Payroll limitations hung over the Padres’ offseason a bit, impacting their ability to make the kind of splash for which president of baseball operations A.J. Preller has become known. Still, the Friars managed to shuffle their pitching staff with a pair of rotation pickups and the acquisition of an All-Star closer.
Major League Signings
- RHP Nick Martínez: Four years, $25.5MM (includes opt-out clause after each of 2022, ’23 and ’24 seasons)
- RHP Robert Suárez: Two years, $11MM (includes opt-out clause after 2022 season)
- RHP Luis García: Two years, $7MM
2022 spending: $15.25MM
Total spending: $43.5MM
Option Decisions
- LF Jurickson Profar exercised $7.3MM player option (has $7.5MM player option for 2023 as well)
- RHP Mark Melancon declined his end of $5MM mutual option
- Team exercised $4MM option on RHP Craig Stammen
- Team declined $4MM option on CF Jake Marisnick
- Team exercised $3MM option on RHP Pierce Johnson
- Team declined $800K option on RHP Keone Kela
Trades and Claims
- Traded 2B Adam Frazier to Mariners for LHP Ray Kerr and minor league OF Corey Rosier
- Acquired C Jorge Alfaro from Marlins for cash or player to be named later
- Acquired 1B Luke Voit from Yankees for minor league RHP Justin Lange
- Acquired LF Matt Beaty from Dodgers for minor league RHP River Ryan
- Traded RHP James Norwood to Phillies for minor league 3B Kervin Pichardo
- Acquired LHP Sean Manaea and minor league RHP Aaron Holiday from A’s for minor league RHP Adrian Martinez and minor league SS Euribiel Angeles
- Traded C Víctor Caratini to Brewers for C Brett Sullivan and minor league OF Korry Howell
- Acquired LHP Taylor Rogers, LF Brent Rooker and cash from Twins for RHP Chris Paddack, RHP Emilio Pagán and minor league RHP Brayan Medina (as player to be named later)
- Traded RHP Javy Guerra to Rays for cash
- Claimed RHP Kyle Tyler off waivers from Angels
Extensions
None
Notable Minor League Signings
- Travis Bergen, Brandon Dixon, Thomas Eshelman, Heath Fillmyer, Ian Krol, Domingo Leyba, Nomar Mazara, Tayler Scott, Trayce Thompson, Mitch Walding
Notable Losses
- Shaun Anderson, Caratini, Ross Detwiler, Frazier, Guerra, Daniel Hudson, Kela, Marisnick, Melancon, Paddack, Pagán, Tommy Pham, Matt Strahm, Vince Velasquez, Trey Wingenter
The Padres entered the 2021 season as one of the league’s most talented and exciting teams. For a few months, they looked like a bona fide World Series contender, battling with the Dodgers and surprising Giants at the top of the NL West. No team had a more disappointing second half, though, and the Friars were out of playoff contention by the middle of September. Reports of clubhouse discord mounted alongside the losses, and it was obvious there’d be change afoot for a San Diego club that’s not afraid of making big moves.
Even before the regular season officially wrapped, reports trickled out the Padres would dismiss manager Jayce Tingler. They announced that decision in the early days of the postseason, with the managerial search being the Friars’ first big call of the offseason. After their hiring of a first-time skipper, Tingler, didn’t pan out as hoped, it was expected they’d search for a more experienced hand. San Diego was tied to Ron Washington, Buck Showalter, Luis Rojas, Mike Shildt and Ozzie Guillén, but their ultimate hire proved a shock. The Friars signed Bob Melvin away from the A’s on a reported three-year, $12MM deal, landing one of the league’s most highly-regarded managers in the process.
There was little indication Melvin was even under consideration before his hiring was reported, but Oakland allowed him to get out from under the final year of his contract to head south. Melvin would bring along Ryan Christenson as his bench coach, and San Diego went outside the organization to bring in positional coaches Michael Brdar (as hitting coach) and Ruben Niebla (as pitching coach).
Given the reports of behind-the-scenes discontent, a leadership overhaul seemed necessary. Still, it wouldn’t be fair to pin the blame for the team’s second-half collapse entirely on Tingler and his staff, and the Friars entered the winter needing some upgrades on the roster. Injuries to starting pitchers exposed the team’s depth last season, and San Diego’s biggest acquisitions on both the free agent and trade markets would prove to be in the rotation.
The free agent starter San Diego landed was right-hander Nick Martínez, who returned stateside after an excellent three-year run in Japan. That the former Ranger signed with the Padres — where Preller has brought in a ton of familiar faces from his Texas days — shouldn’t have been much of a surprise. Yet the terms of the deal were certainly eyebrow-raising.
Martínez commanded a four-year, $25.5MM guarantee that gives him an opt-out possibility after each of the first three seasons. There’s not a ton of upside to the deal for San Diego, then. If Martínez carries over his mid-rotation production to MLB, he’ll likely hit the open market again next winter; if he scuffles, the Friars would be on the hook for multiple years. San Diego wanted to fortify the back of the rotation for this season, though. If Martínez pitches as well as Preller and company evidently anticipate, he’d be an immediate upgrade in a win-now campaign, and San Diego could reevaluate whether they want to keep him around if/when he opts out.
Also coming over from Japan was reliever Robert Suárez, a star closer in NPB who had never pitched in the majors. Like Martínez, he signed a multi-year deal that afforded him a post-2022 opt-out, although Suárez’s two-year, $11MM commitment isn’t as significant as the Martínez contract. Suárez has averaged 98 MPH on his fastball during his first few weeks in the majors, but he might not even be the Friars’ hardest-throwing bullpen pickup of the winter. San Diego also signed Luis García, owner an upper-90s sinker, to a two-year deal after he had a stellar second-half run with the Cardinals.
Each of Martínez, Suárez and García agreed to terms on December 1, as San Diego got three free agent deals in just before the lockout. (Martínez’s deal was technically finalized after the work stoppage but agreed upon beforehand). Little did anyone know at the time, that trio of signings would be it for the Friars in free agency. The rest of the team’s heavy lifting would be accomplished by trade.
Preller hasn’t been afraid to make notable moves on the trade market. Yet his pre-lockout deals didn’t bring in a ton of impact MLB help. Second baseman Adam Frazier was dealt to the Mariners in advance of the non-tender deadline. San Diego’s big acquisition last summer, Frazier had a rough second half and was a bit superfluous on a roster that already had a fair bit of infield depth. The deal brought back a big league ready southpaw reliever in Ray Kerr, but the payroll ramifications might’ve been the bigger motivation for not keeping Frazier and his projected $7MM+ arbitration salary around (more on that in a bit).
The Marlins found themselves in a similar position with catcher Jorge Alfaro as the Padres had with Frazier. After Alfaro had disappointed as Miami’s starting backstop, the Fish acquired Gold Glover Jacob Stallings shortly before the non-tender date. Alfaro was a virtual lock to be cut loose by Miami, but the Padres jumped in and acquired him for cash or a player to be named later. In so doing, San Diego prevented Alfaro — another former Rangers prospect — from shopping his services around the market. They instead signed him to a $2.725MM deal to avoid arbitration.
San Diego went into the lockout having landed a few players of interest, but they still faced some notable question marks. The corner outfield situation was up in the air, particularly with left fielder Tommy Pham hitting free agency. Eric Hosmer’s eight-year free agent contract hasn’t panned out as hoped, leaving first base as a real issue. The new collective bargaining agreement also added the designated hitter to the National League.
Lineup depth issues loomed all the more large when the team discovered that star shortstop Fernando Tatís Jr. — who had been involved in a seemingly minor motorcycle accident during the work stoppage — had suffered a small fracture in his left wrist. The team hadn’t been allowed to communicate with Tatís during the lockout, but it quickly became apparent once he’d reported to camp that he required surgery. That’ll keep him out of action for the season’s first few months.
The Padres looked as if they could make another notable free agent splash, particularly with both the corner outfield positions and first base having myriad available free agent options. However, the front office evidently didn’t have a ton of financial maneuverability with which to work. The Padres shattered their franchise-record payroll last year, eclipsing the luxury tax for the first time in the process. San Diego went just narrowly above the $210MM base marker, with their final ledger checking in at $216.5MM. That ownership was willing to push spending forward as the team entered its contention window is commendable, but the decision to so marginally exceed the CBT ended up leaving the Friars in an unsuccessful middle-ground. It wasn’t enough to get last season’s team into the playoffs, while it set San Diego up for escalating penalties as a repeat payor in 2022 if they go past this year’s new $230MM base level.
That, seemingly, is something ownership isn’t prepared to do this time around. Throughout the offseason, reports emerged that San Diego was looking to find a taker for the remaining four years and $59MM on Hosmer’s deal and/or Wil Myers’ $21MM commitment this year (including a $1MM buyout on a 2023 option). Mark Feinsand of MLB.com tweeted shortly after the lockout the Padres were “aggressively shopping” Hosmer and Myers. Ultimately, they didn’t find a taker for either player. San Diego and the Mets reportedly made progress on a deal that might’ve seen Hosmer packaged with starter Chris Paddack and reliever Emilio Pagán for first baseman Dominic Smith, but talks ended up falling through. (Jon Heyman of the New York Post wrote last week that Mets owner Steve Cohen killed the idea).
With Hosmer and Myers still on the books, San Diego didn’t wind up with enough payroll flexibility to make another impact free agent pickup. Reports linked them with various levels of interest in Freddie Freeman, Seiya Suzuki, Nick Castellanos, Nelson Cruz and Jorge Soler, but they ultimately turned to the trade market to at least partially address some of the concerns on the roster.
San Diego’s first move was to bring in Luke Voit from the Yankees, sending pitching prospect Justin Lange in exchange. Voit looked like an odd man out in the Bronx after the Yankees re-signed Anthony Rizzo, and San Diego took a bounceback flier on a potential middle-of-the-order bat at first base/DH. Voit dealt with various injuries during a disappointing 2021 season, but he led MLB in home runs in 2020 and has generally been an excellent hitter over the past few years. Shortly after the Voit trade, San Diego picked up bat-first utilityman Matt Beaty in a deal with the division-rival Dodgers. Beaty had been designated for assignment by L.A., but he’s been a solid hitter during his MLB tenure and can bounce between the infield and corner outfield.
Even as the Padres explored dealing from their rotation to continue upgrading the offense, San Diego seized on the opportunity to land one of the trade market’s top available arms. In what proved arguably the Friars’ biggest addition of the offseason, they acquired Sean Manaea from the A’s in exchange for depth starter Adrian Martinez and infield prospect Euribiel Angeles. That was a lighter than expected return even for just one season of Manaea, who posted a 3.91 ERA/3.68 SIERA during his final year in Oakland.
The A’s were known to be moving many of their most notable players as part of a huge cost-cutting effort, though, reducing their leverage to extract peak value in any return. At a $9.75MM arbitration salary, Manaea struck an ideal balance for the Padres from a cost perspective. That tab was pricy enough the A’s were inclined to move him, but it’s still well shy of the going rate for a mid-rotation starter on the free agent market. San Diego could afford to take that on while keeping just below the CBT threshold.
Manaea steps into a rotation that also includes Yu Darvish, Joe Musgrove, Blake Snell and Martínez. Mike Clevinger is soon to rejoin that mix after recovering from 2020 Tommy John surgery, and one-time top pitching prospect MacKenzie Gore has reached the majors and looked quite sharp through his first few starts. San Diego will still be without lefty Adrián Morejón for much of the season after he underwent Tommy John surgery last April, but players like Ryan Weathers and Reiss Knehr are a little further down the depth chart.
Between the addition of Martínez, Clevinger’s return and Gore moving back in the right direction after battling mechanical troubles in 2020-21, the Friars felt comfortable that last season’s rotation depth problems won’t be prevalent again. Even after the proposed Paddack/Pagán/Hosmer framework with the Mets fell-through, they pivoted back to trying to find a trade partner for the two right-handers before the start of the season.
That proved to be the Twins, who were on the hunt for another controllable starter. San Diego shipped Paddack, Pagán and a pitching prospect to Minnesota for star reliever Taylor Rogers and affordable corner outfielder/first baseman Brent Rooker. The deal was an instance of two win-now teams having needs and roster surpluses that mostly lined up. The Padres were content to relinquish three years of control over Paddack and two seasons of Pagán — both coming off a difficult 2021 campaign — to bolster the late-game mix this season.
Rogers has been one of the game’s best relievers over the past four seasons. The 6’3″ southpaw missed the second half of last year because of a hand injury, but he’d returned to health by Opening Day. San Diego saw closer Mark Melancon depart via free agency, making it all the more appealing to land an elite arm for the final few innings. Rogers joins García, Suárez, former starter Dinelson Lamet, veteran Craig Stammen and the since-injured Pierce Johnson among the core of what could be one of the game’s better bullpens.
Making $7.3MM in his final year of arbitration control, Rogers was set to push the Padres across the luxury tax line. To facilitate the deal, Minnesota agreed to pay his salary down to the league minimum. That allowed San Diego to enter the season with a CBT number of around $229MM, in the estimation of Jason Martinez of Roster Resource. They may not have virtually any room for in-season acquisitions of notable cost, but the Padres again head into the year with a star-studded roster that’ll be expected to compete for a division title.
The pitching staff is one of the higher-ceiling units around the league, and that’s also true (albeit to a lesser extent) on the position player side. Austin Nola, Luis Campusano and Alfaro — who had a monster Spring Training — are on hand as the catchers. San Diego felt comfortable enough with that group to deal Víctor Caratini to the Brewers on the eve of Opening Day for minor leaguers Brett Sullivan and Korry Howell.
Around the infield, San Diego has a Hosmer/Voit pairing at first base and DH and stars at second base (Jake Cronenworth) and third base (Manny Machado). Tatís will join them at shortstop midseason, but the Friars called up their top prospect, C.J. Abrams, to open the year there. It was an aggressive assignment for a player with just 42 games of experience above A-ball, and Abrams has gotten off to a rough start. How long they’re willing to stick with the 21-year-old as he experiences growing pains is to be seen, but the Padres could turn to Ha-Seong Kim as a stopgap until Tatís returns if they send Abrams to Triple-A at any point.
San Diego took a few low-cost shots on the corner outfield, adding Beaty and Rooker to incumbent Jurickson Profar in left field. Myers, whom they never dealt, is back in right field (though he hit the injured list this morning). Trent Grisham holds down the center field job he’s had for the past two seasons.
The corner outfield is perhaps the area of the roster most affected by payroll constraints, as they forewent an impressive free agent class. The Padres also came up empty in bigger swings on the trade market, where they reportedly made runs at the Pirates’ Bryan Reynolds and the Yankees’ Joey Gallo during Spring Training. Perhaps they could try for a midseason pursuit of Reynolds, Gallo or another outfielder if their in-house options scuffle, but both of those arbitration-eligible stars would push their payroll above the $230MM CBT number. If the luxury tax line is the organization’s cutoff — as the Twins’ paying down the Rogers trade suggests it might be — the current roster may be more or less what the Padres carry for the full 162 games. They’ll probably continue trying to deal Hosmer or Myers to clear space, but it’s even harder to imagine a trade like that coming together midseason than it was over the winter, Hosmer’s hot start notwithstanding.
Have the Friars done enough to overcome Tatís’ injury and hang with the Dodgers and Giants for six months? That’s to be determined, and some of the Padres’ past missteps on long-term deals for Hosmer, Myers and arguably Kim hampered their ability to make any earth-shattering moves over the offseason. Yet the talented core that had so many people excited entering 2021 is still intact. The pickups of Manaea and Martínez, as well as Gore’s emergence, help guard against the rotation injuries that forced the team to trot out the likes of Jake Arrieta and Vince Velasquez down the stretch last year. Coupled with a change in the manager’s chair, the Friars will hope that superior depth can carry them back to the postseason.
Tatis and Cronenworth are the only reason Preller isn’t working at Sizzler rn
*FRESNO FIRE FROGS
SD’s camo unis are so underrated
Giants better
@Highest IQ
The Giants .LOL
A bunch of waver wire cast offs and over the hill old guys
Good luck w/ that
107 wins LOL
Giants GM (Zaidi from the Dodgers Front Office) has, again, done an amazing job of putting together a roster with bondo and bailing wire.
If the Padres had Zaidi, they would have already won a World Series title..
Lol. Madres.
Typical terrible Preller offseason
Signed a 32 year old pitcher that stunk in the majors before going to Japan to a 4 year/$25.5mm deal. Now that pitcher has a totally predictable 4.30 ERA and 4.94 FIP. Why do I say predictable? I said on this site when he was signed that he would have an ERA north of 4 and would decline from there the rest of his time in SD.
Signed a 31 year old reliever who had never pitched in the majors to a 2 year/$11 mm deal and predictably he has a 5.87 ERA and 5.43 FIP. I say predictable because when the signing was announced I said he probably wouldn’t be able to pitch to anything under a 5.00 ERA,
Allowed the league leader in saves to walk. Melancon signed for 2/$14 and has a 1.13 ERA right now.
Let Strahm go – Strahm has a 3.68 ERA with a 183 FIP in the much tougher AL East.
Traded Frazier for Kerr and a minor leaguer. Kerr is in El Paso and has walked more batters than he has innings pitched.
Resigned Johnson to a 3 yar deal. He is walking 6 per 9 IP so far this season.
Traded a 1st round draft pick for Voit who is predictably already on the IL. Yes, I predicted that he would not get out of April before going on the IL. Sadly I was correct.
Traded for Beaty who is hitting a solid .100. Yes, 100. Can’t get much worse than that.
Alfaro has been exactly what anyone with a speck of baseball knowledge predicted he would be. Hitting less than his weight with a 30+% SO rate. A waste of a roster spot,
He did make 2 good moves to balance the 8+ bad ones.
He traded for Sean Manaea. While he is not an Ace, he is a solid middle to back of the rotation starter. Crossing my fingers that he can stay healthy,
In what was essentially a salary dump, traded Paddack and Pagan for Rogers and a bunch of cash. He got the Padres 1 year of a decent closer. Paddack has a 3.68 ERA/1.71 FIP in 3 starts for the Twins, but he had no place in the Padres rotation. I wish him well.
All in all a terrible offseason. Preller didn’t fill the one position of need in LF and the pitchers he picked up other then Rogers have all proven to be the mistake we all knew they would be.
Do trading 2 players who make a combined $4.5 million for a player making $7.3 million is a salary dump? This some type of common core math??
That trade is not really a traditional salary dump. It’s basically a swap of a SP for a closer + cash. The cash from MIN does 2 things 1. Makes up the value gap since Rogers is a pending FA RP which is less valuable than Paddack as a controllable SP and 2. It keeps SD under the tax.
In other words, he’s referring to it as a “salary dump” because SD is only paying Rogers league minimum and the Twins are covering the rest of his salary. So the Padres shed that $4.5M and only have to pay Rogers like $.7M, effectively clearing about ~$3.8M in salary to stay under the luxury tax.
Twins kicked in cash to reduce Rogers salary to league minimum
LOL, you so know the season just started and selecting stats at this point is silly, now dont’ you. But okay, let’s play….you’re wrong. Ray Kerr is on the ML roster and has an ERA of 0.00. Martinez took out the Reds today, improving the team’s record to 13-7, a half game out of first. Frazier has a 0.65 OPS in Seattle, no power, no speed, He’s not the answer to any success model. Beaty’s off to a slow start but where is River Ryan? Pierce Johnson was lights out last year and briefly this year before going on IL, what’s the complaint? Strahm is a shadow of his previous self, but apparently good enough for the dirty Sox. Pagan was taken deep again a couple days ago, so glad he’s the Twin’s problem. Two-pitch Paddack won’t stay under 5 ERA in American League. Rogers vs Melancon, meh. Suarez has unhittable stuff and beginning to locate it with precision, look out world. Manaea was the ace in Oakland, is an ace on many teams, but you’re right, he’s only the 4 or 5 SP on the Pads because of the elite SP group Preller’s assembled. Profar has a .520 slugging pct, and Hosmer leads all of MLB with .415/.600, kudos to Preller for not trading him! Gore and his sub-2.00 ERA is an AS candidate and Lamet and Garcia are settling to super set up roles, brilliantly. Campusano is up and hitting beebees. Voit, Myers, Tatis, Clevenger, Snell, Pomeranz, Morejon, Baez are all contributing very soon. And Hassell, Wood, Mears, Zavala and Merrill are in the supply line to guarantee WS contention for years to come. See, it’s easy
@brew your right on with your take on the Pads
Not sure why the hate on Hosmer. He was never a superstar. Always a decent first baseman but nothing special. They paid him knowing this and of course he said yes.
So glad hosmer and profar weren’t traded, dudes are a big reason why SD is winning right now
The most interesting part of all the maneuvering Preller has done over the years (and all the value he’s jettisoned away) is that he’s completely backed into a corner now. There’s very little room left to play with the roster from a salary perspective and from a value perspective. There’s a gaping hole in LF (a very important position for an offense) and no resources to fix it. He’s even traded away the extraneous bits of the ML roster (Paddack, Torrens, France, etc) to the point where the roster feels very stuck where it is.
It’s not that the roster is in bad shape necessarily, but to go from the timeframe when the Padres had perhaps the highest value farm system ever assembled to now is pretty bizarre. So many trades have backfired it’s almost comical.
I used to be such a die hard Padre fan, and I was always begging for the front office to blow it up and rebuild hard and I finally got that after 2015 (after they traded away my boys Turner and Fried) and I was so excited to watch the farm system blossom. I would love to see the alternative reality where Preller (and ownership) are patient. That org would be stacked from the ML roster on down to a ridiculous degree and I might still care about baseball. Might.
Who…
@cheese. Certainly fair to criticize and sorry to see you go. But the nightly full-capacity crowds in Petco suggest many are in approval of the ownership fully committed to winning.
Instead of the Blue Jays or the Rays, the Padres are becoming the Phillies.
Huge payroll, struggling to compete in a stacked Division.
Preller seems like he is chasing his tail every season. The Padres weakness was starting pitching in the past. So he took care of it after the fact. Now it’s the Of situation. The Of situation will be the Achilles heel if the Padres don’t make the playoffs.
Is there a FA or trade target that you would advise Preller to have pursued?
Jumping in here I think he should have outbid the Tigers for Meadows. That .818 OPS (in line with his career average of .822) would look really nice in the Padres OF right now.
Not entirely sure how to value the Rays return in comparison with SD’s system, but SD has a better comp pick they could have traded to give them a leg up. The tricky part is Paredes is a former top 100 at the MLB level who hasn’t performed yet, so that value is really hard to peg. I honestly don’t know who they would have had to trade to beat that offer, but I don’t think it would have been anyone in the org top 10.
Good insights. I agree on Meadows, who was affordable and for value. They seemed to show restraint with Casty and Bryant and other FAs, which I think was wise. Still think theres more to come though, especially if Grisham’s funk prolongs. Not a lot of pieces to package in trade at this point though, hope they remain patient until the right move becomes available.
The Padres almost had a chance at Suzuki but was outbid by the Cubs. The padres offer was good at 5/75mil but not good enough.
I won’t want the Pads to spend tons of money on the outfield when we have to sign Musgrove, Manaea, etc next year to extensions.
Wish our good outfield prospects were a little more MLB ready… Hassell, Mears, Wood etc.
I wonder though, if they had signed Suzuki could they have signed Manaea and/or Voit? Ownership has said they are willing to go over luxury tax limit a bit so maybe.
If they had picked up Suzuki I don’t think they could have taken on the Manaea money too. That would blow them past the threshold. Only way that could have been maneuvered is if they found a taker for a big chunk of Wil Myers’
or Hosmer’s money.
That’s going to be the weird spot for further additions with then right up against the threshold. They basically have to subtract salary to be able to add anyone.
Dinelson Lamet is quickly climbing up my list of players with inflated salaries. He’s basically a mop up reliever making $5M, so if they can dump him somewhere that gives a little space.
Looks like they’re at about $232.8 mil so by end of season they will actually need to dump some salary just to get down to $230 mil threshold. Lamet and maybe Stammen could be trade options once Pomeranz returns. Maybe there will be takers for Hos after his AS appearance 🙂
Paredes won a Winter league batting title and could be the next Arozarena or Willy Adames.
The Rays win most of their trades.
The Tigers have up a competitive balance pick, cash and Paredes.
Meadows was a good pickup, but the Tigers should have offered a different player than Paredes in my opinion.
This trade looks like SS Willy Adames 2.0 for the Tigers.
For all the young players and prospects they gave up, they could have landed CF Bryan Reynolds or CF Cedrick Mullins without breaking the bank
Ah the haters…Hosmer is batting 415, the team is 13 and 7, Preller has filed pitching spots, and not traded Hosmer …. So they are playing baseball…sit down shut up have a beer and enjoy it. It’s a game.
Preller gave up a lot of prospect capital and did not fill any of the Padres gaping holes adequately. If Preller had landed CF Cedrick Mullen(Orioles)
or CF Bryan Reynolds (Pirates) for all the prospect capital the gave up, then I could understand it.
Padres should have resigned their closer and some of their other bullpen pieces.
Hosmer is off to a fast start, but he will come down to earth by May or June and put up his average or below numbers.
Tommy Pham sucks
Not as bad as Jurickson Profar who was EXTENDED for what reason god only knows
Profar wasn’t extended. He was a free agent. He was free to negotiate with the other 29 teams.
The Padres have agreed to re-sign infielder/outfielder Jurickson Profar on a three-year, $21MM contract, reports ESPN’s Jeff Passan (via Twitter). Profar is represented by the Boras Corporation.
AJ Preller is terrible at “roster construction”…. Why did he pick up Profar’s 7M option when he is worried about competitive balance tax issues?! There are cheaper alternatives who would produce the same or better stats on his AAA team and on the free agent market.
Then, he picks up a DFA catcher and extends him on an expensive deal for a guy no other team wants?! Does he forget that he has one of the top hitting/catching prospects in the majors parkled @ AAA?! Preller then “gives away” young starter Paddock to the Twins (Paddock who basically shut out the Tigers for 6-7 innings in his last start!?).
And, he is looking to attach valuable prospects/players to dump Hosmer and/or Will Myers while he blows holes in his payroll picking up.
AJ Preller’s moves make zero sense to me. Ship young, major league ready or almost ready top talent out of town for scrub utility players and then extend them @ above market rates.?! Then, he signs starter Nick Martinez?! to a big deal (former Ranger) when he had Paddock and gave him away for basically nothing to the Twins (Paddock is now excelling in the Twins rotation)….
Why is Preller still employed by the Padres.
He makes a dizzying array of moves that make his competitive balance tax situation worse and then he talks of giving away more great young players in a Hosmer salary dump..
And in all these moves, he does not get help for his OF the weakest link on the team?!
For all the young talent Preller “gave away” in the offseason, he could have just sent much of it to the Pirates for CF Bryan Reynolds etc….
Why the Padres put up with his chaotic moves that are just “treading water moves”
is beyond me.
Preller should be fired or reassigned to rebuilding the farm system..
Profar’s option was a player option… Preller had no say in it getting picked up or not. You would be fair to criticize him for giving Profar opt-outs after every season tho.
This is a fact reported by the National Media?! The Padres have agreed to re-sign infielder/outfielder Jurickson Profar on a three-year, $21MM contract, reports ESPN’s Jeff Passan (via Twitter). Profar is represented by the Boras Corporation.
mlbtraderumors.com/2021/11/jurickson-profar-exerci….
True dat. But the Padres, AJ Preller, gave Profar the overly generous contract. with “player options” Of course Profar was going to exercise those player options since no other team was going to give him a similar deal. Profar is a utility guy, not a starting OF of INF for a playoffs contending team….