SATURDAY: Venable has cleared waivers and has accepted an outright assignment to Triple-A Oklahoma City, MLB.com’s Ken Gurnick tweets.
FRIDAY: The Dodgers have designated outfielder Will Venable for assignment, per a club announcement. He’ll be replaced on the roster by Nick Tepesch, whose contract was selected so he can start tonight.
Venable was with Los Angeles for only about a week after signing directly onto the major league roster. He contributed a single in 11 plate appearances. Venable has a track record of league-average or better hitting and brings a reliable glove to the outfield. While he has put up middling offensive numbers in each of the last two seasons, he could still contribute at the major league level at 33 years of age.
Meanwhile, Tepesch will get the nod for at least one start for L.A. He also recently joined the organization after opting out of his deal with the Rangers earlier this year. The 27-year-old righty contributed some useful frames to Texas at the major league level, but has been derailed recently by injury.
What was that, a week?
Just about, to be replaced on the roster by a pitcher who is making a spot start and will probably never be seen again. Maybe Venable will accept the assignment and make it look like signing him wasn’t a complete waste of time.
If he was right handed I would say Braves should make a trade
He could be a useful player on a lot of teams, even contenders like Cleveland or Boston who are starved for outfield options at the moment. I really don’t get why he hasn’t found a (stable) spot on a team as a fourth outfielder type.
Was thinking the sox could use him as a decent left field option
Cleveland signed him in the offseason and he was cut during Spring Training who were starved for an OF at the time.
Red Sox could use him. But pretty much anyone is an upgrade on the vaunted Ryan Lamarre/ Bryce Brentz platoon.
The rays should add him. and drop Arcia already…hahahahahha
This is great news for some San Diego fans who claim they would rather have Venable than Kemp! ROFL
Yeah, Kemp’s 0.1 WAR this season is really moving the needle on that one lol.
Almost as much as last year when he put up an electrifying 0.6 WAR in 154 games for San Diego!
except I never see WAR on the scoreboard. only runs scored and Kemp produces runs. 100RBI last year….on his way to another 100rbi season this year. and lets see….after only one week with the Dodgers, Venable is out of work again. But how can this be? He’s such a good defensive player! LOL
A lot of posters here are more into the fantasy game than the one played on grass and dirt.
News flash: every major league front office is using these metrics every day to evaluate their players and make personnel decisions. You guys are actually the ones in Fantasy Land if you are ignoring these advances in evaluating players. (And yes, it is still important to have eyes and ears)
news flash: Venable was unemployed until a couple weeks ago. The Dodgers had him for six games and he’s unemployed again. The Padres, even with all these “metrics” decided not to bring Venable back and keep Kemp. Why? Because Kemp is one of the few SD players producing at the plate and has since coming down I5. “metrics” are fine but it still boils down to putting runs on the board and Kemp does that. Venable does not.
He puts runs on the board for the other team too… And there’s your problem. He is a lawn ornament in RF, one of the worst defenders in baseball actually. It cancels out what he does offensively which is why nobody wanted him.
It would cost them $18 million dollars a year to cut Kemp…
No one wants him for that money. Not one wants him at all. At this point, Preller is just saving face…
moving players with big contracts is always difficult. I don’t know LA could move Pujols or that Detroit could trade Cabrera. Same with the Marlins and Stanton. Votto? Cano? I know Texas would never be able to trade Fielder or Choo. I can’t think of any team that would want Hayward right now. Probably Kershaw is the only exception to that rule and maybe only the Yankees would take that on. But it’s the price of doing business in MLB in 2016. Harper will get a contract that will make Stanton’s look small.
I think any team in the MLB that sees themselves as competitive would find a way to afford Kershaw if the Dodgers made him available tomorrow.
Venable isn’t going to cost the Padres 75 million dollars over the next few years. Kemp isn’t good. He’s drawn 5 walks this year. He can’t field or run at all anymore. All those RBIs have led the Padres to two straight bottom of the cellar finishes. He’s an albatross around the Padres organization, and trading for him was a terrible decision. But, hey, RBIs!!!
Kemp doesn’t put runs on the board. If he did he would have been traded long ago. No team wants him. He’s not a good baseball player. Look at how much money the Padres ate to get rid of James Shields. If they had an offer even half that good for Kemp he’d have been traded long ago. It’s about value, and Kemp has none. And every other team in the league knows that.
Will Venable is a fourth outfielder making the league minimum. Matt kemp is making 20+ million a year to basically hit the occasional home run. He’s a dreadful investment for a small-market team.
Except WAR is calculated based on actual play on the field. The first letter, W, stands for Wins, right? For all those homers and RBIs, the Padres haven’t been doing much winning with Kemp in the lineup, have they? There’s correlation there, but also causation. Kemp isn’t any good and hurts the team, and that’s before you figure in his terrible contract.
Many years ago, Ralph Kiner once said: “home runs hitters drive Cadillacs and singles hitters drive Fords.” Yes, today even rookies can drive Caddies, but the point was the guys who drive in runs make a lot more money in baseball. It was true then and it’s true today. There is a premium price paid for guys like Kemp who drive in runs and why Venable is looking for another job. I don’t argue the Padres are more successful with Kemp than Venable any more than I would have argued Kiner made the Pirates 65 years ago a much better team than what happened. Kiner was not good in the field, didn’t steal bases. But the Pirates paid him a LOT more than anyone else. The highest paid players in the game today are the guiys who drive in runs. MLB teams can see metrics like “:WAR” but to boils down to who produces runs. I understand frustrated SD fans—-but taking out the lousy record on the most productive guy in the lineup is misplaced. If the rest of the team produced as well as Kemp,(who is 7th in MLB in RBIS) the Padres would be in first place by 10 games. Reminds me of when ARod was with Texas and Rangers fans blamed him for the team doing lousy even though he had three of the greatest seasons in MLB history with the Rangers,. Goes with the paycheck, I guess.
If every player on the Padres had 51 RBIs then, yes, they would probably be good because they would have scored a lot of runs. One reason why there aren’t a bunch of guys “driving in runs” on the Padres is because there’s ablack hole on offense batting third every day – a guy with a 270 OBP and a 5-65 BB/K ratio. And then he gives up runs left and right in the outfield because he can’t field at all. And he’s not even close to the Pads most productive player – Myers and Upton are both more productive, and even Jon Jay has contributed more, although he hasn’t been very good either.
If Kemp had value – if he was truly valued for his RBIs – he would have been traded already. Nobody wants him. The truest measure of value – forget WAR, forget (please) RBIs – is whether a player has value to his team, and Kemp doesn’t. San Diego has been trying to trade him for a year now, and nobody wants him. Ryan Howard drove in a hundred runs a couple years ago and, guess what? Nobody wanted him either. RBIs aren’t anything. Watch Kemp bat some time. He can’t rotate his hips anymore and he’s put on some obvious weight. So he has to cheat on fastballs and because he has no more hip rotation can’t adjust mid-swing at all anymore. Hence, no walks, tons and tons of strikeouts, and a bunch of guess homers.
that’s not a good player, and certainly not a 75 million dollar guy.
If you’re gauging value by team wins….yes…obviously, Kemp has not helped the Padres and neither has anyone else on that team. Kiner didn’t help the Pirates, either in that regard. Same thing with Pujols, Votto or any other player on a last place team. I won’t argue about the outrageous contracts in baseball today. Teams get in a feeding frenzy for run producers because they’re hard to find. Washington is going to give Harper a huge contract that I suspect they’ll be sorry for in a few years. Why? RBI’s are of value which is why Venable is unemployed. light hitting OF’s are EZ to find no matter how good their defense and they don’t win championships unless they’re surrounded by good hitters like a Cesar Geronimo. Yes, it would be hard to trade Kemp just as it was hard for Texas to trade ARod even after three of the greatest seasons in history. Think a lot of teams would take on Stanton’s contract without Miami paying a huge sum of it? Same for Votto, Pujols, Cano or Cabrera. There’s no real logic to these contracts but teams pay it because they want run producers. Howard’s case is special because he was injured and has never bounced back., Kemp used to have great speed and won GG’s, but his injuries changed that part of his game. As much as you may poo-poo RBI’s, teams value those runs and always have. That’s the reason Harper is going to get a contract some believe may exceed $400 million.
But harper gets on base, plays very good defense with a cannon arm, is ten years younger than Kemp. Of course he’s going to get paid. The other guys you mention – well, Votto is still productive but is viewed as a disappointment because he trades walks for homers. He is a good defensive player. Miggy is still hitting like crazy, perhaps the best pure hitter in baseball but isn’t good defensively and won’t be good by the end of that contract. Pujols was a terrible contract the day it was signed – he’s almost becoming the AL version of Kemp except Pujols takes a free pass occasionally. Cano is still one of the best hitters in the AL, plays outstanding defense at a premium position, and is only 33 with no signs of slowing down.
Kemp is none of those things (let alone anything approaching prime ARod, which is a preposterous comparison). Kemp is a 31-year-old outfielder who cannot field his position and overnight seems to have lost the ability to run at all. Even last season he stole 12 bases. This year, with a manager who is stealing bases a lot more than his predecessor, Kemp has attempted zero steals. And his walk rate has absolutely collapsed. He’s drawn six walks and struck out 75 times. That’s historically bad. It’s bad, man. All the RBIs in the world aren’t going to make up for the fact that in every other facet of the game Kemp is bad. I don’t know if it’s the hips or the weight or if one is connected to the other, but this isn’t going to end well. If teams truly valued RBIs he’d have suitors lining up out the door. He doesn’t because teams are much more astute at evaluating talent these days.
And Venable isn’t even the point – he’s basically always been a fourth outfielder, a guy who could run and play defense and hit a bit against righties. He’s never been a star or even a regular, and he’s certainly never been paid like one. The Dosgers signed him specifically to play a week and then send him down. The Padres dumped a bunch of useful outfielders in the offseason of 2014-15 and acquired matt Kemp, who hasn’t actually helped the team win. I’m a lifelong Padres fan, born and raised in san Diego, and I’d much rather see Cameron Maybin, Mallex Smith, Hunter Renfroe and Travis Jankowski in the outfield at this point.
Dodgers sure know how to spend money….. It’s about chemistry that they don’t get…..
Really astute point that adds so much to the conversation considering San Francisco has the fifth highest payroll in baseball this year, spending almost $180 million.
Viewed in hindsight, obviously the deals the Pads made last year to get better didn’t work out. Who else was available during the 14-15 off season? Did ownership order Preller to get something exciting to sell tickets? I don’t know that. But you can only deal with the cards that are dealt you and Upton, Kemp, Myers, Shields seemed like the best options AT THAT TIME.
Venable is very much the point. He was the Padres RF in 2014. It was a team that didn’t have ONE player drive in more than 51 runs! Your team felt they needed to get some bats on offense and got Upton, Kemp and Myers. I’m not comparing Kemp and ARod in talent—-but the process was the same. Texas fans blamed ARod for the team being bad just as you blame Kemp. In his prime, before the injuries, Kemp was a helluva player and THAT’S why he got the big contract from LA. But injuries have limited that once great talent. I won’t disagree he is overpaid. But I could say the same for all those other players I mentioned as well. But it’s the price of doing business in MLB. You want a great bat, you have to pay for it. Kemp was doing everything Harper is right now. Harper is not going to be as good a player in 10 years that he is right now but he’s going to be paid like it…..like Stanton. I seriously doubt that if Miami was in a sell mode that many teams would be after him UNLESS the Marlins were willing to eat a sizeable amount of his contract,. It’s much like Detroit had to do with Fielder and Texas had to do with ARod. They too, were/are stupid contracts.
What is your Padres problem is the lousy farm system they’ve had for 20 years. Guys like Ramirez, Wallace, Rosales, Jankowski, Solartem Bethancourt, Rea, Cashner, Vargas and others just aren’t getting it done. Rodney, Pomeranz, Kemp, Myers and Upton are the only real bright spots. But it’s not enough to lift them out of the hole.
We’re in agreement then. I don’t know if Preller’s awful 2014-15 offseason was his doing or ownership’s, but it was a disaster. Kemp will be the longest-lasting symptom of it, unfortunately.