Poor Padres

I’ve held back from talking about baseball yet for two reasons. 1) It’s still early in the season and there is a  lot of baseball yet to be played and 2) Most people aren’t dropping by The Old World to read about America’s Pastime. But I can no longer hold back – I need to vent. So feel free to stop reading if you don’t want to hear me talk about the Padres for several minutes. For the other two of you, here we go!

The Pads are in undeniably bad shape. They are 7-18 in their last 25 games, 8-10 at home, 8-18 on the road and 9-14 against other teams in the NL West. In short, they are playing terribly, not beating the teams they need to beat and losing at home as much as they lose on the road. They are already 11.5 games back, which is a significant hole any time of the year, and certainly not encouraging by mid-May (although I suppose its the only time of the year when being 11.5 back could be considered a surmountable obstacle). They are rated last in the “power ratings” for both Sports Illustrated and Baseball Prospectus. Having been blown out of the water by the Seattle Mariners yesterday, they are now the ignominious owners of the worst record in baseball.

My prescription? Break-up the Padres! Not a fire-sale, mind you, but reloading and rebuilding. They are not the worst team in baseball, but they are nowhere near what management predicted. The Padres relied a little too much on wish-casting this year, i.e. imposing their wishes on their forecasts. The deal to get Jim Edmonds has backfired, he’s done and has cost the Padre’s about $5.6m for that little experiment. The bullpen, which has been magic year after year, has finally turned back into a pumpkin. Kouzmanoff has not developed as they had hoped, and Hairston is not an everyday player. Giles and Hoffman are both clearly coming to the end of the line. Unfortunately the one guy most likely to retire – Greg Maddux – is the one player from the old guard who could still contribute for another couple of years. Adrian Gonzalez is the only batter who scares anyone, and pitchers aren’t even bothering to pitch to him since the rest of the Padres are so punchless.

I think management’s goal was to try to compete this year, let some of the high priced old-guys ride off into the sunset, and rebuild in 2009. Giles, Maddux, and Hoffman all come off the books this year. I think Giles will be done in SD, but I think they’ll somehow keep Hoffman around for the farewell tour. Obviously this plan has misfired, as the Pads have gone downhill faster than expected and the D-backs went nuclear sooner than expected. Thank goodness the Dodgers still don’t know payroll and roster management from a hole in the wall, ’cause with that much talent and payroll they should be fighting with the D-backs for first place.

But with the team’s implosion – and they are not going to recover this year enough to compete – I think they need to be the first team to raise the white flag and start the rebuilding process before anyone else. They have the nucleus for the next team already locked up for the forseeable future in Peavy, Chris Young, and Adrian Gonzalez. Anyone after that should be available. I love Khalil, but he’d but up great numbers anywhere else and has the most value. I’d like to see Kouz get moved while he still seems to have some value, and isn’t blocking Headley. Obviously a lot of the other guys are spare parts for a contending team, but they still have a lot of value to the right team.

The trade I’ve been contemplating is one with the Cubs, who have asked for Khalil several times, and keep jerking around Felix Pie and Ronny Cedeno. Khalil would be cost control for the Cubs and would put up great numbers in Wrigley while Pie and Cedeno would get full time jobs and the opportunity to sink or swim. Heaven knows the Pads could use a true CF. The Blue Jays are said to be interested in Khalil as well, but they have an even worse farm system than the Padres. I just hope they don’t make some lateral move. San Diego needs to place dynamite around the first and second floors and blast down to the foundations – this team is beyond a remodeling.

 

JEE