This is part of a series of posts wherein we castigate teams for their foul offseason escapades and applaud them for their choice acquisitions.

Heath Bell: Step One: Be optimistic about the season, turn some heads even; Step Two: ... ; Step Three: win World Series.

Sometime in February, Padres closer Heath Bell told USA Today he sees big things for his team in 2010:

“I’m very optimistic,” Bell said. “I think we can do real well, surprise a lot of people, turn a lot of heads. I think this team could possibly not just go to the playoffs but go to the Series. I think the young guys want to win and they’re ready to win. We just have to play our game.”

You can’t blame the fireballer for suddenly sounding like a internet start-up business model. Step One: Be optimistic about the season, turn some heads even; Step Two: … ; Step Three: win World Series. The club did finish strong in 2009, winning 12 of their last 19 series, but good play for a few weeks doesn’t translate to playoff berths or division titles. So has new GM Jed Hoyer made the necessary moves to put the Pads back in contention? Let’s break it down.

The biggest question this offseason has been the future of first-sacker Adrian Gonzalez. The slugger is at his prime and if his production continues, the Padres will have a difficult time keeping him beyond 2011 when his contract ends. Gonzalez himself has made it no secret that he wants to cash in on his talents. Numerous trade scenarios have been laid out and several teams have expressed serious interest in acquiring Gonzalez’s services, the issue boils down to how much the Padres will get in return if he’s indeed moved.

So far, however, Gonzalez remains in southern California, and he’ll be the lone heart and soul of the Padres offense since the Padres didn’t exactly break the bank adding more bats. Hoyer signed Matt Stairs, hoping to squeeze a few last home runs from the veteran journeyman, as well as Josh Barfield and catcher Yorvit Torrealba. Nothing stellar there.

Hoyer opened the year by shuffling his line-up a bit, trading an under-performing Kevin Kouzmanoff and Eric Sogard to Oakland for outfielder Aaron Cunningham and Scott Hairston (now entering his second stint with the Pads). Although, the move doesn’t scream upgrade.

An interesting possibility would arise if Hoyer does trade Gonzalez this year, acquiring talent and opening the way for youngster Kyle Blanks to move to the infield to play full-time. But don’t hold your breath: Blanks hit just .250 and swung at the first pitch half the time.

The biggest move this offseason was signing veteran hurler Jon Garland to take Peavy’s spot in the rotation. Though he won’t win the Cy Young (watch, he’ll do it just to make me look bad), Garland provides a workhorse that can chew up 200 innings and go deep into games and maybe win 12-15 contests. Again, not an upgrade, not by a long shot.

There’s no doubt the Padres are shuffling their roster to weed out expiring talent, while making room for fresh prospects to compete for starting positions. The issue will be, however, that the financial constrains on such a small-market team will make increasing the budget a very unlikely scenario. As the Yankees proved last year, it’ll be even harder for small-market teams with promise to compete.

Offseason grade: C-

Notable additions: Josh Barfield, Matt Stairs, Yorvit Torrealba, Jon Garland, Scott Hairston, Aaron Cunningham.

Key losses: Kevin Kouzmanoff, Eric Sogard, Edgar Gonzalez

Lineup, rotation, and closer:

C – Yorvit Torrealba
1B – Adrian Gonzalez
2B – David Eckstein
SS – Everth Cabrera
3B – Chase Headley
LF – Kyle Banks
CF – Tony K. Gwynn/Scott Hairston
RF – Will Venable/Aaron Cunningham

SP1 – Jon Garland
SP2 – Chris Young
SP3 – Kevin Correia
SP4 – Clayton Richard
SP5 – Matt Latos

CL – Heath Bell

- Hot Offseason Action Index -

Theo-in-disguise? new Padres GM Jed Hoyer

The San Diego Padres have been a franchise in limbo for the past couple of seasons. Previous owner John Moores’ messy divorce finally yielded an answer as to who would control the team operationally in 2009 and after a mediocre first year of the five-year rebuilding process, a new front office staff is in place. Gone is Kevin Towers as GM, as new majority owner Jeff Moorad hired 35-year-old Jed Hoyer, a Theo Epstein protege who’d been the Red Sox VP and assistant general manager until October.

The question is, will Hoyer have free reign to make the kinds of deals he envisions, or will he simply be a glorified research guy doing all the grunt work (or a puppet)?

Hoyer himself provided an answer in a recent feature by ESPN.com’s Jerry Crasnick:

“I think the whole idea of ‘final authority’ in 21st century baseball doesn’t exist,” Hoyer said. “You’re always going to be talking to ownership and explaining your thought process to them, and that’s the way it should be. It shouldn’t just be one person making the decision in a vacuum. It should be a collaborative effort.”

For what it’s worth, Moorad actually fired the first salvo, approving the trade that sent Jake Peavy to the White Sox, but it was Hoyer who replaced Epstein in the Red Sox front office during Theo’s 44-day hiatus in 2005, and was instrumental in the Josh Beckett and Mike Lowell deal.

Should I stay or should I go?

Which leads us to the matter of what it is that they need. As Crasnick points out in his column, the Padres have a solid crop of young talent, but none that you’d consider impact players; which in turn begs the question: Should Hoyer trade Adrian Gonzalez for the best package available? We’ve certainly heard plenty of chatter with the Red Sox and White Sox being two of the teams linked to possible trades.

Gonzalez is scheduled to make $4.75 in 2010 and the Friars have a club option for $5.5 in 2011, which are relatively affordable figures, but beyond that, and assuming the 27-year-old first-baseman keeps it up, he’ll command a hefty raise.

If Gonzalez were to sign an extension in the next 12-15 months, the Padres have to ensure their farm system is deep enough to build around him, and they would have to bargain for a home-team discount considering a $15-20M, 5-year or so deal would eat up a huge chunk of their budget beyond 2011.

As of now, the Padres have a projected salary of about $24M, which allows for very little free-agent room (unless it’s of the veteran kind), but Moorad has expressed his willingness to get the payroll to somewhere near $70 – just not quite yet.

In a nutshell, the Padres need to continue developing young talent, and if Hoyer does indeed trade Gonzalez, he’s got to land two or three major-league ready players.

-What They Need Index-

Monday is Hot Baseball Wife Day here at UmpBump, and this weeks honoree is Betzabe “Betsy” Gonzalez, the wife of slugging Padres first baseman Adrian Gonzalez.

Together, Adrian and his wife recently established a charitable foundation, the Adrian and Betsy Gonzalez foundation, which aims to serve underprivileged youth in the fields of sports, education, and health.

More pictures after the jump…

Read the rest of this entry »

So since we last checked in, Padres first-sacker Adrian Gonzalez has continued mashing balls out of the park at a prodigous rate, and is currently on pace for 63 bombs this season despite playing half his games in the worst hitters park in the Majors.

But what is downright scary about Adrian Gonzalez’s 2009 campaign is that he has actually been unlucky this year on batted balls. His BABIP is only .246, well below his career mark of .312,  and seventh worst in the league, way down there with other down-on-their-luck hitters like Jimmy Rollins, Jay Bruce, and Garrett Atkins.

But whereas those other guys are all putting up pretty depressed stat lines due to their bad luck with BABIP, Gonzalez has an outstanding slash line of .281/.421/.638/1.059

It is amazing to ponder how crazy that line would look if Gonzalez were having even average luck this year on balls in play.

With the season one-third gone now, it’s become pretty clear which players were only slumping and which players actually just suck at baseball. And yet on every team there is at least one player which for foolish reasons, whether it be an over-developed sense of loyalty, a case of GM-player man-love, a reputation for grit and hustle, or a bloated contract, the team just hasn’t been able to pull the plug on yet. In this post, we have a look at each team in the National League with an eye for the one player who really needs to be cut as soon as possible.

Dodgers – RP Guillermo Mota: This guy looks permanently broken: he gives up too many hits, he doesn’t strike enough guys out, and he walks too many batters. His WHIP is an appalling 1.79 and he needs to be shelved somewhere.

Giants – 1B Travis Ishikawa: The main job of a first baseman is to hit, so when your first baseman is the worst hitter on your team, you are doing something wrong.

Diamondbacks – CF Chris Young: Chris Young was supposed to be one of those guys whose power and speed would somehow make of for his complete lack of any ability to get on base.  Well, now you have a guy whose power and speed have fallen off, but who is even less able to get on base.  It is unbelievable that Young is still on pace for well over 500 at bats this season despite his .220 OBP. He needs to be working out his suckiness in the minor leagues.

Rockies – 3B Garret Atkins: I’ve been advocating that the Rockies trade Atkins for two years now, while there was still some perception that he was a good player, but they waited too long, and now he’s basically untradeable. Few players have benefited more from Coors Field than Atkins, and Atkins also had the benefit of his personal peak coinciding with the Rockies high profile Series run in 2007. But he was always an extremely inadequate defender at third, and now his bat has disappeared as well, even at home.

Padres – 2B David Eckstein: GM Kevin Towers calls David Eckstein the MVP of the team so far this year. He couldn’t be more wrong. Eckstein was only barely adequate defensively and offensively when he was at his peak about 5 or 6 years ago, and now at age 34, he’s pretty much got nothing left.

Cardinals – SP Todd Wellemeyer: Todd Wellemeyer shows that maybe there are limits to what pitching coach Dave Duncan can do. Kind of. Actually, it’s pretty amazing that the Cardinals have gotten as much out of Wellemeyer as they have, considering he was nobody’s idea of good starting pitcher material. But with Mitchell Boggs waiting in the wings, there’s really no reason to keep Wellemeyer around.

Brewers – 3B Bill Hall: Bill Hall couldn’t hit his way out of a paper bag right now. Sure, he hit 35 homers back in 2006, but he’s done nothing at all since then, and he still has no real position defensively. For some reason, Hall still has the image of a youngster who is still developing, but when you actually go look at his age you find out he is already 29 years old, and what you see, which right now is total suckage, is probably what he really is.

Cubs – RP Aaron Heilman: Heilman was once a highly touted prospect, and did manage to throw up a few good seasons, but it’s becoming more and more clear that he’s just not all that good. Nothing about his peripherals suggests that anything is particularly wrong. His velocity is the same as ever, as are his FB/GB rates, his home run rate, his K/9 rate etc., and his BABIP is a very modest .299. Heilman simply walks too many batters, posting an unsightly 6.26 BB/9, and until that changes (if ever), he needs to be in AAA somewhere until he can learn better control.

Reds – SS Alex Gonzalez: Gonzalez was once an elite defender at shortstop, which meant that his extremely weak bat could be somewhat justified, but now he is no longer anywhere near that class, and his bat seems weaker than ever at .209/.250/.302. He needs to be cut.

Erstad is still playing?

Astros – OF Darin Erstad: Yeah, I know, Erstad is supposed to be this super-gritty former football player (except he was only a kicker), but we are a decade removed now from his last actually good season in 2000, and I’m almost surprised to see that he is actually still on a major league roster. He’s hitting .137/.211/.196.  Why is this man still anywhere near a baseball diamond?

Pirates – OF Brandon Moss: Lots of people have mentioned how one good side of trading away Nate McLouth was that it has “cleared playing time for blocked prospect Andrew McCutchen.”  But hardly anyone mentions that one of the players who was allegedly “blocking” McCutchen is Brandon Moss, a corner outfielder who has been playing every day this season despite posting a .310 OBP and only a single home run.

Marlins – 3B Emilio Bonifacio: The fact that Emilio Bonifacio, who has no business being in a major league lineup at all, is actually batting leadoff for the Marlins, despite his .294 OBP, is an indictment of the entire Marlins coaching staff and front office.

Bonifacio whiffs again

Mets – C Omir Santos: It’s a joke that the Mets actually traded away Ramon Castro to clear a spot on the roster for this guy. It’s going to be fun watching as the numbers left over from his fluky hot start rapidly sink toward the Mendoza line.

Braves – OF Garrett Anderson: I laughed out loud when I heard that the Braves signed Anderson in the offseason, and I pretty much haven’t stopped laughing since.  The poor old guy has a .289 OBP to go along with a -15 UZR/150 in left field. At this point you could probably drag Bernie Williams out of the recording studio and run him out there for better production.

Nationals – CL Joel Hanrahan: You can anoint a guy your closer, sing the praises of his “live arm,” and run him out there in save situations as much as you want, but that doesn’t mean he is going to pitch like a closer, just because you really really want him to. In what may be the worst bullpen of all time, no reliever has done more damage in more high leverage situations than Hanrahan. His 1.90 WHIP (for an alleged closer!) pretty much says it all.

Phillies – P Chan Ho Park: Park has looked finished for years now, at least when you look at his peripherals. He managed to reinvent himself as a serviceable reliever in the pitcher-friendly NL West last season, fooling the Phillies into taking him on, but it’s kind of an understatement to say that his game does not play well in Citizen’s Bank Ballpark. The Park-as-starter experiment was basically doomed from the get-go, but ironically, Park has pitched even more poorly this year as a reliever than he did as a starter. This man should be enjoying his retirement somewhere, not getting thrown to the wolves every other night.

Philadelphia Inquirer’s Don McKee thinks the Phils need to go all in for Jake Peavy.

Forget the talk that he doesn’t want to come here. Overwhelm the Padres with prospects and make a tentative deal.

Then ask Peavy whether he really doesn’t want to pitch for a contender he will make even stronger, in a packed modern ballpark with a party atmosphere every night and player amenities to die for?

Then see what he says.

The Phils could definitely overwhelm the Pads with a large quantity of prospects, but it’s hard to imagine San Diego being bowled over by the quality of the Phils’ top minor leaguers. Carlos Carrasco? He’s got a future as a major league pitcher, for sure, and his 58 strikeouts in 55 innings is impressive. But his 5.40 ERA is not. Jason Donald has a .299 OBP in triple-A this season. Lou Marson is hitting .230 and there are questions about his readiness to handle a pitching staff.

Ask Peavy if he wants to play in a modern ballpark? How about instead we ask him if he’d like to move from the most pitcher-friendly park in the major leagues to a bandbox where his numbers woud surely take a hit, as would his value the next time free agency rolls around?

How about we ask him if he wants to move as far away from his San Diego home as possible? If he’ like to leave the most forgiving fans in America for the most demanding fans?

Sure, it’s possible Peavy will OK a trade to Philly. But I wouldn’t hold my breath. And I certainly wouldn’t call it a “perfect fit,” as McKee does.

In the prime of his career at age 27, San Diego Padres firstbaseman Adrian Gonzalez is secretly having the greatest season of all time.

He is actually leading the entire Major Leagues in home runs with 15, two bombs ahead of Carlos Pena and Albert Pujols. That means he is on pace to hit 68 home runs this season, 5 shy of the record, which is a pretty amazing pace.

But what makes this all even more amazing is that Gonzalez plays half his games in Petco Park–the worst hitters park in the entire major leagues. Indeed, only 4 of his his 15 homers have been hit at Petco, the place where homers go to die.

Is Gonzalez going to be able to keep up his home run king pace?  Certainly not.  Petco is going to drag him down in the end.

But it is amazing to think of what Gonzalez’s numbers might look like right now if his team played in even a major league average ballpark, hittingwise.

I’ve got to admit I never expected the Padres to be leading their division, even if it’s only two weeks into the season. Given how bad the team was last season, and how little they did to improve this winter, it’s definitely unexpected.

Coming off a bitter divorce, the team’s owner decided to gut the roster and concentrate on a 5-year plan that, realistically speaking, projected the Padres to suck for a while. Sure, Jake Peavy stuck around, but that’s not due to the front office’s lack of effort in trying to trade him.

I gave the Padres a D in our hot offseason action series and I highly doubt anyone expected them to come out of the gate and lead their division. But here they are, in first place.

Pitching seems to be the secret to the team’s early success, particularly from Chris Young who’s 2-0 with a 1.38 ERA. Collectively, they’ve done quite well: They’re second in team ERA, fourth to last in earned runs, have allowed only four home runs, and are fourth in WHIP.

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