The Orioles and Padres are in agreement on a trade that will send right-hander Odrisamer Despaigne to Baltimore in exchange for minor league right-hander Jean Cosme, tweets Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports. Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com had first reported that Cosme was headed to the O’s in exchange for a pitcher off San Diego’s Major League roster.
San Diego also announced the previously-reported signing of reliever Fernando Rodney. The veteran, late-inning righty needed a 40-man spot, and he’ll take over for the departing Despaigne.
Despaigne, 28, is coming off a tough season with the Padres in which he posted a sky-high 5.80 ERA with 4.9 K/9, 2.3 BB.9 and a 50.5 percent ground-ball rate in 125 1/3 innings. While the ERA is certainly uninspiring, metrics such as FIP, xFIP and SIERA all pegged Despaigne more in the mid-4.00 range, with some of the ERA spike being attributed to an abnormally low number of runners stranded and a spike in his homer-to-flyball ratio. A year prior, Despaigne tossed 96 1/3 innings in his rookie season, compiling a considerably better 3.36 ERA with 6.1 K/9, 3.0 BB/9 and a 52.5 percent ground-ball rate. Despaigne has experience both in the rotation and the bullpen and will give Baltimore another arm for its rotation mix or serve as a candidate to compete for a swingman job out of the bullpen. As Kubatko noted, Despaigne also has minor league options remaining (three of them, to be exact), so he can be sent down to Triple-A and stored at Norfolk as a depth piece in the event that an injury arises.
From the Padres’ vantage point, Despaigne probably became expendable when the team added Carlos Villanueva to serve as a swingman/long reliever. Dennis Lin of the San Diego Union-Tribune points out (on Twitter) that the trade also frees up a spot on the 40-man roster for Fernando Rodney, whose one-year deal with San Diego has yet to be announced. Cosme is a 19-year-old out of Puerto Rico that Baltimore selected in the 17th round of the 2014 draft. He’s posted a 4.73 ERA with 8.7 K/9 against 3.2 BB/9 in 72 1/3 professional innings but did not rank among Baltimore’s Top 10 prospects this offseason, per Baseball America.
Of course, the broader move also ties in with the Rodney signing. He’ll join the Pads on an incentive-laden deal and look to rebound from a tough 2015 season. Soon to turn 39, Rodney’s ratios and results suffered last year. But he may have been somewhat unlucky in the volume of home runs he surrendered, and still brings a 95+ mph heater.
Ah, wish it was for Pomeranz but I’ll take this deal too!
Ooh, big stuff right here. Orioles are a lock to win the East now
There’s always that one guy who doesn’t understand minor league depth signings.
He’s being sarcastic
He should do much better pitching in the AL and Camden Yards.
as a giants fan I say YES! get him out of the division – the giants can’t seem to figure that guy out.
Good lord, this guy won’t last 5 minutes in the AL East, what an uninspiring get from Baltimore.
Command is a cause for concern, but he’s an extreme groundball pitcher which profiles well for Camden Yards. Has minor league options, so he’ll probably be splitting his time between spot starts and AAA Norfolk. Groundball, Lineout, Flyable ratios of 56/22/22 in the 2nd half last year were pretty close to the 56/21/23 numbers Dallas Keuchel put together in 2013. He’s not a sure thing by any means, but if he can pitch close to his 2014 numbers, he’s a cheap arm that’s controllable through 2020.
Really? A Dallas Keuchel comparison?
He’s just saying his ratios are similar. I mean three, four years ago not many, if any, people knew who Keuchel was. Not saying Despaigne is the next Keuchel but theres reason to believe he can be decent when his ratios are similar to the Cy Young winner’s.
Exactly. If Despaigne is able to become even more of a roundball hitter, and a catcher like Matt Weiters can help guide the pitch calling, there’s the possibility of 2014 like Splits for Keuchel. Not saying Despaigne is a potential Cy Young winner, or even front rotation material, but he can be above average and a decent fit for The Orioles. Perfect guy for Duquette, low risk high upside.
Meh, the AL East isn’t particularly good with the bats, except for Toronto. Despaigne is a groundball pitcher who had an awful — and awfully unlucky — season last year. He’s probably better than some of what the O’s were thinking of throwing out there this year. And young.
As a Padre fan, I’ve watched this guy pitch a lot. He throws junk. Lots of arm angles, lots of pitches, but all of it is below-average. He’s a little like late-career Jose Contreras, maybe? Or Livan (I know, all Cuban pitchers.) The stuff isn’t good, and he’s going to get creamed in the AL East.
His 91-93 mph 4 seam FB, is above average with above average movement. His sinker is above average. His cutter is above average. His Changeup is also above average. He throws about 8 different pitches, but those make up the majority. If Norris knew how to call a game he could have repeated 2014. With his cutter and sinker being so effective in 2014, of course, Norris called for half as many cutters and 25% less sinkers. Who needs groundballs when you have such a stellar outfield defense.
Not like our IF defense was much better
At 90.8 MPH, his fastball is decidedly not above average for a right-handed pitcher. If he truly threw four very good pitches he would have been a starter rather than a swingman. Every scouting report I’ve seen on him refers to him as a junkballer, a deception guy rather than a guy with good stuff. The eye test proves this; I’ve watched him pitch plenty. His stuff is mediocre.
Despaigne suffered from the same two things every one of our pitchers did, Norris’ game calling and a really bad defense.
And his stuff is well below-average, too.
Yeah and the O’s have a fully healthy Matt Weiters and a great infield with Machado, Hardy, Schoop, and Davis.
He sure wasn’t helped by the defense, but he also walks a lot of guys, misses in the zone even more often, and records very few strikeouts. That’s a tough recipe for success.
Yes, THANK YOU!!
I’m not a Padres fan, but everyone is hating on their pitchers, without the insight of just how bad their defense really was…
Especially for a GB pitcher, much less also for any pitcher, having faith in his defense and catcher makes all the difference in the world!!
The Padres fielded one of the worst defenses I have seen in my 22 years of being a baseball fan, I’m 28. That can destroy a pitchers confidence to throw certain pitches in given scenarios, and definitely effects a pitcher negatively.
Not to mention the countless runs that scored against the Padres pitchers that were technically considered “earned runs.” Just because a fielder cannot properly get over to a batted ball, that does not mean it is the pitcher’s fault. It simply means that player has poor range and instincts.
Collectively, the Padres pitchers suffered all year long through these type of issues, and similar ones as well..
Maybe they did not 100% pitch their best as a group, but statistics absolutely DO NOT tell the whole story!!
Despaigne barely walked anyone. He’s just really hittable.
Nope. It’s not. My eyes tell me that and the stats from Pitch F/X reinforce what I saw him do. Bad defense and bad catcher killed him. He will do well in Baltimore.
He also suffered from the insane way in which he was used.
The guy’s stuff is not mediocre. I have watched him pitch as well, and just last night in fact on MLB TV. I watched two games from May last year against the Angles and Pirates, and saw him leave Trout and McCutchen scratching their heads.
He only needs three things:
A manager that knows how to use pitchers without abusing them,
A catcher that doesn’t look more confused by his stuff than the batters are.
And a team behind him that doesn’t look as clueless as the Pads did at times last season!
No! He is not perfect, and there are parts of his game that need a little work, but I think you could expect that from a player who has only been in the States for 2 seasons. Do yourself a favor before throwing him under the bus, go back and watch any of the 20+ very good games he’s pitched in his short career.
Darn. I am going to miss the last chance to hear Vin Scully pronounce his name.
Retracted! The Dodgers host the O’s for three in July!
they have so many right handed options and they decided to add yet another. so smart. has Dan lost his job yet?
The O’s are garbage. I would have sign Matt Latos.
They are disappointing that’s for sure.
They spend all this money on Davis and O’Day, but they do nothing to make the team better. Their rotation is iffy and their outfield smells like low-tide at the Chesapeake!
SMH
I’d rather have them look internally for outfield options like Remold, Rule 5 pick Joey Rickard, Dariel Alvarez, and Henry Urrita then pay $27 million for one year of Cespedes. Even after signing Davis, the O’s had a 5 year offer on the table better than the Nationals! They’ve done so much more this offseason than in the past.
Rotation is a concern, but then again, look at the Royals. Bullpens win ballgames!
OD had shown flashes of being decent, but his control issues inside and outside of the strike zone always punished him.
Awesome he will definelty do better in Baltimore if he can work on his control nice pickup for the Orioles
If he can do better at the things he doesn’t do well, he’ll do better.
Hard to argue with such reasoning!
He has the ability to keep the ball on the ground better than most. In San Diego that didn’t help him last year because their defense was so bad. In Baltimore it will definitely be a great skill to have. Just not having Norris call his games will be worth at least a point on his ERA.
As a Padres fan, this has me shaking my head again. What is Preller doing exactly? Does he have a plan at all? He takes on a major league record 4 Rule V players and then says he expects all to make the opening day roster. He trades guys like OD and Liriano who will be major league contributors this year for guys that have no shot at ever making the majors. He guts the bullpen for guys that will not contribute to the major league club for years, Not bad moves, just interesting if you are not rebuilding. He trades for Jay who won’t be completely healthy this year because of a wrist injury that typically takes 2 years to completely heal from and signs a 39-year-old closer and the single worst shortstop in the game last year. He is counting on Myers at 1B with no reasonable MLB backup. A guy who has 24 games at the position and has never played a full season in the majors because of injuries. We have the single worst defensive OF in the game in RF in Kemp who was so bad on that side of the ball that even a decent offensive season only made him a tick above a replacement level player. We have utility players at 2b and 3B. And the icing on the cake is we still have a catcher that helped every pitcher on the team to have a worse season in 2015 than he did in 2014. Is Preller purposely tanking the season, but with a team record payroll?
Spot on. I watched or listened to just about every game last year and there wasn’t enough attention put on the fact that Norris just didn’t handle the pitching staff well, credit to the team that nobody complained about it or threw him under the bus but I think that should be talked about a lot more honestly. It’s not a coincidence that Shields, Cashner, Despaigne and Kennedy all had really rough years. Not to mention when you watch a game with Hedges behind the dish it looks totally different, just how he sets up back there, he oozes with confidence when he calls the games. I tried looking for the pitchers era with hedges behind the plate and the era with Norris but couldn’t find it. It would be interesting to know the difference, we all know that Norris had the stick to back up his defensive woes but I agree with you 100%, on everything you said but I think this is the most important thing that needs to be addressed.
Hedges was 3.85 and Norris was 4.14 last year. The Stat you’re looking for is cera, catchers era.
Thank you, appreciate that.
Ah, so .29 of a run per game. I’m thinking Norris’ bat over Hedges probably makes up for that.
And that stat is somewhat flawed because they aren’t all catching the same pitchers. Like last year Rivera’s cERA was much lower than Grandal’s because he was catching Cashner, Ross and Kennedy while Grandal caught Stults and whoever else we had starting that year.
Exactly, not to mention Hedges didn’t even get called up until mid may, after they released Wil Nieves. Then when he was up Hedges only got to start every 5th day or so, played in probably 1/4 of the innings Norris did so that stat might be a little skewed. Then when you bring Norris’s bat into the discussion it evens it out like you mentioned Ryan.
I guess it’s a good problem to have, 2 catchers that are almost polar opposites. Better than having a log jam at the position with multiple guys with the same skill sets.
Only one pitcher had both Hedges and Norris catch enough games to make the difference statistically relevant. Ross. Take a look at Ross prior to June 20th and from that point on. Day and night., Ross had a 3.90 ERA after Norris last start behind the plate for him and had lowered it to 3.26 by the end of the season. more than 2./3 of a run difference. If it wasn’t for 2 innings Norris caught him on Sept 10th when he gave up 2 home runs in 2 innings with Norris behind the plate, his ERA would have been even better. If it was one or two pitchers that had problems, you could say it’s only the defense’s fault, or it’s the pitcher’s fault, but when all the pitchers had the same problems with hits, walks and home runs, it’s on the game calling as much as the defense. If your OF defense sucks, and it did, you don’t call for pitches up in the zone especially curve balls, you call for pitches that are low in the zone and induce ground balls. If your pitchers have great movement on pitches, and they all do, you don’t call for almost 20% more pitches out of the zone trying to strike out more guys. Norris stinks. It’s really hard to even argue for anything he did behind the plate that was worthwhile.
Good research, it’s totally apparent to the naked eye when you tune into games and see the difference in commanding the strike zone, controlling the running game, pitch calling and pitch framing.. All of these components of catching Hedges blows Norris out of the water in.
In 2014, Ross and Cashner had Rene Rivera to throw to and posted strong numbers, Despaigne primarily threw to Grandal and looked good as well. It was like the same situation we have now, 1 guy is defensive minded and can hit and the other can’t.
I mean, in 2010 we had Yorvit Torrealba behind the plate and what he did with that pitching staff was amazing, we were in the pennant hunt until the last weekend of the season with virtually no offense at all from the catchers position. Don’t get me wrong, I like Norris but the defense is a liability and with the quality teams in the NL West you can’t give games away with shotty defense and errors. Good teams take advantage of that.
Norris controlled the running game just fine. I don’t think runners will run on him as much in 2016. Unless they are okay with getting caught 1/3 of the the time but if that’s the case then they will start stealing against everyone else a lot more because there is no reason that Derek Norris should lead the Majors in runners attempting to steal on him, especially not by as much as he did. If you look at the stats, he’s technically above average at throwing out baserunners.
“It’s really hard to even argue for anything he did behind the plate that was worthwhile.”
Throwing out baserunners. It is impossible to argue that he was bad at that in 2015. But I bet you will ignore that because you know you’re wrong about it.
I don’t disagree with your assessment of Norris’ pitch calling but once again, it is and always will be more on the pitcher. The pitcher has to execute no matter who is behind the plate. They reserve the right to throw whatever they want, however they want, whenever they want and no one knows their own stuff better than they do. It’s not like Clayton Kershaw would suddenly suck if Norris were behind the plate.
In any case, it is difficult to quantify how much of an effect Norris’ pitch calling had and if it was enough to justify using Austin Hedges (a largely inferior hitter) as our first string catcher.
Catcher era as a useful stat was discredited and discarded long agoi. Nobody takes it seriously, nor should they.
Whoa, there, Nellie. There’s a reason these guys were let go, and there’s a reason they brought in the ones they’re getting.
Liriano was out of options. On the organizational depth chart, he was behind Kemp, Upton, Jay, Dickerson, and now Blash. He’s had time to prove that the failures of his 2014 callup were fixed, and there was little to no improvement. A year from now, Hunter Renfroe, Travis Jankowski, and maybe Manuel Margot will be ready to step in. Liriano had no future with the organization.
Similarly, Despaigne was redundant behind Maurer, Morrow, Villanueva, and others. Last year he was shaky at best. He’s 28, so he’s a little old for Preller’s future vision.
Trevor Seidenberger is a promising lefty with a great approach and mechanics that can be refined. Jean Cosme is a promising young righty who’s off to a good start at 19 years old. Both of these guys could be in the bigs. Seidenberger could be up this year or next, and Cosme in as soon as two to three. Both have a decent chance of making it.
Don’t waste your time on this commenter. He is useless. He said we should have declined Benoit’s option (which would have entailed paying him $1.5m to just leave) and then was mad when we picked up Benoit’s option and then traded him for a couple of halfway decent prospects.
I have never said that about Benoit.
Not you, Pads Fans
West Coast Ryan, You know that I never said any such thing. If you can find somewhere where I said that, post the link. Otherwise, stop lying.
I have been angry about many of Preller’s moves, but Benoit was not one of them. I still think he could have received more in trade for him, but that is a different discussion.
Don’t remember where I saw it but I’m 99% sure you said we should have declined his option and I know you were ranting about the return in the trade.
My opinion was that we should have traded him at the deadline instead of the offseason but the return we ended up getting for him was acceptable.
WTF are you talking about?
Liriano was called up coming off a FULL YEAR off for Tommy John Surgery. That he didn’t excel on a crappy team we had on the field was no surprise. Then last year he didn’t even get a chance to be called up and he had a very good year in AAA and increased his walks. He did everything he needed to do to prove he belonged. And he will get a chance, just not with us.
Just for comparison, Liriano struck out the same amount as Renfroe, he just walked nearly twice as much while hitting 20 points higher, with a 62 point higher OBP and almost exactly the same slugging percentage (that is power), 3 times as many stolen bases and played better OF defense. But you are trying to say he doesn’t belong and Renfroe does?
Please don’t even try to say that Blash is even close to the same quality of player that Liriano is. Margot wasn’t even the better prospect in that trade, Guerra is, and he is a punchless wonder who is still 2 plus years away from the majors. He is Jankowski revisited. Neither Margot or Jankowski is a corner OF which is what Liriano or Renfroe if he makes it, would bring to the table.
Jay is a mistake. We have had ample evidence close at hand (pun intended) that it takes 2 seasons to fully recover from the type of injury Jay had last season. He will not be up to his typical .280-.290 hitter stuff in 2016 and then he will be gone as a free agent. He doesn’t hit for power and hasn’t shown speed since 2012. What he brings to the club is questionable.
Seidenberg is totally and completely worthless to our MLB team. He does not have a single pitch that grades out as a plus pitch at this level. None. Baseball America said that he grades out at a 40 overall as his ceiling. That is well below average. He failed miserably when called up to AA which is the litmus test for pitchers. They have already said he will start the season for the Storm. Maybe, Thor reaches down and touches his arm and he makes it to the bigs for 2018 or 2019.
Cosme might turn into a decent prospect. Right now he was on no one’s radar. He didn’t factor in the top 30 for the Orioles on any of the grading services. If by some miracle the kid does make it to the majors, it will not be before 2019 or 2020.
OD had two problems in 2015. Norris game calling and bad defense, His stuff was just as good. Same movement, better velocity. He wasn’t scheduled to be a starter, but he certainly has shown at the major league level that he can do it, while Rea, Erlin and the rest of the maybes haven’t.
Morrow is hurt and may or may not even make the team. Maurer is a pretty good shot to make the rotation, but then he is an injury risk and Villanueva is not a starter by any stretch of the imagination.
So tell me, how does that help us? Any of it. You can try to spin this, but the facts are neither of those moves helped the team, now or in the future. They make zero sense.
I’ll say it again. No one thinks highly of Jon Jay. That trade was 110% to get rid of Gyorko. Maybe Jay will rebound in 2016, maybe he won’t. I don’t think Preller cares as long as fatso is gone.
A lot of the move indeed don’t make a ton of sense at all but it’s clear what they are doing..
Gutting the holdovers on the roster from the Byrnes/Hoyer regime. We all knew as padre fans entering the 2014 season which Preller took over a little after the all-star break, that there were some stale players on the MLB club that had reached their ceilings who slowly but surely needed to be moved for example: (Headley, Hundley, Venable, Maybin, Cabrera, Gyorko, etc) all while trying to bring in guys he likes into the system at the same time. It sucks to see his plan develop so slowly but I hope it works out and we are competitive sooner rather than later because with what’s going on with the Chargers this city needs a winner and we are tired of the phrase “there’s always next year”. We finally have an owner in Ron Fowler that is willing to spend, it’s just all got to finally come together somehow. Too many loyal fans in this city and to not reward them with a championship soon would be crappy. I mean look at us all, we are on an MLB trade rumors forum, licking our chops and fired up for a team that we love who has never won a World Series or pitched a no-hitter and 6 months ago never had a cycle in franchise history. This franchise should be estatic that it is still supported by people like us on here that just want to club to succeed.
Yeah this is yet another puzzling move made by Preller. This team is certainly not going to win the division, but it seems like they are just trying to get more and more mediocre. Maybe they are going for a high draft pick next year?
Very puzzling to say the least. 2-3 weeks ago we are “kicking the tires on Cespedes” and in the last week we have just traded 2 guys to clear spots on the 40 man roster for a couple low A ball players.
If they are planning a rebuild then great, but I think they just be honest and open with the fans. As the host city for the All-Star game this year it looks like they don’t want to call this year a rebuild because they want attendance up and attention to the product until after the mid-summer Classic.
Bleacherbum,
I agreed with a post of yours a few stories ago but this post has me puzzled. You think Despaigne was worth keeping? Every time he started or came into a game, I thought’ Oh geez we’re done”. This is not a loss for the Padres. In fact, I like that Preller is getting rid of the in between players who have not proved themselves as consistent contributors. Out with the old in with the new. I think it’s a good thing at this point.
Petco Padre,
Don’t get me wrong, I think moving on from Despaigne was definitely the right move. What I’m concerned with is what we got in return, a 19 year old A-ball player who was a 17th round draft pick two years ago. His numbers don’t look too good and I’m worried that we just got a low minor league filler so we could free up a spot on the 40 man roster.
Signing Villanueva was basically upgrading from what we already had in Despaigne so the writing seemed to be on the wall for him getting moved soon but I think we could have totally gotten more for a guy that can slide right into most teams number 5 spot in the rotation or be their long man out of the bullpen, agree?
I feel the same way about Amarista, we brought in Jose Pirela who is almost an exact replica, an undersized utility guy/middle infielder who will hit .251 and hit 5-7 homers with 30 rbi’s in limited duty, but does that mean you give Amarista away for free basically? No I think you still need to get good value. He will be the 25th man on somebody’s opening day roster simply because of his defensive versatility but we have to maximize his trade value and either get a guy who is close to big league ready or an organizations top 30 prospect atleast.
long story short, I know Liriano and Despainge were odd men out here but I don’t think we got the most value in return that we possibly could have.
“long story short, I know Liriano and Despainge were odd men out here but I don’t think we got the most value in return that we possibly could have.”
Basically agree with this, but we needed their roster spots and Preller waited too long on them.
100%. What are your thoughts on Lincecum to SD? Talks have died down since that was originally floated around a couple weeks ago. He wants teams to attend his showcase to boost his value, which might hurt the Padres because they won’t win a bidding war with teams for him when he really only projects as a 1 year reclamation project, back of the rotation guy at this point in his career.
I think Lincecum ultimately ends up as the Giants’ closer
I can’t imagine a world in which Alexi Amarista has any trade value. He can’t hit. He can stand around at a few positions but he’s not really good at any of them. The fact that he started so many games for San Diego over the last couple seasons shows a severe lack of talent and imagination in the front office.
The Preller hate is so strong you guys get upset when he dumps a crappy pitcher off the 40 man. Lol keep it up, this is just entertaining now.
This is a rebuilding team. Don’t listen to Preller. Don’t listen to the media. This is a rebuilding team.
The Jon Jay trade was to get rid of Gyorko. No one cares about Jon Jay (altho he is a rebound candidate).
OD and Liriano were gone anyway.
Spangenberg and Solarte aren’t utility players.
Our pitchers have to execute no matter who’s behind the plate.
Despagnie is AWFUL! Quit making a big deal about a roster dump. Did you guys not watch him pitch last year?
Yes, we did see him pitch, and he’s certainly not a top of the rotation arm. I won’t miss him. But the real concern here is what Preller is trying to make this team into. They have said in the past that they want to “retool” and not rebuild, and yet all of these moves they are making don’t add up to that. If they are going to rebuild, then they should just admit it and stick to it, not beat around the bush.
Saying that, I wonder what they would have gotten back if they included Cashner in this deal.
I’m wondering the same thing. You think Cashner is on the roster opening day?
At this point, he probably will be unless some team gives a really good offer for him, which I doubt will happen. However, I could see them moving him by trade deadline if he bounced back this season.
They basically have to trade him at the deadline. He has no trade value right now but he’s a pretty safe bet to bounce back in 2016.
This is a rebuilding team. Don’t let Preller try and tell you differently.
Yes he did pitch poorly last year but who on he staff didn’t besides Tyson Ross? I don’t think it’s all on OD, Kennedy just got paid by the Royals so that is one organization that was willing to look at 2015 in a microscope of judging a guys career. Norris isn’t a good game caller and he didn’t get enough criticism for that as he should have.. He is a fan favorite because he is hard nosed plays the game the right way and people love beard but what the refuse to look at is that his defense sucks. He threw out the most runners in the league why? Because everyone continued to run on him.
Norris’s game calling, pitch framing along with the padres poor defense turned Despainge from a guy with a 3.4 era in 2014 to one with a 5.6 in 2015.
I mean Norris was exposed in that 2014 Wildcard playoff game where the Royals stole 9 bags in that game against them to win it. I think that’s why the A’s traded him to us for fairly cheap, guy can hit but his defense is no Bueno. It effected every single one of the starters on the Padres staff this season, no question about it.
Or it was all of his walks and the fact that he’s just not a very good pitcher(unless it was the Giants) Andy Greene said all of the Padres pitchers had higher walk rates last year because they didn’t trust their defense and were pitching to get Ks. Neither of those things have anything to do with Norris as a game caller. Am I saying Norris is a good defender? No he’s not a very defender, but let’s not blame him for OD stinking or the other pitchers high walk rates.
Despaigne didn’t have a problem with walks. He is actually quite good at not walking batters. He’s just really hittable.
This is the problem right? If what you write is correct; that the pitching suffered because the Padres” historically awful defense made them gun-shy, wouldn’t Preller, you know, try to improve the defense? But he hasn’t made a single move in that direction. I mean, maybe Ramirez is a better shortstop than Clint Barmes, but he can’t hit. Solarte is a butcher at third. Myers hasn’t proven he can play defense anywhere. Kemp was an unmitigated disaster in right field. Norris is terrible defensively. Jon Jay is nothing special; he can’t throw, but that’s not as much of an issue in left field. The Padres have one above average defender, Upton, and he can’t hit either. Gonna be a long season.
Norris did have more runners run on him than any other catcher in the Majors, but if you look at his percentage of runners thrown out, he still ranked in the upper third of all qualifying Major League catchers. There’s nothing wrong with his ability to throw out baserunners. They ran on him so much because he came to the NL advertised as being bad at throwing out baserunners and everyone had just seen the Royals run all over him in the 2014 AL Wild Card game, but several pundits suggested at the time of the trade that his struggles at throwing out baserunners had more to do with the A’s pitchers being notoriously easy to steal against (I’m looking at you Jon Lester) than Norris himself. He seems to have proven them right in 2015. I don’t think runners will try it against Norris as much in 2016.
His pitch calling and framing is definitely suspect at best, but the regression of our pitching staff is more on the pitchers themselves. Our pitchers still have to execute and they reserve the right to throw whatever they want, however they want, whenever they want. Clayton Kershaw would not suddenly suck if he were throwing to Norris. Furthermore, it’s difficult to quantify how much of a difference Norris’ pitch calling was making (if any) and whether or not we would have won more games with Hedges (and his offensive shortcomings) as our first-string catcher.
Well said, spot on. Do you think Preller tries to deal him before the season or he hangs on to him? If Andy Green is going to be a Defense, Defense, Defense type manager which he is preaching then Hedges would be his guy, even though his hitting needs a ton more work. Teams like the Nats and Rangers seem to be looking for more catching help. I like Texas because they could DH him from time to time and maybe the pads could pry a top 10 prospect away from them for Norris.
I don’t see us trading Norris right now, Hedges needs some time in AAA to work on his hitting and Norris is the only other capable Major League catcher we have. Norris will be traded eventually once Hedges is ready to start in the Majors every day. I think Preller trades Norris next offseason.
They were saying that Bethancourt’s defense was pretty shaky in Atlanta as well, might be rough watching Norris and him split time if they don’t clean some stuff up. Hedges just needs to be able to hit .250 every year with a little pop and he will be more than an asset because he defense is just that good. A full year in AAA should do him well.
Exactly
Yes, I agree that Norris is not the ideal catcher they should have calling games. That should be Hedges’ job. If they’re going to keep Norris for his bat, then they should look to relocate him to another position. Sure he’s a fan favorite, but things seemed better when Hedges was catching.
Like I said before, it’s difficult to quantify how much of an effect Norris’ game calling vs. Hedges’ has on the game (if any) and whether or not that effect is enough to justify Hedges’ offensive shortcomings. The pitcher still has to execute no matter who’s catching.
True, I see where you’re coming from. Perhaps if the defense gets better this season then that will help everyone out, regardless of who is catching.