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“Memo to the NL West”

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We coming.  We be good.

That should be the New Years Greeting to the Dodgers-Giants-Arizona-Colorado in the National League West.

Maybe we can CC: that memo to the rest of the National League too.

An interesting 24-hours for the Padres.

Acquiring Blake Snell from Tampa Bay.
Winning the bidding war for SS-Ha Seong Kim from Korea
Do 7-player trade for  Yu Darvish with the Cubs

A team, that started the Christmas shopping season with a reported 143M payroll, could add (38.8M) with the arrival of Snell…(62M) with the Darvis acquisition ..and write a check (21M) for the multi year deal for Kim.

Of course it is more than money Preller is spending, but it’s the cost of young prospects going out the door, like so many of the other deals he has made the last two years.  In an afternoon of Zoom calls, Preller dealt away 7-minor league draft picks.

Goodbye Luis Patino..Francisco Mejia…Cole Wilcox…Blake Hunt….and then 4-more lower minor leaguers, including a few who were high draft picks over the last couple of summers.

He did retain 4-of the top 5-arms in the upper minor leagues, so his pitching depth remains strong.  However he has strip mined a lot of the farm system of everyday prospects.

One wonders is the Snell-Darvish deals are linked to something else, besides just getting big time arms.  You wonder if there has been another setback in Dinelson Lamet’s comeback from forearm problems?

Maybe there was a strong mandate, have to win now, let’s draw 3M fans, let’s make back all the money we lost during the pandemic summer.  And the decision to jettison lower minor leaguers may be in part because the Padres will be limited to 4-minor league teams, a summer league team, and there was no place to stockpile-hide all the prospects they had spent on…so use them as a bargaining chip.

No denying they are really good now, and maybe with a changing of the guard in the next 12-months with the Dodgers, time to strike and take their best shot.  If there’s no Kershaw, Turner and with an aging David Price, LA baseball will be different.  San Diego baseball will definitely be different.

Longtime owner Ray Kroc spent wild amounts of money in free agency to make the Padres relevant.  Looks like Preller has spent and spent, to send talent elsewhere…Prospects for Proven players.

But at the top of the Memo to the Dodgers and all those other teams, just list the names of the pitchers San Diego might have by the end of the week:

..Snell
..Darvish
..Paddack
..Lamet
..Clevinger
..Gore
..Weathers
..Morejon
..Luchessi
..Baez

And then there is the list of the bullpen brigade
..Yates
..Rosenthal
..Hill
..Strahm
..Stammen
..Pagan
..Pomeranz
..Johnson
..Adams
..Altavilla
..Bednar

And those recovering from surgery
..Castillo
..Espinoza
..Wingenter

That’s 24-pitchers with major league experience, including former Cy Young Award winners and Rolaids relievers of the Year winners and high draft picks.

We coming.  We be good.

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