1-Man’s Opinion Column…Monday 11/16..”Padres-What’s the Blueprint”
Much like last winter’s baseball meetings, he turned last weeks GM sessions, into a trade fest. 3-deals in 3-days.
And like last year, he dealt talent to get a different type of player.
Last December he cleaned out the lower half of the farm system, moving 7-pitchers and 11-young talents in a series of deals that brought him veterans, with the hope it would put the team in a pennant race. It didn’t.
Now he reverse field, and moves two veteran relievers, in Craig Kimbrel and Joaquin Benoit. This haul netted him seven pretty good players off the minor league rosters of the Red Sox and Mariners.
It’s flashy, these middle of the night moves, the Kimbrel deal was executed at 5:30am with Boston. But also begs a question.
So now the Padres are stockpiling players to rebuild the barren farm system. But the big club has holes everywhere.
In Boston, they love the arrival of closer Craig Kimbrel, but they are lamenting the decision to move centerfielder Manny Margot and shortstop Javy Guerra.
Seattle got Benoit at the cost of a very good Class A-pitcher Eury de los Santos.
And the young infielder they got from the Yankees Jose Perila can hit minor league pitching.
Rumors circulating they may make a run at a 32-year old Japanese shortstop Nobu Matsuda also.
In the process of guys being shipped out, and guys leaving as free agents, like Ian Kennedy and Justin Upton, the Padres have cleared 64M in payroll off the books.
That’s great, but don’t you create a bigger issue? Now you have to overpay to get free agents to sign on with a strip mined roster left behind with all these deals.
Yes there are about 150-veteran free agents of all types on the open market, but convincing somebody to come here becomes a challenge, when lots of people are writing and saying they don’t think Preller knows what he is doing.
It’s early in the process, and there’s lots of time till mid December and the Winter Meetings, but we have already been thru one strange winter. It appears a 2nd one awaits us.
So it begs the question. What’s the Padres blueprint? Is there a game plan really here? Whose next to vacate the San Diego roster? Who is coming back in return.
At first glance, it sure looks like San Antonio is going to have a good team in 2016 in the Padres farm system.
What type of team will San Diego have? No one knows what the Padres will be like, not even the night stalker GM himself, yet..
