Peter Gammons San Diego continues Make Over

Peter Gammons: Preller, Padres continue off-season makeover with addition of Shields

February 10, 2015 by Peter Gammons 0 Comments

It’s not even Lincoln’s birthday, and where some of us live, we can’t even see our neighbors’ house for the snow. Look, everyone is fascinated by the Padres’ winter, something that isn’t uttered too often, and owner Ron Fowler being willing to guarantee one less million to Matt Kemp and James Shields in their mid-thirties in 2017 than the entire Friars’ payroll in 2010.
Shields is going to stabilize what could be a formidable starting staff with a very good bullpen, one of the best managers and one of the best pitching coaches dealing with it all. If they were to scrimmage UCLA Friday, there would be questions about the defense this team may play in pitcher-friendly Petco Park because there might not be an average defender at any position, but the fact is they are scrimmaging UCLA Friday, and A.J. Preller has a vanload of useful position player depth and some interesting pitchers to trade to balance the last eight roster spots, without delving into a farm system that has been strip-mined.
Where the Padres are heading to Peoria, Arizona and where they have been in their crazy-quilt ownership past—Doug Rader taking the lineup card to home plate with a chef’s hat, Bob Sykes saying “being a Cardinal means meeting Stan Musial, being a Padre means Nate Colbert trying to sell you a used car,” the Tom Werner fire sale, the bizarre trail that finally led to Fowler’s takeover—is not about “winning the off-season.” It’s about trying to market the Padres in a market that hasn’t drawn fewer than 1.9M people into Petco Park, yet hasn’t matched the cache or revenues of the teams in Anaheim and L.A. to the north. It’s a start, a great start, one that has a lot of serious, remaining questions and issues, but how often since the Larry Lucchino group bought into the run for the ’98 pennant that enabled Petco have the Fightin’ Friars been the lead story on a national news desk out of Secaucus, N.J.?
Fowler and CEO Mike Dee took over trying to make the Padres West Coast relevant in a world dominated by the Dodgers and Angels and—most successfully—Giants. Some early ideas were ill-conceived, like forcing the baseball operations people to draft Johnny Manziel and show him off; or wanting Josh Byrnes to replace Bud Black, one of the best managers of the last decade.
But in Preller’s energetic rush to relevancy, the addition of Matt Kemp, Justin Upton, Wil Myers, Will Middlebrooks and, now, Shields, is totally L.A., totally not San Diego. No one’s smart enough to know what it’s all going to look like in 2017. We do know that what the Dodgers have assembled in their front office has the longterm makings of a creative machine, but there is also a broad school of thought that believes that when everyone assembles in Arizona next week that the Seattle Mariners could be the Left Coast team with the best PECOTA or ZIPS chance to be still standing in the last week of October.
But schools and thoughts don’t project Marco Scutaro to win a World Series MVP.
Now, it’s great to run it out there that you’re going to be in it for Yoan Moncada, but can the San Diego Padres seriously afford the $50-80M it may take between bonus and taxes to sign a 19-year old who probably needs to start the 2015 season in the California League? TBD.
The next question is how else other than the international market do they rebuild a developmental system? By the time they start paying Kemp and Shields $37M per year until each is close to 40, Upton, Andrew Cashner and Ian Kennedy will have left as free agents, and Tyson Ross will be a fifth year, arbitration-eligible player headed to free agency.
Having traded a potentially star two way shortstop in Trea Turner, Joe Ross, a potential all-star catcher (Yasmani Grandal), Max Fried, Zach Eflin, Jace Peterson and Mallex Smith, the system has three notable prospects: pitcher Matt Wisler, outfielder Hunter Renfroe, who has a very high strikeout rate, and catcher Austin Hedges, whose OBP and OPS above A ball are minuscule.
Beginning with 2009, their last seven first draft selections are Donavan Tate (retired), Karsten Whitson (Boston), Jedd Gyorko, Fried, Renfroe, Turner and none, which is what they have in 2015. And let’s stay away from the Hedges-Austin Barnes debate. Maybe Logan White can find a Julio Urias in the Mexican hills, or Preller’s considerable Caribbean contacts can find another Nomar Mazara. Maybe they unearth a catcher like Robinson Chirinos, who may be a vital contributor to the restoration of the Rangers. Time will tell.
On Lincoln’s birthday, the Padres do not have the longterm foundation of a small market cousin, the Pirates, or the Indians or the Royals. They may, or may not, be as good as the Marlins or the Mets the day the 2015 regular season concludes.
But as with so many small and medium market teams empowered by MLB’s revenue-sharing, they are boldly shooting for it. We should want Matt Kemp to be healthy and RickyBobby Myers to be what we thought he would be, there isn’t anyone in the game who doesn’t want to see Bud Black holding a trophy, or, for that matter, spend time in San Diego. So they may strike out a ton and face fiscal problems in 2017? They go to Peoria in the discussion, and, that accomplished, their real work is just beginning, only this time with a product that will make potential customers stop, look and listen.