Playing Pepper 2009: San Diego Padres

As the players start getting themselves ready for another season, I thought it'd be a good idea to do the same.  I contacted a blogger for each major league team and posted them five questions.  This is the result.  You can find the tentative schedule of teams here and today's main post is right here.

A big new ballpark.  San Diego weather.  A team that came within inches (and questionable ones at that) the playoffs in 2007.  Life should have been good in Padre-land for 2008, but instead the bottom fell out.  It was a rough year for the Padres and that wasn't even counting Albert Pujols's swath around the bases that took out Chris Young and Josh Bard when the Cardinals visited out there.

I was lucky enough to get responses from not one but two Padres blogs for this outing.  Clay from Downtown Padres and Myron from Friar Forecast talk Jake Peavy and contention for the Friars.

C70: Will Jake Peavy be traded sometime before the All-Star break?

DP: I sure hope not.  I'm of the mindset that you need a face for your franchise to keep the fans interested.  In professional sports you can't guarantee your product because the team can always lose, however, you can control the face. 

Peavy is a young, personable, hard working stud and he will keep fans interested.  I personally don't think they care about this (ie Trevor Hoffman), but I don't think they will get what they should for Peavy.  Due to his no-trade clause, the Padres have little leverage.  They aren't going to get his worth on the limited market.

FF: That's a great question, and one Padres fans—and the rest of baseball—have been asking for a while now. I will sort of cop-out, and say there's like a 60 percent chance he's dealt before the break. As you probably know, the Padres aren't really expected to compete in 2009, and I think that is the main reason, along with the sale of the ball club, why these Peavy rumors are swirling, and why the club has tried to deal him.

Peavy is an interesting case because while he is a premier pitcher, there are a few reasons to consider trading him. First, and most important, is his contract situation. He'll make an average of $16 million from 2010 through 2012. If you look at his projected value for that time, it's right around the same figure, maybe a little less.

So, while Peavy is still a great pitcher, he's now reached a point in his career where his salary has skyrocketed, and his performance is expected to gradually slip. If you were planning on trading him, it's probably a pretty good time.

C70: Is Adrian Gonzalez the core that is being built around or is there someone else?

DP: It has to be Gonzalez.  They have some good guys with Kevin Kouzmanoff and Chase Headley in the field, and Jake and Chris Young on the hill.  Those are some solid young guys to build around.  I think Chase Headley is going to be a star, but that one we will have to wait to see.

FF: Boy, another good question. Gonzalez is a superb player. He plays every day, he's a fine hitter (and conversely, of course, he's hurt by Petco's unfriendly confines), a smooth fielder (though fans and the metrics will sometimes disagree), and right in the middle of what should be his prime. His contract, too, is very Padre-friendly, as he'll make just $7.75M over the next two years, with a $5.6M option for 2011. It's almost certain that filling his kind of production on the free agent market would cost much more than that.

Now, free agency isn't the only option for the Padres. One of their top prospects, Kyle Blanks (who is 6-6, 270), is also a first basemen. Blanks has already reached AA and has put up a career line of .307/.393/.508. Also, interestingly, the Padres used their first round draft pick last year on another first base slugger, Wake Forest product Allan Dysktra. Both players could challenge Gonzalez relatively soon.

To answer your question, I think that Gonzalez is the core that's being built around ... until there is somebody better at first, in which case Gonzalez will be dealt to help improve the team in other areas. With Gonzalez's performance, however, that time may not come for quite a while, no matter how many first base prospects the Padres load up on.

C70: Besides Peavy, is anyone else likely to be traded?

DP: Giles could possibly be traded to a team that want his on base percentage for a playoff push, but its hard to imagine getting much for his expiring contract, essentially on loan.  You never know at this point.  I don't want to predict end of the year trades when the team is out of it, because I will never go into a season with that mindset.  That being said, they are clearly trying to put a young team together, so I don't see them trading any of these young core guys we talked about, even in a contract shedding situation.

FF: I think the most likely Padre to be traded, not named Jake Peavy, is Kevin Kouzmanoff. Kouzmanoff is a fine player, and he's working on the cheap, under team control through 2012. The problem, for Kouzmanoff anyway, is that Chase Headley plays his position. Headley is a few years younger than Kouz, arguably a bit better, and is under Padre-control for one year longer than Kouzmanoff. Daniel Gettinger, at my blog, penned a great analysis of the situation.

Headley's slotted to play left now, so a trade may not be needed. But there's a bit of a log jam at
third, and if the Padres could improve the team elsewhere by trading Kouzmanoff, even though he's a valuable player, they may just do it.

C70: Can the Padres contend in the NL West with the cut payroll and the off-the-field distractions?

DP: We all thought the NL West would be one of the best divisions in the NL last year, but everyone disappointed (really except for SF who won more games than we thought they would). 

This year it is the opposite since we are coming off such a bad year.  It appears to be a wide open division, and it would be a lot more attractive if Manny Ramirez was not suited up in Dodger Blue.  The pitching rotation has too many question marks for me to predict a good year.  If the Padres can maybe go out and get Adam Kennedy to play second and put Eckstein at short, they would have a very good infield.  Stranger things have happened, but it doesn't seem like winning this year is a priority for the franchise.

FF: I think they can contend, as in it isn't necessarily out of the question, but more than likely I think you're looking at a fourth or fifth place team, registering a win total somewhere in the mid-70s. Right now, the Pads have a good young core of position players, including Adrian Gonzalez, Kouzmanoff, Headley, Jody Gerut, and Scott Hairston. Their offense, taking Petco into consideration, could be around average.

The biggest problem area is pitching, and that's well, nearly half the ballclub (the fielding should be okay). Peavy is an elite pitcher still, and Chris Young is a solid number two guy, albeit a bit overrated (in my opinion, anyway). But after that, the rotation gets pretty ugly. There are a bunch of youngsters, like Wade LeBlanc and Cesar Carrillo, who could emerge and really fill a hole, but the chances aren't that great. Other options include vets like Cha Seung Baek, Kevin Correia, and Mark Prior.

The bullpen is not in much better shape. Like Peavy in the rotation, Bell is the ace, and he should be fine in the closer's role, taking over for the legendary Trevor Hoffman. After that, though, it's not too pretty. Cla Meredith is a solid middle reliever, who after a break out year in 2006, has (as expected) come back to the pack a bit. The rest of the pen consists of guys with question marks, like Joe Thatcher, Chris Britton, Justin Hampson, and Mark Worrell.

C70: What was the general fan opinion of the Khalil Greene trade?

DP: I was a huge supporter of Khalil (I still haven't been able to take his diving figurine off of my desk yet) but it may have been time for him to go. 

He was the kind of player that you had to watch on a daily basis to truly appreciate.  The way he made slow grounders in the hole look so easy to scoop and throw isn't something you can quantify.  He couldn't hit a breaking ball and he couldn't stay healthy.  I don't think he played the last two weeks of a single season as Padre, though I may be wrong. 

I think he has a ton of potential, but he has to learn discipline at the plate and find a way to keep his hands and wrists intact.  Though I think highly of him, I can't blame the Padres for moving on.

FF: Khalil Greene was perhaps the most debated Padre during his time in San Diego. Even amongst statheads, there was quite a bit of disagreement surrounding Khalil. His offensive game wasn't great, but for a shortstop, he had big time power, and that made it acceptable. Like I mentioned, he played, outside of possibly catcher, the toughest position on the diamond, and he played it well. But, after his awful 2008 campaign, "highlighted" by a broken hand from punching a storage chest in frustration, Greene's value had fallen quite a bit.

I think the biggest question among fans, in general, was, why now? Why trade him when his value was at a low point? And bringing back a reliever with no big league track record probably did little to reassure fans.

Greene was a franchise player during his time with the Padres, one of the best shortstops, offensively and defensively, in team history. It is always tough to see a guy like that move on, especially after such a tough year. I think it is safe to say that, despite the ugly ending, most fans wish him well, and expect him to perform better in St. Louis.

I appreciate both Clay and Myron filling us in on the Padres' chances.  Cardinal fans should root for San Diego to get back to the playoffs--it seems to always be that the two teams face each other and St. Louis has the Padres number!