San Diego Padres: Will Offseason Moves Pay Off, or Are They Just Setting Team up for Failure?
By Will Osgood
New Padres general manager has made some bold moves this offseason, but will they pay off on the field?
A.J. Preller has been awfully busy since taking over as the new San Diego Padres general manager. In case you’ve missed it, just this past week Preller finalized trades to acquire Matt Kemp, Wil Myers, Justin Upton and catcher Derek Norris.
To acquire Kemp, the most noteworthy of the four more or less blockbuster deals, Preller gave away Yasmani Grandal—one of the National League’s best catchers. That deal with the rival Los Angeles Dodgers was a five-player deal, which also brought backup catcher Tim Federowicz.
Then came the Myers deal with Tampa Bay. It also involved the Washington Nationals. And it included 11 players in total.
Then in the same day—Friday, December 19—Preller landed Upton from the Braves and Norris from the fire sale-laden Billy Beane and the Oakland Athletics. Upton netted the Braves four lower-level prospects, while Norris required two young pitching prospects to be shipped out.
In all, it was a whirling dervish that even the Tasmanian Devil seemingly couldn’t match. Preller’s wheeling and dealing has quickly made him the talk of baseball.
But it’s also brought up a key question: Have Preller’s moves actually made the Padres a better baseball team?
Without much digging, the answer would probably be a definitive, “Yes”!
Matt Kemp, Wil Myers, Justin Upton and Derek Norris already give the Padres some name notoriety, the kind they haven’t had since Tony Gwynn was still posting .350 batting averages with regularity in the old Jack Murphy Stadium (now Qualcomm, where the Chargers still play).
But we now live in a baseball world, where the name on the back of the jersey is not as important as the one on the front, thanks in large part to the aforementioned Billy Beane. Thus, the question still sticks.
Do Matt Kemp, Wil Myers, Justin Upton and Derek Norris, combined with the few remaining Padres on the roster from a season ago, make the San Diego Padres a contending team in 2015?
Before we answer that question, though, it is important to note that rumblings, rumors, whatever you want to call them, arose on Sunday afternoon that the Padres were interested in flipping Wil Myers to the Phillies in exchange for high-priced starting pitcher Cole Hamels. As Cash Kruth noted here, the Padres have very little use for Myers, based on the lack of a true centerfielder and/or left handed bat on their current roster.
Cameron Maybin was the Padres’ centerfielder a season ago. Like everyone else he is right handed as a hitter. He was more than solid in his first two years as a Padre after coming over from Miami—posting a 4.2 and 2.3 WAR (wins above replacement player). Those numbers got a bit ugly the past two seasons though, as he posted a negative score in 2013, then literally just half a win over even in 2014.
Looking at Maybin’s numbers, and no matter how one goes about spinning them, they are ugly. According to Fan Graphs, Maybin has a .309 career on-base percentage and .365 slugging percentage. Those numbers include all of Maybin’s amazing minor league seasons as well as his better major league seasons.
Of the other three regular Padres outfielders of a season ago—Seth Smith, Will Venable and Carlos Quentin—none is a legitimate candidate to be an everyday starting centerfielder. Unbeknownst to many, Smith signed a two-year, $20 million extension to go along with Maybin’s $5 million per year average. It was a costly outfield well before Preller decided to grab Kemp and Co. And we saw how well that was working.
Smith is a perfect fit to fill in for youngster Yonder Alonso at first base when a day’s break is needed, as well as I nice afternoon fill-in for one of the corner outfield spots, especially against right handed pitchers—as has been his role for much of his Major League career.
A look at the numbers suggests Smith is an ideal bat to keep around for pinch hitting and platoon or injury-type situations. But he’s not an everyday player on this team, which is good since he has so much experience throughout his career coming off the bench and in platoon situations.
Venable and Quentin have both struggled with injuries, and the end of the line appears near for their Padres careers. Neither may be released this offseason, but further trades will likely be explored. After all, the Padres remain relatively light on the mound in terms of star power.
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Tyson Ross aside, the Friars are not exactly loaded with high-end talent on the mound. Grabbing a Cole Hamels would provide more confidence from a national perspective that this team is legit. Of course name recognition is not as important as actual performance, which is part of the reason Preller made it a point to nab catcher Derek Norris.
Though an All-Star in 2014, Norris is a bargain, costing just half a million bucks this upcoming season (he’ll then be arbitration eligible). Technically he had a -0.6 defensive WAR a season ago, but it seems to be an aberration when looking at other seasons. And even if he is not the greatest catcher ever, he makes it up for with a strong OPS.
Norris, of course, previously played his home games in a cemetery, so he ought to embrace the beauty of Petco Park. It also helps having a former pitcher for a manager in Bud Black. One way or the other, the Padres will be fine on the mound and in the field. They’ll figure that part out, especially playing the luxuriously large Petco.
The issue remains scoring. It’s been their problem since entering the park. The team has already tried moving the fences in to improve offense to little avail. But this new powerful trio of Kemp, Myers and Upton (should all remain with the Padres) figures to be the spark needed to make Petco not quite the rigid run scoring prude it has been through its early years.
To that end, the numbers and performance speaks for itself in regards to Kemp. When healthy (and that has been few and far between recently) Kemp is one of the best all-around players in the game. He could track it down in the outfield, steal a few bases and hit for some gargantuan power.
His injury history, and even a recent issue, caused delay in his officially being dealt to San Diego. The Padres have to hope he is fully healthy, for if he is, he is capable of carrying the Padres to the brink of a division title, even in the strong NL West. If not, the Padres will have to hope other players like Justin Upton can step up.
Since becoming a full-fledged big leaguer in 2009, Upton has always posted well above a .300 mark in BABIP (batting average on balls in play) indicating that he legitimately tears the cover off the ball. That will play in any park, even a spacious one such as Petco. His OPS is regularly over .800 and he averages over a 10 percent walk rate for his career, though he also strikes out over 25 percent of the time for his career.
The point is that Upton is probably an underrated hitting commodity, though certainly being paid like one.
The reality is that the three spots occupied by incumbent Padres figure to remain in good hands. Alonso, Jedd Gyorko and Alexi Amarista were each very productive in 2014. In the confines of a sexier lineup, look for the number of those three to only improve.
Finally, third baseman Will Middlebrooks was acquired in a trade which resounded with far fewer decibels. Yet it could be one of great importance. Middlebrooks was an important part of Boston’s 2013 wild World Series run.
Manning the hot corner for the Padres, Middlebrooks must play great defense and be an anchor in what will probably be the bottom third of the lineup. In reality he is the perfect guy for that role.
The Padres are lucky. Their most valuable players, after a few weeks of wheeling and dealing, may be the guys who were already on the roster. Of course those players’ talents will be amplified by the new additions.
It should be win, win, win for San Diego in 2015, all thanks to A.J. Preller.
All statistical data for this article taken from fangraphs.com.