So What Do the Padres Do Now?
Last week, I wrote a piece about where the struggling Diamondbacks go from here, given their current position in the NL West race despite high hopes for their season. This week, on the back of the Padres dumping what they could of James Shields‘ remaining contract, it’s time to talk about the other NL West team whose hopes of contention have been dashed on the harsh rocks of reality.
During the Diamondbacks big splashy off-season, comparisons between Arizona and San Diego have been pretty common, as the Padres spent the prior winter making big moves in an attempt to skip the rebuilding line and get back to the winner’s circle. The moves mostly failed, though, with the Padres finishing 74-88 despite the roster makeover, and 2016 isn’t going any better; they’re currently 23-35 and just agreed to pay $31 million to make James Shields pitch for someone else over the next few years. But even as I write a piece with the same headline as the one that I wrote about the Diamondbacks last week, it’s important to note that the D’Backs and Padres aren’t really in the same boat. In fact, at this point, it’s not actually clear that the Padres even have a boat.
The parallels are easy to make because the Diamondbacks made some poor decisions to try and contend before they were ready, but that is where the similarities mostly end. Even with their struggles, the D’Backs do indeed have some pretty terrific players. Paul Goldschmidt remains one of the best first baseman in baseball, Zack Greinke can still pitch at a high level, and A.J. Pollock is probably still going to be a terrific player next year, even if he’s on the sidelines for 2016. The Padres, though, don’t have any of those guys.
At this point, the team’s best asset is Drew Pomeranz, a solid left-handed pitcher whom A.J. Preller stole from the A’s over the winter, but also a pitcher who has never cracked the 100 innings level in the big leagues. The success of converting Pomeranz back to the rotation has been the biggest bright spot for the Padres, but with a 12% walk rate and a .220 BABIP — not to mention the uncertainty that comes from carrying a season-long workload for the first time — there are some legitimate reasons to think that his second half won’t be quite as successful as the first few months of the season.
After Pomeranz, there’s Wil Myers, who has been forced to first base by a balky elbow, and probably doesn’t have enough offensive potential to become a star at the position. And that’s basically it. That’s everyone on this Padres roster that you could reasonably think might be part of the next good San Diego club; everyone else is either too old, too unproductive, or some combination of the two, to expect that they’ll still be a member of the Padres when the rebuild the team is undergoing starts to bear some fruit.
At least with the Diamondbacks, we could speculate about the team putting Grienke on the blocks, trying to get some interesting young talent in return, and then reallocating some of his saved money to gear up and make another run. That path isn’t an option for the Padres, though; they just traded their version of Greinke over the weekend, and the market for him had diminished to the point that all they could manage was a replacement level arm and a 17 year old who Eric Longenhagen projects as an average player if he gets to the big leagues, which is probably in five years, assuming things go well.
In reality, there’s no path back to near-term contention for the Padres. The team hired Preller for his abilities in signing international free agents, but those kids are 16 when they sign, and are the better part of a decade away from helping the major league team win. The Padres also have a significant bonus pool to use in the draft this coming weekend, but again, even in a best case scenario, you’re looking at a couple of years before those kids even get to the big leagues, much less are playing at a high-enough level to be core pieces of a winning team. Rebuilding through the draft and international free agency is a long game.
By the time the picks and signings start to turn into real players, everyone on this roster will have moved on. Even the two young guys who make up what the Padres have to pass off as a core are only under control through 2018 (Pomeranz) and 2019 (Myers) respectively, and at this point, it’s almost impossible to see the Padres being good again by the time the team will have to make trade-or-walk decisions on those two.
Realistically, the Padres are now where the Phillies were a year ago; staring up from the bottom of a long hole that isn’t easily dug out of. And while the Padres executives can publicly yell about being embarrassed by their team’s performance, the reality is that things need to get worse in San Diego if they’re going to get better. At this point, the Padres essentially need to blow things up and start from scratch.
And that means trading Pomeranz this summer. As I argued last week, the lack of rent-an-aces makes this a fantastic time to sell a starting pitcher, and while Pomeranz’s lack of track record will work against him, his almost-league-minimum salary and two remaining years of arbitration will be very attractive to cost-conscious buyers. While Pomeranz could still build value over the next year if he continues to pitch at a high level, the Padres have already been burned trying to make that bet over the last year, and have watched the value of Shields, Ross, and Andrew Cashner dissipate before their eyes.
Pomeranz would bring back a nice return this summer, as the team could easily market him as a younger Rich Hill, and more importantly, he’d bring back things that might actually help the Padres win in 2020 or 2021 or whenever the franchise is ready to put a contender back on the field. Prospects are certainly no sure things, but at this point, the question is when the Padres are going to trade Pomeranz, not if; there just isn’t enough talent in the organization to put together a winner while he’s still under team control.
And once you’re moving Pomeranz and admitting that this is going to be a long rebuild, you probably should explore the market for Wil Myers too. With Mitch Moreland and Prince Fielder struggling in Texas, a deal with the Rangers that sends Myers to Arlington seems possible, and I imagine Preller would love to get his hands on some of the kids he signed while running the international department in Texas. The Padres could even get extra talent out of the Rangers by agreeing to take back Prince Fielder’s contract, using some of the money they saved by dumping Shields to buy prospects and bolster their future even further.
Of course, they’ll get skewered for “tanking”, and if Ron Fowler doesn’t like watching his team with Pomeranz and Myers, he’d find the product without them even more disheartening. But for the Padres long-term health, this is the best road forward. Trying to maintain respectability while rebuilding the farm system at the same time is a noble goal, but it’s also not an easy trick to pull off. The Padres tried to walk that line and fell on their face in the process. At this point, with few assets of value left and a long road back to contention, it’s time for the Padres to follow the path of the Braves, Brewers, and Phillies.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
Great! Another Dave Cameron Will Myers/James Shields trade article.
Dave Cameron will go to his grave saying it was a bad trade for the Royals “at the time”. I have made my peace with that.
I imagine Dave has likewise made his peace with Royals fans squawking loudly anytime either player is mentioned.
I haven’t heard much squawking from them about the projections lately.
Squawking about projections has gotten almost as old as posting under the name of a dumbass GM.
Funny how those “squawkers” now seem like wise elders.
One would think that a piece something on the order of “How the projections were so wrong on the Royals and Orioles for so long” would have been done here long ago, but I don’t recall seeing one.
There have been several articles about why the projections may have been wrong about the Orioles and royals. Get your persecution complex out of here
Yes, but the people who write the articles forget about them immediately afterward. When it’s acknowledged yet again that the royals have done way better than the projections, fangraphs writers quickly write some articles about maybe we haven’t sufficientlt weighted low k% for hitters and elite relievers, but then when the time rolls around to make projections for the next year, nothing is changed in the projection system and again the royals are projected too low.
The Angels used to beat the projections every year. Until they didn’t.
Some of us are even enjoying watching them play this year.
If you think a team’s real record being different from its projected record implies the projections were “wrong,” then you don’t understand how projections work, or you need to take off your browser filter that replaces the word “projection” with “prediction.”
And by the down votes we yet again see how thinned skinned people are about this subject. yawn.
I will say that to Dave’s credit regarding his incessant DB-bashing, at least he has rung a more humble tone this year even with their losing… saying he may have undersold the non-star portion of their roster and that they would actually be much better than projected had their pitching not completely crashed.
I’m sure I’ve missed it, but I’m waiting to see a little humility shown wrt the O’s and Royals who have been targets of smear for several years.
Three things wrong with your comment Dooduh.
A. Smear? You don’t know the meaning of smear!
2. First place like the O’s or a ring like the Royals is the best revenge on the haters. Can’t wait until we do the same thing.
I would love to hear the third reason!
As well he should. “At the time” is when the trade occurred. Future evidence was not available, at the time, and cannot be used as a factor in assessing the strategic wisdom of the transaction.
People arguing otherwise either don’t know what they’re talking about or are hiding the “assume flux capacitors exist” premise baked into the core of their arguments.
Or, they saw something we didn’t? I just don’t buy that every trade has to be judged exactly how it looked at the time.
You’re missing your own point. If they saw something, they saw it at the time. They saw it based on reasons and evidence that were accessible to them at the time of the trade. You can’t use what happened after.
Perhaps those reasons are not obvious to us without the benefit of hindsight. But if we can’t state what those reasons are, then we genuinely don’t have reasons for believing it was a wise move, at the time.
They saw a potential future performance that we didn’t, is obviously the point I was making. “We” can’t state what those reasons were because we didn’t make the trade, I thought that would be obvious.
The teams may have seen something we didn’t, but I wouldn’t be so charitable of a random Royals fan who gets offended whenever anyone says anything slightly critical of their team.
To be fair, internet sheeple, I’ve complained plenty about some of KC’s other moves. But I still think Dayton Moore deserves some credit for knowing that all the above-average position player prospects in the world won’t help if your pitching staff needs serious upgrades. I don’t find criticism of my team offensive, or else I would never do it myself. I do find mob mentality and a refusal to see more than one side of an argument offensive.
They were projected to win 79 games. They’re on pace to win 85 and projection systems are by nature conservative… If you’re projected to win 79 games, that means your range of wins in between 69-89. The Royals fall in that range. There’s nothing to apologize for and no article needs to be written. As far as the mob mentality… it’s more of a reaction to the overly sensative comments not understanding what the projections are saying. Before last year’s 95 wins, the Royals had win totals of 86 and 89. They also lost a couple of players. I think too many people look at projections as predictions.
Why bother reading it when you’ve already decided you’re not going to like what you see?
As a neutral living in Ohio, the similarities between the Padres and the Cleveland Browns are startling. (Maybe it’s the brown in the jerseys?) Poor ownership, with an unwillingness to commit to a multi-year re-build, and playing in a division with multiple teams that are more successful and ran much better.
I saw a video clip over the week where A.J. Preller spoke about the Shields trade, and used the term “building”, rather than “rebuilding”. The next day, Matt Kemp said it would be difficult to play for a club that was rebuilding. Da Nile runs through Egypt, and ends in San Diego, apparently.
For what’s it worth, there is a small hardcore element of Padres fans on Twitter, that hold the ownership and front office accountable. They believe in going #FullLuhnow. They are funny and well worth following.
As a frustrated Cleveland fan, I was thinking the same thing, but I will say that a football team can be turned around in 1-2 years, with a good coach, where a baseball team needs about 5-6 years before it can become competitive. The talent distribution in the NFL is fairly even, unlike in baseball, and it’s just that some NFL teams have better management on how they use their talent.
I beg to differ on the the NFL having any parity. That is the biggest lie in sports! The NFL hides its lack of parity in an unfair scheduling system that allows the bad to beat the dreadful season after season. Accordingly, a bad team squeaks into a playoffs every year while better talented teams with much tougher schedules get left out. Care to differ? 5 or 6 teams have been in nearly every playoffs of the last 10-15 years. Teams like the Patriots win their division annually and win the Super bowl several times a decade. in the last 20 years the pats have been in the playoffs 16 of those years and won 26 playoff games and superbowls. Denver has been in the playoffs 12 of the last 20 seasons and have won 15 games. Seattle 10 of the last 15 seasons in the playoffs winning 12 times. Meanwhile, Cleveland has played in 1 playoff game that was lost in 20 seasons. Cincinnati has zero playoff wins in 20 years. they have been in 7 wild card games. Were picked to lose by double didgets in every game and did!
28 out of the NFL’s 32 teams have made the playoffs during the last decade.
New England is the only team to have made the playoffs nine times over the last decade. I’m pretty sure that had more to do with Tom Brady and Bill Belicheck than the schedule. Indianapolis and Green Bay are the only other teams to have made the playoffs as many as eight times during that span. I’m pretty sure that had more to do with Peyton Manning/Andrew Luck and Aaron Rodgers than the schedule. Baltimore is the only other team to make the playoffs at least seven times over the last decade. I’m pretty sure that had more to do with Ozzie Newsome than the schedule. So only one NFL team has made “nearly every playoffs” over the last decade.
Nats fan is simply the Trump of this board. Throws out ‘facts’ off the top of his head, and derives pleasure from people getting upset with his lies. Figures he gets ego points out of it somehow.
Just vote him down. Don’t insult him.
A salary cap and a sport in which a single draft pick can walk off a college field and right into being a difference-maker in the pros the following season helps a bit, too.
Interesting idea, w/ the Rangers.
Now, more importantly. When is Margot getting called up!!
May of next year for 7 yrs of control.
Why would waiting until May of 2017 give the club 7 years of control?
I would think that the Padres simply have to trade Jon Jay this year. He’s hitting well, and has a cheap contract. Jay is in demand. Preller MUST trade him to a contender. Then who plays CF for the rest of 2016?
Melvin Upton Jr? Yeah, well, Preller should trade him too.
Travis Jankowski? And? I really think that Preller needs to trade Jay and call up Renfroe and Margot.
A player only needs to be down ~12 days to get that “7th” year. He’s already missed 2 months of this year. Why waste his service time on this year, when they can bring him up the 3rd week of 2017. Play a bum in CF this year. Two or three extra wins this year means nothing.
I think ideally, Preller could trade both Jon Jay and Melvin Upton Jr. Trading Kemp would be nice, but that might not be feasible. Anyway, if these trades happened, I would think that Margot would come up, along with either Renfroe or Dickerson.
Alternatively, the Padres could go with Travis Jankowski and Alexi Amarista in CF to avoid starting the clock on Margot’s service time. I guess, but that would make for some dreadfully boring baseball. The Padres need to generate at least some excitement, and calling up the prospects can do that.
Today, Jeff Todd of mlbtraderumors included both Margot and Renfroe in a list of “20 prospects whose callups could impact the trade market.” he cites their good hitting stats, as well as their ability to excite the SD fan base.
What’s the end game in baseball? Is it exciting the fan base or building the framework for a perennial contender. The fan base doesn’t need anything, the team does need young controllable assets.
Making money.
Jankowski. Who could legitimately be the best defensive center fielder in the NL right now.
Jankowski is very good, and was underrated as a prospect cause it’s hard to predict 7/8 level glove in CF, but that’s who he is. No need to rush Margot
Fire the GM, punt.
Ron Fowler bought Preller’s “we can win now!” baloney, and he wouldn’t have bought if he hadn’t been in the market for it. Preller can’t rebuild without getting fired. If Fowler’s embarrassed by this, is he willing to make that full dive into the rebuilding fertilizer?? I doubt it. If not, this looks like about as bad a situation as I can recall seeing. Even underfunded teams, you knew they’d eventually find some new deep pockets ownership group, out of town if need be.
One might suggest that Preller indulged Fowler/Dee’s “we can win now!” baloney while simultaneously trying to put the infrastructure in place to build what he knows is most important on the player development and scouting side.
You have this completely backwards, it’s hilarious to see how the media and fans are looking at preller while Fowler (and Dee) get a pass. It’s fowler who forced it onto to Preller, why do you think Padres were discussing Kemp before they had hired preller? It’s pathetic how Fowler and him being an awful owner is spun. Fowler was always going to be a short term owner, so hopefully he is out after 2017 then gives Seidler the reigns. Seidler wants to win but is much more rational, not crazy emotional lunatic.
“backwards”? One guy selling baloney, the other guy eagerly buying. No way of telling where that circle starts, nor does it matter.
It’s very easy to tell if you had been paying attention at all. Hilarious you pin this on preller
Not only should Pom be sold, but Jon Jay and Matt Kemp should be going as well. Although the AAA El Paso team plays in the PCL, a combination of the hot-hitting trio of OFs in Renfroe, Margot, and Dickerson should still be deployable and keep fans reasonably interested in SD.
Dave, what are you thoughts on the Padres making a deal with the Rangers to acquire Jurickson Profar to give them that future-piece (SS) to build around?
Can’t trade kemp now. Even eating ALL the money they wouldn’t get anything good back. Just hope he goes on a tier at some point then deal him, if not just hope his name draws an extra 200 fans to every game.
Profar is arb eligible next year. Unless Texas demotes him for a long stretch, he’s going to be gone before the SD window opens.
Damn . . . I hate how ‘m’ looks just like ‘rn’.
Trade anything and everything of value. Burn it to the ground. Eat as much money as you can to get better prospects, field a team of matt kemp and 24 minimum contracts next year.
I agree. Burn it to the ground, nuke it from orbit, and then start over from scratch.
How reasonable is it to suggest a full tank when so many teams are already doing it?? The competition for the best tank is almost as fierce as the wild card spot.
Ironically enough, one contender that could use the services of Wil Myers (assuming he can still play a passable OF) would be the Royals. That would be something.
Why would the Padres trade Myers? He is young (25), cheap and still has 3 years of control after this year. He is the one thing on this roster worth salvaging.
Someone didn’t read the article…
no, i read the article but did not agree with Cameron’s take on Myers.
I like the idea of using the Shields savings to pick up Fielder and some prospects but dang, Fielder is still owed a LOT of money. Approx $16M more this year and then 4/$96M the 4 years after that. That’s a LOT more money than they saved on the Shields deal. I would suggest Andrus’ contract instead but that’s almost worse since it’s approximately $10M this year and another 7/$103M after this year (with a possible $15M vesting option for 2023 if Andrus is a full-time player in 2021-22).
I still think the Brooklyn Nets are in the worst shape of any of the 4 North American professional sports (no stars and no picks and no reason for a free agent to go there), but the Padres are probably in the conversation for next after that. . . .
(Interesting aside – Andrus has opt-outs in 2018 and 2019 and there is almost zero chance he uses them. With all the talk of opt-outs this off-season with Heyward and other guys, it’s interesting to see an example of the downside.)
The Tigers are already paying $24 million of Prince’s deal after this year. Seems like the Rangers wouldn’t mind throwing a little more on top of that.
One important note is that Prince has an “all but 10 teams” no-trade clause. So without thinking about his strategy with that, it is likely he’d have to waive it, which you’d think he wouldn’t to go to that car fire.
Good call – had forgotten about the Tigers paying some of it. That definitely makes it more workable I suppose. So if viewed together (savings on the Shields trade allowing them to take on Prince’s contract) and we assume that the Rangers will pick up part of Prince’s deal (let’s say another $6M per on top of what Detroit is paying), we’re looking at the Padres essentially trading Shields, Myers and roughly $29M for Prince at 4/$48M and lets say 4 prospects (2 from CHicago and 2 from Texas let’s suppose).
Might be doable. Might even work out even better from San Diego’s standpoint since like just about every player ever Prince hits better as a 1B than as a DH. Prince comes over and starts playing the field and bumps his numbers up to something respectable and he might even become desirable to some teams at $12M per year. Of course, he would have to stay healthy playing the field which could be a problem but still, could work.
I’d be shocked if Prince goes to an NL team where he cannot DH…
I said the same about matt kemp soooo lol
The tigers are covering 6 mil per year, so after this year it’s 4/72
From Big Game James…. to Low Yield Shields
As a long time Padres fan I have to say that this season has been especially heartbreaking.
On the one hand I applaud the past ‘win now’ efforts of Preller. I can’t remember a more exciting off-season and since we don’t have exciting seasons or post-seasons it was refreshing to have hope.
The buzz has passed and we are in full on hangover mode. There is no hope for the foreseeable future. Tanking and building a strong farm system is the only way to relevance.
Unfortunately the Padres have a horrible track record of developing talent. I hope this regime can change that. In the meantime I’m going to appreciate the current blackout restrictions that prevent me from seeing just how bad the Padres are on a night by night basis.
Just as unfortunately, the Padres had a tendency to trade an inordinate number of players with their Spring Training partners, the Seattle Mariners, who had just as horrid a record of developing talent. Two teams that signed and drafted potential, broke it, and then traded it between themselves. The other guy’s busted prospect might have more luster than your own due to novelty, but is still just as busted.
I would argue that the Padres have a horrible record of drafting talent more than developing it. There have been a bunch of terrible drafts going back 4 gms now.
When Theo arrived at the Cubs, the Cubs too had a crap roster and barren farm system. But Theo had one other thing: An owner who was OK with a tear-it-down approach.
If Padres ownership is willing to blow it up, they should make themselves terrible, in order to save the franchise
To be fair when he took over they did have some prospects baez, contreras, candelario, szczur, vogelbach and Tony zych all were in the system and are still good prospects or are helping big league clubs.
Lol Vogelbach.
Hey he can be Justin bour with more walks!
Wil Myers has all the offensive “potential” in the world, and is currently on a 3 win pace at 1B, while having room to grow if his BB-rate gets back to normal levels.
Also, an average projection for a 17 year old is essentially meaningless. The kid could be a 5 win player, or he could flame out in Low-A. He’s an absolute lottery ticket.
No projection is meaningless, that’s the difference between a projection and a prediction. Obviously the projections have larger error bars for younger players, but you can compare even 17-year-olds with them. You don’t interpret it as “he will probably be an average player” but rather “average player is the median of his probable outcomes.”
The Padres didn’t do it last year, but they should just go into complete fire sale mode this summer. Trade everyone with value, and try to rack up as man prospects and draft picks as possible. Maybe hold onto catcher Christian Bethancourt and resign Alexei Ramirez for shortstop.
Trade:
OF Jon Jay
RP Fernando Rodney
OF Melvin Upton Jr.
Maybe trade C Derek Norris and OF Matt Kemp is possible. SD might have to throw in some money to trade Upton.
2017 lineup and bench:
C: Norris/Bethancourt/Hedges
1b: Myers
2b: Spangenberg
SS: Ramirez
3b: Yangervis Solarte
LF: Hunter Renfroe
CF: Manuel Margot
RF: Matt Kemp
Bench: Alex Dickerson 1b/OF, Travis Jankowski OF, Brett Wallace 1b/3b, inf, someone.
I admittledly know more about the offensive situation than the pitching side. Perhaps SD should no longer count on Spangenberg at 2b. And the two rookies in the OF might not pan out.
With luck, the Padres’ copious draft picks and existing prospects could elevate this team to contention by 2018. Solarte would only be 30-31 at that time. I think he warrants inclusion as a member of “the next great Padres team.”
Agreed on the Solarte portion of your post. When he’s healthy, he’s a league-average 3B with upside. He’s not going to have an obscene contract in his age 30-31 seasons either.
2018 seems a bit aggressive; we really don’t have any pitching now that Preller gave away most of our high minors pitchers
I’m having a hard time thinking that Pomeranz would bring back anything better than, well, Pomeranz. 86 IP last year, 65 already this year. What kind of prospect(s) would be reasonable for him? Certainly not any high level prospect, I dont think. His track record as a SP just isnt there, in terms of major league innings. Especially with a shoulder already arthroscoped. Not saying he’s not a good pitcher, just wondering what kind of return he would bring
Pomeranz for 3-years-younger version of Pomeranz would be a good trade for them.
I guess my point is, if you had a 3 years younger Pomeranz, why would you trade him for Pomeranz, who isnt going to help you that much this year due to IP restriction?
The Padres should just take their ball and go home
TEX is a terrible fit… While Fielder and Moreland are struggling, they would be much more likely to use 1B / DH to give playing time Gallo (destroying AAA pitching and dramatically cut K rate), Profar (excelled in Odor’s absence and has stuck in Arlington for now) and to their surplus of outfielders…
I just don’t see them interested in giving anything up for Myers unless it was part of a salary dump of Fielder or Choo (or Andrus) — which wouldn’t make sense for SDP.
They have nothing but spare parts to deal frankly – Rodney, Jay, Upton, Norris. Myers, Solarte and Pomeranz are cheap and controllable and so there isn’t any great reason to deal them now. All 3 are still likely to have value a year from now.
The Pads best shot to rebuild now is thru the draft and they have more early picks than anyone this year – 6 of the first 85. But that requires drafting well and developing players.
The still likely to have value argument is why they won’t end up maximizing Ross’s value. Trade them while you can, it’s better too early than too late. To your last point trading them will get you higher draft picks and more draft money.
Myers should only get better. In his case, they should def hold on. A year from now, he could have his real breakout and his value will skyrocket. And Solarte isn’t going to return enough to rush into a deal. Pomeranz is the only guy of the 3 you consider dealing now bc he’s a pitcher and there is the risk of injury and also of turning back into a pumpkin.
Why would anyone assume that Myers should only get better?
He had a great 2/3rds of a season in 2013 where he was on pace as a 4 WAR player. 2014 he lined up precisely as a replacement level player. 2015 he was only slightly better. 2016 he’s back up to 3 WAR level. I’d say with Myers his value is all over the board. He is exactly the kind of guy you want to trade when his value is high. He may be better than a 3 WAR player but if I were a betting man I’d take the under on that. Talent aside, the guy is inconsistent and has dealt with injuries every year. You hold onto him too long and you literally could end up with nothing for him.
Injuries.
They’re going to wind up spending somewhere on the order of $60M in amateur player acquisition over the next 60 days. I get the argument that you tear it down to the ground to get the right to spend a huge amount of money to get better, but the team’s already doing the second half of that as it is.
Most of this mess was caused by previous GM’s. Hoyer traded Kluber for Ludwick and drafted Tate (and the rest of the terrible 2009 and 2010 drafts). Bynres traded Rizzo for Cashner, Street for weak prospects, Forsythe/Boxberger/Andriesse for Torres/Hahn and extended Quentin and Maybin.
Hoyer also traded for Rizzo… so if that’s a minus for former GMs, it’s also a plus.
Not saying that any of past GM had 0 good trades, just pointing out that it has been a group effort to get the Padres to where they are now. One can easily pick good moves by each GM (Hoyer: Rizzo, Byrnes: Ross, Preller: Pomeranz).
Also, one could argue that the Rizzo trade to Cubs, Kluber trade to Indians and Forsythe deal to Rays are worse than many of Preller trades/deals.
Can you really make that argument? It’s only been a year, kluber was miserable for 3 yrs after the deal.
Miserable? What 3 years were those? Was acquired at the deadline in 2010. Had a decent AAA year in 12 and had a 3.85 era in first full year in MLB in 13. Won Cy Young in 14. I think calling the Kluber trade a bust is pretty accurate.
It was 3 years after the deal until he was successful in the majors, obviously it was a bad trade, but you said it’s worse than the preller deals and we can’t be sure of that yet. What if however unlikely mallex smith drinks mike trouts blood and becomes Mike trout, Then that deal is worse right? At the end of the season in which he(kluber) was traded baseball America ranked him the indians 26th best prospect.
I am not remotely an Indians nor Padres fan. Here are his ERAs since 2010. Feel free to make you own opinions.
’10 Padres AA 3.45
’10 Indians AA 3.76
’10 Indians AAA 3.27
’11 AAA 5.56
’11 MLB 8.31
’12 AAA 3.59
’12 MLB 5.24
’13 AAA 6.57
’13 MLB 3.85
2014 MLB 2.44
Wow, that deal with the Rays may be one of the worst in the past 10 yrs I think.
Preller was probably an attractive candidate because of his success in international recruitment and development, but wasn’t going to get hired unless he showed a plan during his interviews to win now, which isn’t in his background nor why he was noticed in the first place. Then, when he was hired, he had to implement the plan, even though it had nothing to do with why he was an attractive candidate and was an obviously bad plan to nearly everyone outside the Padres’ front office. (The last time this plan worked, George Allen was coaching the D.C. football team.) Now, for his sake and the sake of the franchise, if you’re a Padres fan (I’m indifferent), you hope he can keep his job long enough to implement a plan that he has successfully done in the past.
‘George Allen’?? Dude! Many ‘up’ points for that! Oh, and try Grecian Formula, it works for me.
Unless the Padres get a crazy return they should keep Myers, he clearly has 130 wRC+ offensive potential with a good glove at first.
Pomeranz should be traded by the offseason, question is do you take the risk of him doing it over the course of season? No one is buying him as top 30 pitcher right now in all likelihood and the health concerns clowd his value. If he was able stay healthy over course of year and finish with a top 30 pitcher fWAR the return would outweigh what they could get at deadline especially considering FA SP options.
With the OF: Jay is a given as Jankowski thanks to his defense is most likely already better and fits the timeline better. Padres need to eat some more money on trading Kemp/Upton. Kemp is obviously bad and the only way I see a trade is if ownership hates him enough to force it, btw heavy rumor is ownership was far more in charge of Kemp deal than Preller. Melvin it’s all about eating enough money to make him tradable, he’s a competent OF, and his deal is much smaller.
The reason they need to trade one of the corner guys is to give a shot to Alex Dickerson a guy who is having a ridiculous season in El Paso and needs a shot with his age. There is no rush to promote Margot/Renfroe
With the injury to Hedges I’d just keep Norris all year, I bet his hitting continues to return to competent levels, and his framing has improved a ton.
Solarte is the most tricky for me, I’d like to get good value for him but I’m worried he’s the kind of player GM’s overlook, all matters on the return.
Obviously Rodney needs to go, and at this point I think QO/draft pick is probably best way to go with Cashner
I mean they have Myers for the next three years after this one. They almost certainly won’t be good next year. 2018 is unlikely, and 2019 will require things to go right for them, which they might not. So, what is that, 0.8-1.0 expected seasons in which the have him and can put him to good use? Wouldn’t they be able to make better use of whatever they trade him for?
Either sign him to a team-friendly extension, which why would he do that with the team looking like it does, or trade him.
If you believe in Myers talent level as I do, his value will go up. And no I’m not ignoring the injury risk. No one knows what the team will look like in 2018 but don’t get me wrong I’m not ignoring the padres aren’t well positioned as is.
Agree. I do feel he has 30 homer potential in his bat and he very well might reach that, and you can possibly sell a team on that. I just don’t see the pads needing to risk him reaching that potential with his injury history and the direction of the franchise. You can get high ceiling guys and give them a shot. I mean take jon singleton from the astros, give brett Wallace everyday at bats.
does Myers make sense for the Yankees? they’d be concerned about his wrists and knee but they desperately need RH hitters. Teix is out now and unsigned next year and Greg Bird lost an extremely important development year. Myers would serve as a hedge on the Bird/Judge bets, as it is not a good bet that both of those guys turn out to be good major leaguers
Liked the article, but I disagree that they are in the same situation as the Phillies. The Phillies didn’t have a lot to trade away, but they had far more than San Diego currently does. Hamels was far more valuable than Pomeranz. Giles and Diekman had value and even the decaying husks of Rollins and Utley had value. And, even with this, the Phillies had to fleece some teams to pull ahead. The Padres have no chance of short cutting their rebuild.
I disagree with that, If the decaying husks of Utley/Rollins had value than so do most of padres veterans (not named Kemp of course). Guys like Solarte, Ross, Pomeranz, Myers all have good to very good value. People now act like Ross is no good, he will have a couple months to back up his trade value in a awful FA SP market. Norris still has time to get middle tier prospects back. And Rodney will get a bit though not a lot back. Also could look to flip Buchter who is having a good year.
And while the Padres minor league system is laughably short on high level arms they have intriguing position players. Hedges while technically not a prospect is going to be really good imo, I get why projection systems don’t like him but I think his adjustments are real, and he will hit well enough with his amazing defense to be an impact guy. Margot is a stud with both a high floor and high ceiling, Jankowski is an amazing defender and I hope they keep both him (obviously he’s not a prospect anymore) and Margot. Renfroe is a bit of a wild card, he has very good but not elite power, and seems to be a plus RF defender, but the lack of walks are definitely concerning (like for Williams/Affaro). Dickerson is an older guy raking in the PCL and deserves a shot, projection systems like PECOTA love him it seems.
Padres do have some very intriguing arms at lower levels and all of them other than Austin Smith (and he has been throwing strikes last 3 outings) have thrown a lot of strikes which make you think they could be fast tracked a bit. Jacob Nix, Austin Smith, Logan Allen, Jean Cosme are all in low A while Enyel De Los Santos just got promoted to high A.
I am not saying padres system is loaded by any means, it desperately lack depth (which will improve in Draft/Trades/IFA) and not all the international free agents they sign will be 16 once certain cubans like Jorge Ona are eligible.
Padres biggest issue at this point by far is ownership and pretty much all Padres fans that have been paying attention to ownership hope Seidler forces Fowlers hand and takes over.