Last night I said, only somewhat facetiously, that I’d lost track of who’s on the team. Here’s something that may help:
| Pos | Out | In |
|---|---|---|
| P | Brian Lawrence | Dewon Brazelton Seth Etherton |
| C | Ramon Hernandez | Doug Mirabelli |
| 1B | Mark Sweeney | Jack Cust |
| 2B | Mark Loretta Damian Jackson |
– |
| 3B | Sean Burroughs Joe Randa |
Vinny Castilla Geoff Blum Bobby Hill Justin Leone |
| OF | Xavier Nady | Mike Cameron |
Former Angels first-round draft pick Seth Etherton was taken in the Rule V draft this morning. And that should get us up to speed until the next move happens, whatever that may be.
Meantime, we have reactions to Wednesday’s moves and also, if you missed it, an interview with Tim Powers, a reporter for Sports Ticker and all-around good guy.
Two thoughts on the age-issue:
1. I don’t think Mirabelli will be our starter…
2. I don’t think Klesko will be our starter for more than a couple months.
And a bonus thought:
“Dave Roberts is my LF & leafoff hitter.” …or however he worded it… could indicate that’s the direction he wants to go, or it could me a negotiating ploy to tell another team, “You know, I like your player, but I’m perfectly happy with the guy I already have.”
A few more things on the age-issue:
1. Is our current aggragate age a problem? Yes.
2. Would anyone say this team is worse than it was last year? A few might, but I’m not one of them…
3. Who’s in the plans for next year (’07 age in parenthesis)?
C – Olivo (28)
1B – FA
2B – Barfield (23)
3B – [Chase Headley in '08]
SS – Kahlil Greene (28)
LF – Giles (36)
CF – Cameron (34)
RF – FA
Welcome to Porn Valley? (See ad to the right.)
Geoff, will your site now get blocked by my work firewall?
I interrupt this conversation about the Padres’ future to bring you . . . the link to Chan Ho Park’s wedding picture:
http://www.kois.go.kr/News/News/NewsView.asp?serial_no=20051211019
Obviously, the reason for his mediocre pitching this year was that he was distracted by the wedding.
I mean, you try pitching when you’re planning a party for 500 people — it’s tough, man.
Here’s another random thought: What do you get someone who makes $10 million a year?
Well, look at Geoff’s handy graph for the comings and goings. With the exception of Cameron, did we really improve anywhere? I don’t think so. Did we cut payroll to go after pitching anywhere? Not really. What did we do except get older? To me, that isn’t a good sign.
Brian: Thanks for the heads-up on the new ad. I certainly hope your firewall won’t block the site. If you encounter any problems, let me know and I’ll talk to management.
Matt and I disagree, but I think we improved…
A whole year of Vinny will be better than a year of Burroughs/Blum/DJ/Randa + I just read that Towers & Co. (read: Alderson) think that Headley could be ready as soon as ’07… So the last thing we want to do is sign a mediocre player to a 3 year deal blocking a guy who’s probably a cross between Mark Loretta & Brian Giles (minus some power).
Now at 2B, I don’t think we’ve drastically improved, but don’t forget, you can’t compare what Barfield and/or Hill do there in ’06 to what Loretta did in ’04 (.335/.391/.495 w/ 16 HR & 47 2B). That was sublime. You have to compare Barfield/Hill to what we got at 2B last year:
404 AB of Loretta at (.280/.360/.347)
112 AB of DJ at (.268/.314/.393)
81 AB of Blum at (.194/.194/.194)
44 AB of EY at (.250/.313/.318)
7 AB of Manny Alexander at (.286/.286/.429)
3 AB of Jessie Garcia at (.333/.333/1.333)
As you can see (I’m too lazy to put it all together) but also, and more importantly, the aggragate 2B production (or lack thereof) made quite hole in our offense. Getting even a decent season out of Hill or Barfield could be boon to our offense.
Furthermore, I heard reports that other teams were scared off on Loretta. They felt that he never did show what he did in ’04 last year (even before the thumb injury). And that ’04 may have been a fluke and that they were uncertain if he could replicate that ever again.
I don’t want to be pissin’ on somebody’s grave; I’m not GLAD Mark’s gone, I just don’t think he’s worth cryin’ over.
I still want to see how the rest of this team shakes out. Do we land Mench? Wilkerson? Do we end up with Wells? Do we trade for another starter? I don’t think we’re done. Here’s what I do think is done
C Olivo
1B
2B
3B Castilla
SS Greene
LF
CF Cameron
RF Giles
P1 Peavy
P2
P3
P4
P5 Hensley
Now I think that Towers/Alderson would be willing to break camp w/ something close to what we currently have, but I do think there is more to do…
Well, I promised I wouldn’t bitch about the Loretta trade, but if all we could get was Mirabelli, why trade him? That deal makes no sense. What earthly purpose does Castilla serve other than making us better defensively at third? What are we going to do with Dewon Brazelton?
Trading Burroughs? A good idea. Loretta probably will not post another season like 2004, so trade him. Brian Lawrence, a league average pitcher. But we got pretty useless parts in return with much less trade value than we started with, and failed to address our single most glaringly obvious need, which is starting pitching. If you’re going to trade Loretta, flip him for some young arms. Ditto Burroughs. I know we wouldn’t get high level prospects for them, but the moves we made there made no baseball sense. I don’t think we improved.
Matthew,
You said,
“…We got pretty useless parts in return with much less trade value than we started with, and failed to address our single most glaringly obvious need, which is starting pitching.”
However,
Borrowing from RBW’s post a few days ago:
Padres 2005 stats:
Padres Adjusted Equivalent Runs Allowed Per Game: 4.51 (16th)
Padres Adjusted Equivalent Runs Scored: 682 (25th)
***
We were 16th out of 30 in pitching (which admittedly doesn’t deliniate between starters and relievers) but we 6th from last in terms of scoring. Adding Vinny over Burroughs helps, and Hill/Barfield are likely to exceed what we got out of 2B last year.
Plus, who said we’re done with the pitching staff?
***
On an unrelated note, I’m having a verbal spar with a poster on John Sickles’ site w/ his 2005 Padres top 20 Prospects (in review)…
This is what I noted our 2008 regulars should look like:
C – Kottaras (24)
1B – FA
2B – Barfield (25)
3B – Headley (24)
SS – Greene (28)
LF – Giles (37)
CF – Cameron (35)
RF – Johnson (27)
P1 – Peavey (27)
P2 – FA
P3 – Carillo (23)
P4 – Hensley (28)
P5 – Stauffer (25)
Obviously nothing stands as is, but still, this has to be encouraging.
Peter:
I think that looking at what the Padres should get out of 2B in 2006 is difficult. What are you basing that on? Will Barfield be on the big club? I know we had sub par production last season, and I know Loretta probably won’t have another season like 2004, but I’d certainly take him next year over Hill, and who knows what Barfield will do in his first big league season. If the argument is that we should get Barfield in the lineup now to get him ABs and get him acclimated to big league pitching, that is one thing, and I can see the logic there. But I fail to see how our production there offensively will increase.
And Randa is younger and has been a better hitter over the paast five or six seasons than Castilla. When was the last time Castilla was above average at the plate? Now, Castilla probably makes this a wash with his glove. But I wouldn’t say we improved. Yes, he is a sligt improvement over Burroughs, but that is damning with faint praise, and Burroughs was pulled from consideration midway through the season.
Again, the main thing that pisses me off is what we received in return for some of these trades. I think we could have done better than Castilla for Lawrence (that trade strikes me as a marketing trade for a ‘name’ player). I think we could have done much better than Brazelton for Burroughs. And I think we could have done much better than Mirabelli for Loretta.
MT: That sums up my thoughts on Loretta. The Padres wanted to do three things. Free up money to pay for Trevor, remove an obstacle from Barfield’s path, and acquire a backup catcher. It doesn’t follow that all those things had to happen in one transaction.
No one can tell me that Loretta didn’t have more trade value than Mirabelli. Loretta was a good player before 2004. His trade value wasn’t nil because nobody thought he’d ever hit 335/391/495 again.
This nonsense about Mirabelli’s playoff experience and RH splits just sickens me. He has 19 ppostseason at-bats. His OPS against righties is 698, vs LHP it’s 889.
The way to accomplish those goals is to trade Loretta for the best package you can get. That saves money and liberates Barfield. Then you pick up a catcher by paying that catcher’s actual value. Two days after we gave up one of our best trading pieces for Mirabelli, we acquired LaForest for the waiver fee. LaForest actually does hit RHP well. You still solve all three problems but you end up with more talent and maybe more money.
Couple quick thoughts:
Once source I found a while back had Barfield’s MLE last year at .273/.327/.388.
http://home.comcast.net/~briankaat/mle05.csv
Last year, Padres 2B hit .263/.336/.339. So assuming Loretta wasn’t going to return to pre-2005 levels (a pretty safe assumption at his age), I have no problem starting Barfield this year. Like others, I don’t mind moving Loretta to clear a space for Barfield, but I am surprised they couldn’t get more than an aging backup catcher in return.
On another note, the more I look at Vinny Castilla’s numbers, the less I like the idea of him starting at 3B for us next year. He was eighth from the bottom in OW% in the NL (.406), which is a shade better than Willy Taveras and a shade worse than Adam Everett. And he’s moving to a park that hasn’t been kind to RHB since its inception:
http://tinyurl.com/9z2fy
Here’s hoping that Chase Headley is ready sooner rather than later.
Over at Scout.com, John Conniff (Hi John!) has a real good recap on the moves made so far:
http://tinyurl.com/bejgh
Re: Coniff.
Sorry, I can’t buy that as a good recap. It reads like a Padre PR piece. We either won or tied every trade so far. Sure. I especially like the Nady double-standard. We win every other trade in which we give up young talent because it was just time to cut bait. But we trade Nady for Cameron and suddenly the young player who has shown some flashes is worth holding onto. Sounds like a serious Nady backer at work.
Hensley may or may not be better than BLaw. Chan Ho isn’t. BLaw averaged a 30 VORP from 2002-04. He fell to 15.8 this season. I’d post Park’s VORP for those four seasons, but after reading them I need to find a dark, quiet place to cry for a few hours.
Boone and Miles are comps for Loretta. Okay. When somebody has to dig that deep and posit that many hypotheticals to make us “win” a trade, well, we didn’t win it.
We won the Cameron trade. Castilla and Brazelon are ties at best; BLaw is more likely to have a good season than Castilla, but call it a tie. Loretta for Mirabelli is a loss.
I don’t agree with all of John’s takes, but I still think it is a good recap. Personally I’ve got all the trades as draws except the Loretta one, which we lost. We could win the Cameron one also.
I suppose I have a problem with the different standards in that article.
Some trades that bring in immediate 2006 help are defended when other moves (not trading BLaw, trading Loretta for prospects) might have paid off not only in 2006 but for years beyond. But when talk turns to Nady, then it’s all about the future. Or the Loretta trade is a Padre win because X, Y, and Z follow, but the Nady trade isn’t a win even though it also has a cascade effect (Klesko to 1b, more playing time for Johnson if/when Roberts is hurt/traded).
I don’t expect Nady to get that much playing time in NY. Diaz beat him in EQA and VORP and hits LH. If the Mets get Manny without losing Floyd, Nady’s back on the bench or traded again.