With the Diamondbacks striving to address the weakness in their rotation, the Padres competition has grown even more challenging, tweets Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports. The team wants to walk the fine line between contending and rebuilding by collecting a high volume of prospects for their current trade chips. Rosenthal calls it the “Kimbrel Model.” With the high cost of free agent pitching, the club’s rotation depth should become more attractive to other organizations.
- The Diamondbacks’ signing of Zack Greinke doesn’t change the Padres’ plans, tweets Rosenthal. The club will still aim to contend while reducing payroll and adding prospects. From my perspective, I see that some fans may prefer for the club to enter a full rebuilding mode while others prefer instant gratification. In the case of the Padres, the tightrope approach could make sense. The club has just enough talent to maybe get lucky, yet they’ll probably still collect early draft picks. I find their situation reminiscent of the 2015 Braves. They contended for the first half of the season before selling.
- Tyson Ross is the team’s best trade asset, but the club could also opt to extend him, suggests Rosenthal (tweet). Ross is under club control through the 2017 season. The righty is widely regarded as possessing perhaps the best slider in baseball, but his fastballs grade out as below average per PITCHf/x. He has a career 3.57 ERA with 8.49 K/9, and 3.65 BB/9. His slider-heavy repertoire means he probably won’t improve upon his walk rate, but he has posted more strikeouts and a better ERA in recent seasons.
- Per ESPN’s Jayson Stark, it would be hard for the Padres to trade Ross and pretend to contend. That could lead San Diego to prefer a trade involving Andrew Cashner, says CBS Sports’ Jon Heyman (via Twitter). The Padres will look to deal Cashner once the free agent market dries up. The hard throwing righty is coming off a disappointing season that included a 4.34 ERA with 8.04 K/9 and 3.22 BB/9. He’s posted better walk rates in past seasons, so a rebound in his control could help the 29-year-old recover his past form.
- Ten teams have shown interest in free agent third baseman Will Middlebrooks, tweets Rob Bradford of WEEI.com. The Padres non-tendered Middlebrooks earlier this week. San Diego originally acquired the former Red Sox starter last winter in exchange for Ryan Hanigan. After a promising rookie season in 2012, Middlebrooks has failed to live up to expectations. He posted a meager .212/.241/.361 line in 270 plate appearances last season.
- The Padres future flexibility depends upon which contracts they shed, tweets Dennis Lin of the San Diego Union-Tribune. The club owes about $64.5MM to eight players with four arbitration eligible players set to earn about $21MM more. Matt Kemp, Melvin Upton, James Shields, and Ross are their priciest talents.
- Lin also has the details of the split-contracts signed by Josmil Pinto and Cesar Vargas (tweet). Both will earn just north of the league minimum in the majors ($500K) with at least a six figure guarantee if optioned to the minors.
How available is Shields? What would it take?
someone willing to take his contract
As in the Padres willing to eat his contract.
Yeah basically the Padres are desperate to move the contracts they took on last season. The same contracts they thought would make them contenders. Shields, Kemp, etc.
Pads arent desperate and they arent going to be dumping salaries – no problem with Preller making it clear which MLB players are more available than others, lets see if any team(s) wants to give extra value back in a trade
I’d like the angels to get him but not taking on his contract
The money on his contract is not a huge problem (his normal production would be about worth it). It’s the opt out. He’s simply untradeable unless he agrees to drop that provision … and why would he. Dude loves SD, so a trade would have “go somewhere for a year and come back” written all over it. Every team knows that.
I’m sure every team will want that
looking at the prices for Sp. Shields is a good deal.
exactly, at the moment Shields has value – Shark basically got the same yearly amount but for 5 years instead of 3, sure Shields has the opt out after this year but i highly doubt he wants to go from team to team if he thinks whichever team he is on will remain competitiver through the life of his contract
“Slider-heavy repertoire”? Isn’t that code for am injury waiting to happen?
Funny. People have been saying that for two years now and Ross still hasn’t gotten injured once.
If those aren’t famous last words I don’t know what are.
well the Padres have been good on Ross’s yearly innings since they made him a starter a few years ago, similar to what they have done with Cashner – hope Boss Ross’s arm stays strong
You mean the Padres have been behind Cashner pitching decently for 5 and then giving up 4 runs and getting pulled in the 6th? That’s been to protect his arm? Who knew?
he could of thrown more innings in 2015 for sure there was no limit, he just didnt pitch well enough to go frther – i am saying he is primed for 200+ innings for the next 5 yrs
Ross could bring back 3 good prospects.
Yeah but it depends on who is willing to deal for him. Though I think Preller will eventually end up trading him sometime, if not this offseason, then maybe before the Deadline next year.
Depending on what they would want for Ross would love my pirates to make a run at him
Monster package
Meadows. Harold Ramirez. ???
They want a huge package of prospects….. which to me isn’t worth it for a very risky pitcher in my eyes. Better possible trade candidate pitchers are on the White Sox and Indians in Quintana, Salazar, and Carrasco. Those guys are better overall pitchers than anything any other team has to offer….. but that is just my opinion. Some people talk about Ross as if he’s the second coming of Nolan Ryan. To me he’s got more potential to be more like the second coming of Kerry Wood…. excellent pitcher until his breaking ball snaps his UCL in half. I never put trust in pitchers with as high of a walk rate Ross has. He walked walked 4 guys per 9 innings last year…… that’s awful. Limits his innings potential too. Why pay a premium for a guy in prospects if he has a hard time eclipsing 190 IP a season. He’s never surpassed 200 IP which is in my eyes a requirement to reach in order to be considered top of the rotation caliber. How “top of the rotation” is a guy who only goes not even 6 IP per start (Ross averaged 5.9 IP per start last year). I’m not giving up more than a single prospect for that and even then I’d need some convincing as to why.
I would keep Shields, just trust in the idea that he’ll probably return to form and trade him next year if he doesn’t opt out (I don’t think he will). Then I would make a serious run at extending Ross.
If you don’t think he will opt out, why would you be optimistic about his performance going forward?
It is going to take a total career year for Shields to opt out. And if he does have a career year it would really help us out.
The Padres have been trying the whole contend, but rebuild at the same time process since 2011. Last year they went all in and it didn’t work. Chances are they’re going to finish with a win total in the mid 70s again. They’re never truly awful so they can never get a top 5 pick, but they’re also almost always out of contention by July. At some point they’re probably going to have to do more of a full rebuild, but hopefully the prospects from the Kimbrel trade and whatever future trades they make this offseason pan out and it never needs to happen.
Isn’t that now the Chargers operate too? Always decent but never good.
What’s funny is that they panicked before the season was half over. Firing Black was the mark of a desperate team. The team had names and fans got excited, but it was not a solid roster by any means. I never thought they would be a threat in the NL West but I thought they would at least compete beyond the All-star break. I’d say the man making those roster decisions should be called into question.
the timing of firing Black was interesting but Preller had to get his own guys in here and Black didn’t get a managing job this offseason, possibly for a reason? In 2015, Myers & Morrow being out for most of the year hurt the Padres
and the injuries to Myers and Morrow should have surprised noone. Morrow was damaged goods; any starts they received from him were a plus. The problem was that all of the good options to replace him in the rotation (other than Despaigne) were traded away. Myers is another one who’s had health problems. He traded for people (Middlebrooks included) hoping they’d have their best years and they didn’t. Now, he’s swinging about 160 degrees in the opposite direction. Had they stood pat a year ago and kept their prospects, they’d be in much better shape now.
That’s what’s frustrating is that they have been doing this kind of thing for years now and the results are always the same. They need to have the guts to fully commit to one or the other.
One thing is for sure. You can not “rebuild but at the same time try to contend.” It’s one or the other. You have to go for it or completely tank.
most of the time ya, but taking doesnt always mean getting better quickly in all sports including baseball – outliers in each sport, like the sixers in the nba
There’s no quick fix in baseball. If you are rebuilding you have to commit to rebuilding and don’t stop until your young talent is in the Majors and succeeding. Just ask the Cubs and Astros.
Agreed, Preller made a mistake last year winning the off season. Now it is critical to make the move to rebuild.
I agree. Perhaps as the offseason moves forward we’ll see Preller start trying to move guys like Cashner and Shields.
I would bet the Pirates are one of the ten that inquired about Middlebrooks.
Why they would, I have no idea. Dude just can’t hit anymore, for whatever reason. Happens sometimes.
maybe as a invite to spring training nothing more. Kang is the starting 3rd and he I am pretty sure he doesn’t play 1st.
Kang will be out months. won’t be starting.
Well, all the pundits were going crazy last year when the Padres went on their shopping spree. Preller was everyone’s darling. Maybe the should try a little moderation in their prognostications.
I think they should just fire Preller. He clearly isn’t the man for the job. I’m not a Padres fan, though, so I hope they keep him. Even prior to last season when my fellow fans were saying “watch out for the Padres” I said, they don’t worry me at all. I didn’t think they would fall apart like they did, though.
Rockstar will bring a world series to SD before 2020
By all your classless comments it’s obvious you’re a Dodgers fan.
Imagine how good the Padres could be right now if AJ Preller had don’t literally nothing last season? They would have Trea Turner and Jace Peterson up the middle, Joe Ross pitching, Grandal at catcher (lol breakout season lol). Most importantly, they would have about 50-70 million dollars (!!!!) to spend on free agents this off season. They could have, for instance, signed Fowler, Cespedes, and Cueto. Bam, offense, pitching, defense, flexibility.
AJ Preller inherited a system that was primed and ready to go. He just had to not mess it up.
ANNNNNND he messed it up.
I disagree. Trae Turner is unproven, Jace Peterson is the same player as Spangenburg but not as good, Derek Norris wasn’t too far off from Grandal. Joe Ross I agree with but still Padres would still be bad had they stood pat. I applaud Preller for going for it
agree, everyone talkes about Turner being such a loss for the Padres – Myers becomes and all star in 2016 & everything changes
If he can stay on the field for more than 100 games.
And Preller knows he messed up with that trade. Remember how he asked for Turner back in exchange for Kimbrel at the deadline?
Grandal was worth, like, 11 more runs over Norris. That is a lot of runs for a catcher.
The Padres would have a far superior core of players with which to build around through free agency. Instead, they paid for an aging pitcher and a bunch of over the hill players. They torpedoed the whole franchise, and it would take a miracle to have a good season after this disaster. Everything would have to break exactly in their favor.
“going for it” isn’t a good enough excuse for what AJ Preller did to this franchise.
PS, it is amazing how fans assume the prospects in their farm system will always fail. Um, no, it doesn’t work like that.
I agree with you, trading basically every prospect they had besides Renfroe really hurt them moving forward, now they have aging pitchers who have a history of arm troubles, A Matt kemp who’s been fading for years, don’t get me started on Upton Jr, a closer they didn’t even get to have at his best, and a second baseman who is injury prone and inconsistent, the only deal that I feel worked out though was the Norris one, he preformed well and even if grandal was worth more runs. He hit like .80 after the all star break, not very exciting to look at for anybody, I think peeler really moved this team in the wrong direction and if this season goes as mediocre as last he should be canned
Yes, I agree, Preller is really going to have to get his stuff together in order to undo the mess he made last offseason.
Looking back now, he didn’t make the right moves, he made the flashy moves.
Every great player was unproven once. Trea Turner is an elite prospect at a position where the Padres have historically struggled. I thought we should have taken a chance on him then and I still think so now.
Turner is unproven because he’s been a professional for a year and a half. And made it to the majors in that time. Preller gave him up (along with Joe Ross, Rene Rivera, their best 1b prospect Jake Bauers who had made it to AA at 19) for an injury prone Myers and Middlebrooks, two guys who had 1 decent season and then had struggled. Preller was robbed. Here’s the trade analysis from the Rays point of view – the Nats get an A+, the Rays get an A+ and the Padres an F. rayscoloredglasses.com/2015/12/02/tampa-bay-rays-t…
The Turner/Ross Trade with Washington was definitely one of Preller’s mistakes. Ross looked great at the end of last season. Even though Turner is unproven, he would have filled a glaring hole for the Padres, and I have a hunch he would put up better numbers than someone like Amarista.
Anyone who wants Cashner is just asking for an injury. Guy has been plagued by them since his time with the Cubs.
interesting, the other hand we are looking at a starter primed to pitch 200+ innings a few times over the next 5
The Padres “will still aim to contend…” Like last season in which they loaded up the team with relatively big names for the sake of doing so then threw in the towel before the All-star game? That organization is comical and that FO has no idea what they are doing. Everyone aims…but some have the aim of a baby with a rpg shooting itself in the foot.
Grienke?! you should be a writer haha….anyways, If you take away the rumors and just take the deals Rockstar has actaully done this offseason things make sense, now i think some players may find it hard to get settled in san diego with so much movement during the last year – could just be my Padre optimism but i like what is happening and expect to see a team in 2016 that competes for a wild card while shooting up the ranks of strongest minors league systems
I heard the Kimbrel trade moved us from 29th best farm system to the “bottom third”. He has a long way to go after emptying the cupboards for a failed one season try. His failed trades put this team 3-5 years back from where they were a year ago.
i just thinking he is restocking it with better players, his players – so we might actually have some homegrown guys that make a difference on the mlb club but for sure will still be adding to the farm system
It’s going to take a lot more than just the Kimbrel trade in order to get a strong farm again.
If Preller really wants to restock the minor league system, he would continue to move guys like Ross, Cashner, Shields, heck even Gyorko.
Idiot dodger fan.
Let us see what the Rockstart gets in return but have no issues with making sure everyone knows which MLB players are most available in trades
Why dont they use Cashner as a closer? He trows hard and we know that alot of closers have a good fastball, lets just forget about the guy being a starter he simply doesn’t stay healthy
That would leave another hole in the rotation, unless they plan on making a move for more starting pitching.
He was healthy for all of 2015 and he has only ever had success as a starter. Plus there’s no way he’d agree with a move to the bullpen in his last season before free agency.
looks like Cashner could be of some value on the market now, i’d hope they wait because i think he will have atleast a strong start to the year
Casher for Gardner and a prospect seems do able.
interesting, maybe part of a slightly larger deal?