or 4’s on a lot of staffs.
I’d rather have Gaudin and Hill in my rotation than a number of 4th and 5th starters from teams that the so-called experts expect to contend or at least improve like Ponson and Ramirez (KC), Livan Hernandez (NYM), Park (Phil) and Hendrickson and Eaton (Balt). Most likely, SD will not contend, even in the weak NL West, but I won’t be surprised if they turn one or more of these $400k scrap heap pick-ups into another asset at the trade deadline.