Giants rental acquisition Mike Leake will miss his upcoming start with a hamstring strain suffered during routine workouts, reports Chris Haft of MLB.com. While the Giants and Leake are both hopeful that he’ll miss just the one outing, but says he won’t know until today. It sounds like the maximum amount of time he’ll miss will be two starts, and swingman Ryan Vogelsong will step into the rotation in his place. The Giants traded their top prospect, righty Keury Mella, to the Reds along with corner infielder Adam Duvall in exchange for Leake on July 30.
More from the NL West…
- The Mets offered right-hander Michael Fulmer to the Padres in exchange for Justin Upton near the trade deadline prior to acquiring Yoenis Cespedes, ESPN’s Buster Olney first reported earlier this week. That, clearly, wasn’t enough to get a deal done, as Upton remains in San Diego and Fulmer was eventually traded to the Tigers (along with fellow righty Luis Cessa) for Cespedes.
- Peter Gammons spoke to Padres GM A.J. Preller, who addressed the notion of buying and selling as well as the perceived inactivity of his club. “When someone said, ‘it’s easier to buy than sell,’ that did bother me,” Preller told Gammons. “That implies that we did little preparation. They don’t realize the three weeks to a month that so many of our scouts and baseball people were out on the road, going from town to town without seeing their families, trying to find the right players. They worked their hearts out for the Padres.”
- Though Wilin Rosario’s name has been kicked around in trade rumors for the better part of a year, he remained in Colorado at the trade deadline and apparently drew relatively limited interest. Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post asked Rockies GM Jeff Bridich about the decision not to move Rosario and was told, “The trading queries were pretty quiet on Wilin.” Saunders says that sources outside the Rockies organization placed too much value on Rosario; the Rockies see him as a Major League talent, writes Saunders, but some other clubs view him as more of a fringe big leaguer.
Preller needs to mature into this job, and not treat Peter Gammons like he’s Barbara Walters. EVERY team has their professional scouts out all summer. Taking heat is in his job profile
Yeah I love the insinuation that he’s asking his scouts to go above and beyond the call by being “out on the road” all Summer. That’s their job, for goodness sake.
I’m not going to slight the scouts…that’d be ridiculous.. I know what they do and all about the price their family pays..ALL about that…but Preller crying through the media is weak
You’re missing the point- Preller is taking issue with critics saying the Padres didn’t or haven’t done their due diligence regarding how they handled things so far this season including scouting which is a reason they dealt prospects over winter and didn’t trade this summer so far. Preller is sticking up for his employees who are being slighted although no directly. Taking shots at the Padres inactivity is taking shots at his employees in Prellers mind. Hindsight is always 20/20. Even then people criticizing the Padres still have no clue what they’re talking about.
They look at Ross and Turner, but fail to realize Max Friend is still recovering from TJS while Burch Smith had TJS this year, Jace Peterson has crashed since his hot start hovering around a .250 average, Jesse Hahn is out, Grandal is great offensively, but has been awful behind the plate defensively and his pitch framing benefits from have 2 of the top 10 best pitchers in the game, Ryan Hanigan and Rene Rivera have been way below average offensively.
They criticize not trading Upton but fail to realize they have the QO which nets them an extra 1st who if they fail to sign nets them an extra 1st the following year. Cashner and Ross can be dealt at the winter meetings.
Despite all the moaning and groaning of the Shields contract hes still pitching to a xFIP of 3.37.
Not trading the others says teams only offered little to no upside guys or reclamation projects or super raw talent in low A.
9 starts Wisler has an xFIP of 4.78,
I think that the point is that GM’s in MLB are going to be criticized. It goes with the job as much as being booed goes with being a player. When a person is in the job they bypass that stuff and get to the point.
Preller is like a rock star.
Criticizing the GM is one thing, but they’re not criticizing JUST Preller. They’re criticizing the whole organization top to bottom.
Is it fair to scouts when a GM ignores advice and does what he wants? No, its not. Which is why Preller is sticking up for his employees. That’s what a good boss does. Implying the moves weren’t well thought out and disassembling a farm system that has produced no superstars in the last 3-5 years, aside from Ross so far for the Nationals, while questioning everyone involved will irk any GM.
Preller is in charge of the agenda of the baseball side. Maybe he didn’t give the scouts a course or didn’t follow their advice because he backed himself into a corner and isn’t running his front office. Scouts were likely doing their job. Each of those guys sees every teams system and knows what they have…they watch them all season until that deadline. I’d place money the scouts had the info but Preller couldn’t get deals done…simply because of who he was trying to deal….that was his no exit strategy flaw last offseason. To me it sounded like him bringing his scouts in as soon for his error.
Doesn’t matter what some scout hitting the pavement out to the Midwest League thinks about a low a player in case they have to deal Kimbrel or Shields…its those contracts that aren’t getting moved. Preller put his pro scouts in a difficult place
Trading Kimbrel’s contract isn’t impossible. If Papelbon’s contract can get traded Kimbrel can easily be moved on waivers or at the winter meetings. The only impossible contracts to trade without eating money are Shields, Kemp, Melvin Upton and Gyorko. Of which Preller inherited Gyorko’s contract.
Depending on the language in Upton’s contract he’s not going to see a majority of his money based on games played, at bats, steals etc. which could save them anywhere from 2-4 million a year since clauses in his contract won’t kick in.
Also, they could swap bad contracts at the winter meetings say Shields for Sandoval or Choo and cash. Could even get them to take Gyorko’s deal.
We’ve seen plethora of bad contracts traded for each other the past couple years. Not ideal, but he does have a way out without eating money and hoping for a resurgence of a bad contract.
AJ Preller….booo hooo!!!
Your running a professional baseball team not a summer camp for wayward kids.
You weren’t too worried when you were spending money like it was going out of style.
Why don’t you ask your owner and your fans to understand about the state of the franchise rather than Mr Red Sock, Peter Gammons.
Preller had a poor offseason and an even worse deadline. Now he’s taken to rebutting journalists. Every passing day he looks more overmatched. It hasn’t been long, but I wonder if he is starting to feel the warmth from his seat.
He’s put himself in a very tough place with that roster and his ledger.
I agree. In my opinion he then compounded the issue by hanging onto Upton, Kennedy and Venable. He should have been honest with himself and traded the free agents to be. This team is going nowhere as currently constructed and it would have helped to start rebuilding their depleted farm system.
He could have done OK going in with a better exit strategy… But he basically jumped out of the plane without a shoot. Now he’ll have to spend money just to cover the mess. He spent a ton on what looked like an average team. At first I liked what he was doing… A few moves needed to be made..but man he kept rolling like a guy who’d just hit the casino and lucked out on a slot…kept pouring those coins in.
He may be the worst GM in MLB. He has done so much damage to that franchise that it will be years before it can be calculated.
So far, he’s not as bad as the Dbacks’ or Rockies’ front offices, but he has plenty of time to catch up.
Giants parted with alot for just an above average rental.
I wonder where all the commenters are now who voted the Padres to have had the best offseason back in spring
@Cosmo1
You’re absolutely right on……everybody was singing the praises of the “rock star GM” who was making all the bold moves.
Unfortunately, we live in a “now” world and sometimes the best deals are the ones you don’t make. The Pad fans are the ones that were hung out to dry with this guy. Give me a seasoned vet GM anytime who’s not used to unlimited spending budgets for the real smart moves.
Rock star?
It must have been 45 years ago when Eric Clapton said what he had to learn was what notes not to play.
I agree.
I was writing strong things here to try to get through the noise and quite a few were deleted.
I thought moves needed to be made for sure… I understood Myers and Shields even though Shields was going to be back loaded. I get that a team sometimes needs to make a statement. But Kemp, Middlebrooks and especially Upton and Kimbrel looked desperate or a GM that highly overvalued the team he had on the field.
Go back and check my comments out….I said the defense was a mess and they had to have everything break right..they looked like a .500 team that might have chemistry issues
Preller is crazy to have turned down Fulmer for Upton, and the Mets are much better off with Céspedes, a guy who provides much more to this team than Upton could.