San Diego Padres 2016–2017 Offseason Review
The Padres tied the Reds for the lowest winning percentage in the NL last year. Have they improved for 2017? Is that even the goal?
Do you remember what the San Diego Padres looked like in 2015? No, I’m not talking about what small tweaks they made to their incredibly boring navy and white uniforms (bring back the brown, please), I’m talking about the players. Petco Park was abuzz with excitement to see how the newest super-team would fare in a competitive NL West. A.J. Preller could do no wrong, wheeling and dealing for veteran all-star talent, including Justin Upton, Derek Norris, Wil Myers, Craig Kimbrel, and Matt Kemp. Signing “Big Game” James Shields seemed to be the icing on the cake, as the Pads seemed poised to finally be on a level playing field with the big boys in the National West.
Then they took the field.
What a nightmare. In a turn of events that could only have been predicted by Nostradamus himself (or, to a lesser extent, anyone who had even casually scrolled through FanGraphs), it turned out that Preller’s transactions yielded a net-loss — three fewer wins than the previous year. It became apparent quickly that putting Myers in center with Kemp in right was a recipe for disaster, though it became moot when Myers was hurt a few weeks into the season and replaced by veteran Will Venable. Will Middlebrooks failed to rebound as hoped, Norris struggled being a full time catcher, and Kimbrel had his worst season to date. To top it off, shortstop continued to be a black hole, as the combination of Alexi Amarista and Clint Barmes played so poorly at shortstop that even Jedd Gyorko had a 29-game tryout there.
The great experiment put on by Preller (with likely a lot of pressure from Padres ownership) was a great failure. Not only did they spend money (taking on most of Kemp’s salary from the Dodgers and outbidding the Chicago Cubs for Shields), but they also essentially gutted what was considered to be an above-average farm system in the process.
Many national writers predicted that San Diego would tear down their new squad as quickly as it was built, but the trade deadline came and went, and the team stayed intact. Going into the offseason, fans wondered if Preller & Co. would be stubborn and insist that their vision was the right one, or if they’d admit their mistake and begin the rebuild.
San Diego’s 2016 Story
Well, if the Padres 2015 season was a nightmare, the 2016 season was something out of a horror story. Right out of the gate, they were shut out by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the opening series by a score of 25–0 in three games. Starting pitcher Tyson Ross, believed to be the biggest trade chip on the team, was pulled in the sixth inning on Opening Day and never returned to the mound for the Padres, being sidelined for the duration of the season.
With Ross out of the picture, San Diego looked to Shields to step up and assume responsibility to lead the rotation. However, while Shields’ 4.45 FIP in 2015 indicated that his effectiveness was declining (you know, along with giving up a MLB-leading 33 home runs), it took a nosedive off the Coronado Bridge in 2016. After giving up 10 earned runs to the Mariners in 2.2 innings, a member of the Padres ownership group went on the Padres flagship radio station and called the team “miserable failures”, singling out Shields in the process.
Shields was dealt to the Chicago White Sox shortly thereafter, and the rebuild (which was kickstarted in November when Kimbrel was dealt to the Boston Red Sox for a prospect haul) was on.
By the time the dust settled at the trade deadline, the Padres had parted ways with Kemp, the surprising Melvin Upton Jr., Andrew Cashner, and all-stars Fernando Rodney and Drew Pomeranz (yes, Pomeranz and Rodney were all-stars last year).
In fact, it could be argued that even more deals would’ve been made at the deadline if there hadn’t been a cloud of suspicion over the Padres’ deals. The Miami Marlins, who traded for Cashner and starting pitcher Colin Rea, called “take backs” on the deal when it was discovered that Rea wasn’t as healthy as they had been lead to believe (Rea underwent Tommy John surgery the following offseason). The Red Sox then reported they had experienced something similar with Pomeranz, and Preller’s name was Mud for the rest of the season (during which he served a 30-day suspension).
But, there was a silver lining to the ominous clouds. The September call-ups of prospects Hunter Renfroe, Carlos Asuaje, and Manuel Margot, along with no-longer-prospect catcher Austin Hedges provided some late season excitement. Before Upton Jr. was dealt, he provided three walk-off home runs for the Friar faithful. Myers had his most healthy MLB season, though he fatigued down the stretch, and third baseman Yangervis Solarte had a career year (.286/.341/.467).
Still, the end result was a 68-win season by a team that had been poorly assembled and then dismantled.
The Offseason
Preller has earned a reputation for scouring the planet for hidden talent, but aside from a few more international teenage signings (San Diego has spent about $80 million on international talent), he’s spent time dumpster diving for re-treads. San Diego cut Ross, leaving more holes in their rotation than a slice of Swiss cheese. To fill these gaps, they’ve brought in Jhoulys Chacín, Jered Weaver, and Trevor Cahill.
That Chacín has been the biggest big league acquisition of the offseason speaks volumes about the direction the Padres are headed. Though he had an impressive start in his second WBC game (played in Petco Park) against the Dominican Republic (4.1 IP, 1 ER, 3 H, 3 K, 3 BB), he is coming off a season where he had the second highest hits per nine in his career and gave up dingers at basically the same clip (0.9 per nine innings) as he did when he pitched half his games at Coors Field (0.8 per nine innings). His FIP (4.01) showed some improvement from previous years, but the chances of him turning into a Pomeranz-like piece of trade bait seem remote, even to the most optimistic fan.
After being an all-star in 2010 and leading the American League in starts (34) the following year, Cahill has spent the past few seasons in the bullpen. The main reason he signed with San Diego was because they would give him the opportunity to start, but it remains to be seen how committed they are to that prospect. One would imagine he’d fetch more in a trade as an above-average reliever than as a below-average starter, but somebody is going to have to start behind Chacín (who was recently named the Opening Day starter). Relying on the soft-tossing Weaver (his fastball has sat in the 83 MPH-range during spring training), Clayton Richard, and a combination of Jarred Cosart or last year’s Rule 5 draftee Luis Perdomo to make 80+ starts between them seems unwise, so we’ll see what happens on that front.
With a Trea Turner-sized hole at short, the Padres were hoping that Luis Sardiñas could plug in for a season or two before reinforcements arrived from the farm. They have apparently soured on him so much that Erick Aybar, who signed a minor league deal with the club in the offseason, appears to be in line to get the lion’s share of the starts. Aybar was by many measures one of the worst hitters in baseball last year (64 OPS+ and a -1.2 fWAR), and a move to Petco seems like it will only further that decline.
As of the publish date, the Padres have still not decided what to do with the three Rule 5 draftees from a few months ago, which include catcher Luis Torrens, reliever Miguel Díaz, and shortstop Allen Córdoba. None of them have played above Single-A. If there ever was a team to carry three completely unexperienced Rule 5 guys, it’s the Padres in 2017. They saw some success with Perdomo, a Rule 5 draftee from the Colorado Rockies who really improved down the stretch, but seemed extremely overwhelmed the first half of the season.
The most interesting progressions from the offseason have been in the bullpen. Carter Capps, acquired in the Cashner deal from Miami, seems to be recovering from Tommy John, and though his fastball has been sitting in the low-90’s (instead of the high-90's), it will be fun to see his possibly illegal pitching motion on a big league stage again. In addition to Capps, a new member of the bullpen may be Christian Bethancourt, a catcher/outfielder who threw high-90’s cheese in some mop-up relief last year has been going full bore in spring training and may get work primarily as a pitcher. It will be interesting to see how the Padres juggle Bethancourt, Torrens, veteran Héctor Sánchez, and starter Austin Hedges.
What Wasn’t Answered?
Despite the low projections, the Padres could have one of the most balanced offenses they’ve had in the past few years (no, that isn’t saying much). If you were to pair it with the Padres pitching from a few years ago, you might even have a dark horse contender for the Wild Card.
But they don’t. The pitching is terrible, by design. The Padres are well aware that their competitive window isn’t going to be open for a few more years, so they have found the cheapest filler to bide their time until then. The same goes for shortstop.
Does this mean that those positions have been “unanswered”? Depends on what you want from the Padres in 2017, and if you’re a realist, you should expect losing, and lots of it. The tank is on.
2017 Outlook
Has this picture been painted clearly enough? Please comment below if I repeated any synonyms for the word “horrible” in this piece — my thesaurus has been getting quite the workout.
The difference between the 2015 team and the 2017 version is that the ’15 squad had hope, nay, even expectation from the Friar faithful that they’d bring winning to Petco Park. When they didn’t, it was demoralizing. This year, the expectation to win should be non-existent. The Dodgers and Giants are stacked, and the Padres are still too early into the rebuild to begin seeing progress with the big club.
That’s not to say that they won’t be, uh… fun (?) to watch. Capps and Bethancourt make for an interesting bullpen, and the Padres are hoping that Brad Hand (who’s slider helped him to an 11.2 K/9 last year) can turn himself into an Andrew Miller-esque trade chip.
Hedges, known primarily as an elite defender with a weak bat had a big year in Triple-A and continued it through to the Cactus League. If he can even be an average hitter, he has the potential to be a star in the league. The hope is that Margot and Renfroe can become cornerstones of the team for the future, and it’s not too early to expect them to make some noise in the majors. And Myers and Solarte, freshly signed to long-term deals, are capable big league bats coming off solid seasons.
However, the Padres will only go so far as their pitching will take them, and with a rotation of Chacín, Richard, Weaver, Cahill, Perdomo, and Cosart, well… don’t bank on them getting out of the NL West cellar. They will contend with the Reds and Brewers for the worst record in baseball, and San Diego seems hellbent on making sure they get that number one draft pick next spring.
