Hope you had a good weekend. Maybe you found the Sean Burroughs rumors as amusing as I did.

Time for a little catch-up.

AFL Prospects

Baseball America has released its Top 20 AFL prospects. The Padres aren’t well represented, with only Tagg Bozied checking in at #20. They also have two representatives on the "best tools" list: Mike Bynum (#3 LHP prospect), Rusty Tucker (#2 bullpen prospect). The main complaints with Bozied are his long swing and his inability to lay off pitches down and away.

Trades

I won’t comment at length on the trades not involving the Padres (although I will say I think the A’s and Red Sox did very well for themselves, and the Reds made out pretty well, too; obviously the Devil Rays screwed themselves again). But I will talk about the Brett Tomko giveaway. Tomko, as you probably know by now, was traded to the Cardinals for Luther Hackman and a PTBNL.

My first thought was that Hackman would be the Heathcliff Slocumb of this deal, with the PTBNL being a prospect along the lines of Ben Johnson, whom the Pads acquired along with Slocumb from the Cards a few years back in a deal for catcher Carlos Hernandez. So I started wondering who the PTBNL might be.

RHP Jimmy Journell probably was out of the question. Although some clubs might not have problem dealing their top prospect for an arbitration-eligible back-end rotation guy, the Cardinals didn’t strike me as being one of them. That left me hoping for guys like RHP Justin Pope, RHP Dan Haren, or 2B/OF Shaun Boyd. The name I was really hoping to see this morning was Pope’s.

But, according to Baseball America the PTBNL is, in fact, RHP Mike Wodnicki. Needless to say, this isn’t what I was expecting. I’ll give Kevin Towers the benefit of the doubt for the moment, but I’m a little worried about this one. I don’t know much about Wodnicki, but I do know that he doesn’t show up among the Cardinals’ Top 30 prospects of a year ago.

Perhaps more troubling is the fact that the Padres didn’t get a middle infielder in the deal. Not that the Cardinals were the best team to supply one, but a few weeks ago we were speculating that Tomko might land Marcus Giles or Felipe Lopez. But instead he ends up with a middle reliever and a relatively obscure prospect. Meanwhile, the Reds pick up Lopez for Elmer Dessens.

I hope it all works out and one of Hackman or Wodnicki turns out to be useful. But this is disappointing. Regardless of Tomko’s status, the Padres were dealing from a position of relative strength and should have been able to get more. On the bright side, Towers did get something for him and now nobody has to think about what to do with Tomko anymore.

Shameless Plug

My first article for Baseball Primer is up: Steady Eddie, The Kid, Ryno, and The Rest: Sid Fernandez. Check it out when you have a moment. I’ve got another one of these coming out in the next couple weeks. I won’t tell you who the other one is about, but the guy makes Fernandez look like Warren Spahn.

Rule 5 Draft

Padres grabbed two players in the Major League Phase: RHP Buddy Hernandez (Braves) and OF Shane Victorino (Dodgers). Hernandez is interesting. He’s a reliever who racked up a ton of strikeouts in the Southern League this season and did the same in the AFL. I don’t know much about him, but his numbers indicate that he might be able to succeed in the big leagues right now. As for Victorino, let’s hope this isn’t the cheap alternative to Orlando Palmeiro. I’m not real excited about either of these guys, although Hernandez could be useful.

Middle Infield Situation

Deivi Cruz signed with the Orioles. I’ve given up on mocking Cruz; it’s like mocking William Shatner. What’s the point?

Anyway, the important thing is that he’s no longer the Padres’ problem. Still no sign(ing) of Mark Loretta. It’d be nice to get that wrapped up soon.

Okay, enough for one day. Go take a look at the Fernandez article over at Baseball Primer; lemme know what you think. Talk to ya later…