2012 San Diego Padres: Why They Are the Tampa Bay Rays of Five Years Ago

Since the 2007 season, The San Diego Padres have endured three of four losing seasons, including two last place finishes and a fourth place finish in the NL West.

And while the 2010 season was a magical, and somewhat "flukish" ride of winning small-ball, it still ended with a late-season collapse that gave the division away to the eventual World Series Champions San Francisco Giants. 

To the average baseball fan around America, and even in San Diego, it would appear that every year, Padres management simply sells off another piece of the organization due to an unwillingness to spend money and lack of commitment to winning.

However, that really could not be further from the truth. 

The Padres are a team that cannot frivolously throw around money to players. Their payroll has to be carefully calculated. Long-term contracts (like the one likely coming for Cameron Maybin) have to make sense for the team.

The facts are that their old TV deal was awful (up until this year, when it will drastically improve and bring in more revenue) and the old ownership situation has truly hamstrung Jeff Moorad and his team's flexibility with the few dollars they do have.

Fans that don't understand why teams like the Padres can't afford to pay players like Adrian Gonzalez $22 million per year simply don't understand the business and economics of baseball.

But fortunately, Padres management does, and because of that, the organization has acquired a tremendous amount of young, controllable talent over the past two or three years, through both trades and draft picks. Of the Padres Top 15 prospects, only one, Simon Castro, was in the organization prior to 2008. At this point, they are in a fantastic position to compete year in and year out for the foreseeable future—starting in 2012.

In fact, there is already a model in place that the Padres' organization is attempting to follow, and it resides in Tampa.

Up until 2008, the Tampa Bay Rays had 10 straight losing seasons. However, over those years, they continuously stock-piled tons of young, athletic players with high upside. Granted, most of those guys came from high draft picks that the team had due to losing seasons, but concept is the same.

Eventually, talent wins. And now, so do the Rays. And along the way, smart, manageable long-term contracts, like the ones given to Evan Longoria and David Price, built the foundation for a winning team.  

The Padres are on the right track.

Quite frankly, they are on the cusp of already being there.