2015 San Diego Padres

[Coop Cat]

LF Upton
CF Myers
RF Kemp
3B Middlebrooks
SS Barmes
2B Gyorko
1B Alonso

Bench:
SS/Util Amarista
3B/Util Solarte
OF Venable
2B/Util Spanenberg

Starters:
Shields
Ross
Cashner
Kennedy
Morrow

Bullpen:
Kimbrel
Benoit
Vincent
Thayer
Garces
Kelley
Despaigne

[Coop Cat]

[rgdeuce]

Don't know if anyone caught the Dbacks/Pads game last night, but that Despaigne dude is probably my new favorite pitcher. Crooked hat, slouchy and passive body-language, up there on the mound flipping the ball in the air like he's pitching in a slow-pitch beer league, about five different windups and four different release points, a curveball that he sometimes throws in the low 80's and other times lollipops in for a strike at the mid 60's. If Livan Hernandez and Manny Ramirez had a son and taught him to pitch, this would be him.

[Coop Cat]

[Coop Cat]

Bud Black is out......

[UAEebs86]

Bud Black is out......

Think I just saw on a scroll that Pat Murphy is interviewing?

[Coop Cat]

Bud Black is out......

Think I just saw on a scroll that Pat Murphy is interviewing?

Yep, hired as the Interim Manager for the rest of the year. The players on the AAA team loved playing for him the past couple of seasons and he is a hard ass which Black is not.

[rgdeuce]

Murphy is a great coach with a huge ego, very charismatic. The major leagues will quickly humble him and I can see him being a good long term fit. I had two friends who played for him at ASU and I had several interactions with him because he invited me to tryout for a walk on spot on the team ; if you bust your ass and play the game the right way, he is a players coach. If you don't, you will hate the guy with a passion. Will be interested to see how he manages egos and guys like Upton and Kemp, who can take nights off and throw pity parties.

[MrBug708]

Add up the damage and it’s staggering. In one offseason, the Padres traded away one of the best catchers in baseball (Grandal); an above-average starting pitcher (Hahn); an above-average corner outfielder (Seth Smith); an above-average center fielder (Maybin); and pretty much their entire farm system. Per Baseball America, the Padres traded away their no. 1 (Wisler), no. 2 (Turner), no. 4 (Ross), no. 6 (Fried), no. 9 (Eflin), no. 10 (Jace Peterson), no. 15 (Bauers), no. 16 (Mallex Smith), no. 21 (Dustin Peterson), no. 23 (Burch Smith), and no. 30 (Barbato) prospects, along with the 41st pick in the draft.

http://grantland.com/features/aj-prelle ... ague-west/

[rgdeuce]

It's easy to Monday morning quarterback that whole situation. He tried to put a winner on the field in a city where ownership has been notoriously cheap. He did too much too fast and most of the guys he brought in were high risk/high reward guys. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't. The prospects they gave up, none were top 50 guys when they were traded I dont believe, and I think 3 were in that 50-100 range. Now you got three of them looking REALLY good right now. You cant predict that though, those guys could have easily flopped. And unless you draft REALLY well and have a loaded farm system, out of your number 6, 9, 10, 15, 16, 21, 23, and 30 prospects, maybe 1 or 2 make a big league club and the chances of them being impact players is not that high.

Same with their old position players they dealt. Who guesses that Yasmani Grandel becomes an all star after two seasons of .225 or below (and in one of them I think he only played 28 games). Cameron Maybin was three years removed from his best season (.264 ba) and hit 235, 157 and 243 over his last three seasons.

Dude wasn't patient, he gambled and lost. It happens. Not like the people in San Diego had much to look forward to otherwise, especially in the NL West. They can move some of their mistakes (that BJ Upton contract is KILLER and will be what hurts them the most) for some prospects to ease that clearinghouse of prospects. This gamble really only set them back a season or two at most if they draft well. We have had it far worse in Arizona