It’s times like these we look at our Padres’ 1.5% chance of making the playoffs, and decide to sit in and enjoy our cesspool of self loathing. Or we can stick our head out of the ground, look at what bright rays of light appear on the horizon, and enjoy a beautiful summer in San Diego.

Wait, The Padres’ ace, and potential trade bait for players the team can build a foundation upon is out for a month, possibly the rest of the year? What was the first option again?

Kevin Goldstein on the Padres’ Draft

Starting with the extra young’ns, the boys at Mad Friars posted a free interview with Kevin Goldstein, prospect guru of Baseball Prospectus. I think most Padre faithful are by now familiar with Donovan Tate.

Is he perfect? No, but in terms of star potential there was no position player like him in the draft. Obviously, he has risk, but no one comes close to his ceiling.

What you might not know is the Padres got great deals on players further down in their draft. One of whom, Everett Williams, scouts expected to go in the first round, while the Padres nabbed him with the 52nd pick overall in the second. And it isn’t just Goldstein who said this, though he does say that Keyvius Sampson, The Padres’ third round pick, could also have been selected in the first, but fell due to signability concerns. As a fan, I love that. We’ll take him.

You know it’s not only the high picks, but they took some players in later rounds that will also cost some money and didn’t flinch. If you are a Padres fan, you have to hope this is the new direction they will go in the future.

Jim Callis of Baseball America, same questions, *finger point to him*

Good info all around, what sticks out for me are Callis’ concerns about Tate. Callis does rave about what an athlete he is, but we already knew that. Lets look at Jim’s response to some possible roadblocks John Conniff might see in Tate’s bat.

I’ve seen [Tate] at a few showcases and while yes I can see some of the concern, it’s not at the same level of Anthony Hewitt, who the Phillies took last year in the first round. But its also going to take some time, I don’t see him as someone who is going to shoot through the system either.

I agree with Ray, who has said it before, and Jim, who is saying it now. The team should give Tate all the time he needs. Repeat after me, “I don’t see him as someone who is going to shoot through the sysetm.” Now say it again.

Jaff Decker is a monster

Padres low A outfielder Jaff Decker is the second most successful 2008 draft pick, according to Baseball America. He is Baseball Prospectus’ peak translated Equivalent Average runner up, meaning he has the second highest EqA for someone of his age in his league, based on the advanced all-around offensive metric. More traditionally, his line of .283/.455/.543 for a high school draftee in his first full year looks really really really really awesome.

…it’s even more startling once one realizes he’s a supplemental first-round pick out of high school from the ‘08 draft. Decker leads the MWL in on-base percentage and ranks fourth in slugging, as he’s had no trouble converting his plus raw power to game power (that’s eight home runs in 39 games)

Lake Elsinore third baseman and all-star Logan Forsythe gets a nod from Baseball America as well, second in the league in peak adjusted Equivalent Average and Equivalent Runs, plus a .327/.475/.540 line for second in good old OBP as well.

I don’t know what this guy did with Tim Sullivan, but I’m liking it. What a fair review of Sandy Alderson’s tenure.

Before their recent retrenchment, the Padres maintained a $73 million payroll that ranked 19th among the 30 major league clubs in 2008. Without greater payroll flexibility or more impact prospects, the Padres were probably destined for a dramatic fall. As Moores grew more detached from the club’s operations, many fans focused on Alderson as a convenient scapegoat and as the symbol of a failed strategy.

Much of that criticism was misguided. The strategy Alderson has sought to implement with the Padres, one founded on statistical analysis, is much the same approach that has brought two world championships over the past five seasons to Fenway Park. The major difference between the Padres and the Boston Red Sox is fiscal rather than philosophical, and that difference is profound.

In November of 2006, the Red Sox spent more than $51 million for exclusive negotiating rights with Japanese pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka, a sum greater than the Padres will spend on their entire 2009 major league payroll.

Although I don’t like the idea of lumping all of the philosphy under “statistical analysis”. That really isn’t what it is, and never has been. The philosophy is finding undervalued assets.

Often, this involves advanced metrics other teams don’t believe in or havn’t caught up with yet (See Heath Bell and his BABIP). But it isn’t always that. More recently, we saw the Padres grab a string of shorter players in the amateur draft, whom teams may have passed on more due to bias than evidence. This is what the philosophy is about.

I have to admit, even as an avid Padres fan, there’s a lot to keep up with. For instance: I never seem to keep the long guys in the Padres bullpen straight, especially over the last year or so with the merry-go-round of trades and waiver claims the team has been through. The craziness was somehow kicked into overdrive this spring, as DePo notes that only 4 of the 13 pitchers likely to make the roster pitched for the big league club last year.

An idea I had to help myself, and whoever else is smart enough to read this blog, was to put together a little run down of who all these people are and why they’re playing for the Padres. Luckily, Jason Martinez is on the job, so I can stick to what I do best: making fun of the UT.

Martinez, of PadresRevolution fame, is the man behind MLBDepthCharts. Besides just the rosters, he also includes helpful blurbs about where the player came from.

I had a chance to meet and hang out with Jason at the first ever Padres Blogger Summit last year, he’s a cool dude. Hat tip to Tom Tango for the link.

Remember how delusional Grady Fuson got when Baseball America announced the farm system as 29th in the league? I anticipate the team’s response following this:

Organizational Rankings: #25 - San Diego Padres

Our much revered Fangraphs has begun listing all 30 Major League clubs in descending order and, as you don’t even need to click to see, the Padres ended up at 25th. 

The grading was broken down into Ownership, Front Office, Major League Talent and Minor League Talent. Some highlights:

Ownership: N/A

This is an ownership group in transition, and we just don’t have enough information to give them any kind of grade.

This one seems kind of obvious. They go on to say that there is a sense of shadiness behind the sale to Moorad, as he still had a stake in the Diamondbacks. Personally, I think it’d only be appropriate if a conflict of interest blows up in our face. Nothing’s impossible.

Front Office: B-

Kevin Towers is a smart, likable guy, and currently the longest tenured GM in the game… However, there’s some serious question marks about how the team will be run going forward. With Alderson on the way out, does he take Asst. GM Paul DePodesta with him? Can Towers avoid being fired if the team struggles in 2009, especially with new ownership?

Really, not to be a bloodsucker, but it seems like they went a little soft on the front office. Towers’ legacy in San Diego speaks for itself, but he had a rough 2008. Go through our archives and you won’t see too many “Hey, we signed this guy!” articles, unless they were followed by a “Hey, we traded this guy for not a whole lot!” article. Then there’s our impossibly disappointing minor league system, the uncertainty going forward, and our general 2009 awfulness, and that B- grade seems a bit generous. 

Major League Talent: C-

Regression needs to be expected from both, and there just isn’t much in the way of run production for the Padres outside of (Gerut and Giles) and Adrian Gonzalez. Chase Headley is a solid enough young player, but when he represents the hopes of your future line-up, things aren’t great.

Fangraphs makes a potentially dubious statement in “the pitchers aren’t as good as advertised, and the hitters are a bit better than everyone thinks.” I’m not sure why the pitchers are flat-out not as good but the hitters are just kinda sorta better. Petco Park still eats statistics for breakfast. The Three-G’s all had a road OPS near .900, with Adrian topping out at .946. Only Giles made it over .800 at home. Maybe the scrub seatholders are only a bit better on the road, but I don’t like defining the team by them. 

Minor League Talent: C-

There aren’t any position prospects here that everyone loves, and the ranks of the pitching prospects are full of guys who throw 87 MPH and try to get by on smarts. It isn’t a horrible farm system, but it’s not a very good one either, and for a team in need of a talent injection, that’s a problem.

Hey, “isn’t a horrible farm system.” That’s pretty good! But seriously, this cuts to the core of this team’s problem. We can talk all day about the missing $30 million and how that’s hindering the team, but the fact remains that this team needs that $30 million because it has yet to start producing its own talent. While other teams in our league are filling out their lineups with homegrowns, the Padres have Chase Headley and Nick Hundley. And with the exception of Kyle Blanks, no one’s really close. I think this fact needs better representation in the Front Office grade.

I’ll leave you with Fangraph’s summation of this team’s fortunes going forward. Have a good weekend!

Overall: C

 If you’re a glass half full guy, you can hold onto the fact that the D’Backs were very well ran while Moorad was in Arizona, and that the front office is full of guys who could run a team well. If you’re a glass half empty guy, then you see an organization that lacks talent, has only a couple of really valuable players (two of whom have full no-trade clauses), and who plays in a division with two teams that are better, younger, and have greater revenue steams. I have a feeling that San Diego is in for some tough times ahead.

PECOTA’S Standings (Friar Forecast)

Mr. Logan over at Friar Forecast has a nice write-up on the 2009 predictions and they’re actually not that bad. At least, coming off a season during which the Padres won only 63 games, 74 doesn’t sound so bad. Although, PECOTA isn’t quite an exact science; for 2008, it had the Padres winning 83 games. Maybe we’ll win 94 this year? Probably not, although I feel like the Padres are a couple of fortuitous breaks from contention. One such break would be the return of this man.

Prior is ready to give it one more shot; ‘I don’t want to give up,’ he says (San Diego Union-Tribune)

“Cautiously optimistic.” Those are actually Mark Prior’s words, when discussing his 2009. “If he’s healthy, and all the reports thus far are encouraging, Prior is my ace in the hole.” Those are Kevin Towers’ words, and the optimist in me prefers what Towers has to say. If Prior can at least stay on the mound for 20-some starts and hold Baek back from the third spot in the rotation, the team’s chances of success jump up.

Jake Peavy breaks his silence (Gaslamp Ball)

jbox threw up Peavy’s comments on 1090 yesterday, and they’re rather refreshing after the war Peavy and the front office waged on each other this off-season. Especially refreshing is Peavy’s denial that he ever sang “Go Cubs Go.” Ah, much better. Here’s your knife back, Jake. Sorry for the confusion.

Padres by Position (San Diego Union-Tribune)

Starting with Adrian, Blanks, and first base, Bill Center has been documenting the Padres, position-by-position (hey!). While the articles are a bit sparse, Center does a good job of covering the Padres from top to bottom. He even manages to sneak in a couple juicy nuggets, like how the Padres are looking at moving third baseman Logan Forsythe to catcher.

Best outfield arms of 2008 (The Hardball Times)

Remember when I said Brian Giles was one of the best defensive outfielders in baseball, and that pushed him past Adrian as the MVPadre for 08? Well, about that- The Hardball Times has recently published numbers on outfield arms and Giles’ is unsurprisingly atrocious. He can still run them down, and he’s still worth 1.1 more wins than Adrian, so I stand by my MVPadre pick, but, uh, yeah.

Looks like the Padres will have a new owner, Jeff Moorad. The worst news of the day is that Moorad will take over as CEO for Sandy Alderson in the next few months.

We’ve made our confidence in Alderson well known, and I have yet to learn any reason why Moorad is qualified to evaluate talent, or what his team building philosophy may be. Though we have heard about his preference for building through the draft, which is a great start, but it isn’t much of a philosophy in itself. Of course, there’s no guarantee he will be the one evaluating players or setting the philosophy, but it sure looks like a possibility.

Moores said that under terms of the deal, Moorad and his partnership will have as long as three years to buy out the controlling interest. Until then, Moores will remain the Padres’ control person, representing the club at owners’ meetings and sitting on numerous committees.

Moores said the sale value of the club, determined through a series of closings, will ultimately be more than $500 million, including debt. That means Moorad still must come up with about $165 million to close this part of the deal. Last year, Forbes Magazine valued the Padres at $385 million, 19th among the 30 Major League teams.

As far as the Padres are concerned, Moores said he’s invested $100 million in the team over the course of 14 years and has a sizeable debt service tied to the construction of PETCO Park, at a cost of $454 million.

From MLB.com

MinorLeagueBall has a great thread going on what to do about our San Diego Padres. Their readers are smart, and well versed in the Padres organization from top to bottom, so needless to say it’s a great conversation. Plus it’s helpful to hear a fresh perspective from outsiders who actually follow the team.

The discussion itself doesn’t begin until the Alyssa Milano situation is sorted out, naturally. You’ll see what I mean.

Headline written by R. Lankford during the course of an AIM conversation. Headline stolen by M. Nieves during the course of that same conversation.

Now that’s settled, a pair of recent articles on the Fangraphs site are relevant to Padres fans’ interest, with an added bonus that you probably haven’t seen this stuff on mlbtraderumors already.

The first is a quick overview of the Padres farm system’s performance this year. Marc Hulet names Chase Headley, Matt Buschmann, Matt Antonelli, Cole Figueroa, and Eric Sogard as the graduate, the riser, the tumbler, the 2008 draft pick, and the sleeper, respectively. I’ve heard (and written) about the success of others in the system, but I haven’t seen much coverage of some of these guys. That’s a good, albeit anecdotal demonstration of the organizational depth we enjoy these days, especially in the lower levels.

Next, Dave Cameron checks in on the results of four major prospects for star player trades from the previous offseason. Go ahead, guess how they’ve turned out. Ready to be wrong? Here’s Dave:

Four big trades of all-star caliber players, and in every single case, the rebuilding team either held steady or got significantly better while the contender didn’t improve at all, and in some cases, got a lot worse.

Poor results for the team acquiring the star don’t necessarily mean there is a correlation between trading for stars and playing worse the next year. But to paraphrase Cameron, it pretty well confirms what some of us have been saying: one player cannot carry a team.

In honor of the Cubs recent dismissal from the playoffs, (way to stay up to date there, Melvin) please enjoy this look back at the 2003 Cubs - Marlins playoff series.

I do find it appropriate that you’re reading this post on a Padres website, and it is my favorite baseball article of all time, and only about 1/3 of the article actually relates to the Cubs, or baseball for that matter. No matter. Without further adieu, since there’s obviously no other news to talk about relating to the possible trade of a star player, or any type of important series happening right now, I submit to you “Did Steve Bartman Cost the Cubs the Series?” by Jay Pinkerton. I should warn you though, the article is juvenile, not safe for work (there’s swearing but no pictures), and very unfunny.

Here’s the requisite excerpt:

Let Bartman go. The Cubs not winning the World Series is hardly cause for alarm — they’ve been doing it successfully for decades without any help. The fact that someone in the audience decided to pitch in this year just means it was one less mistake for the Cubs themselves to make.

John Sickels at Minor League Ball takes a look back at Kevin Kouzmanoff as a prospect.

I enjoy these retrospectives of MLB players when they were just prospects. Reminds me that all players at one point were guys I’d never heard of. There’s a point in there somewhere.

He was unstoppable when healthy however, hitting .389/449/660 for Double-A Akron and .353/.409/.647 for Triple-A Buffalo.

(snip)

I gave him the coveted Josh Willingham Award, annually awarded to the minor league player whose bat I am most comfortable swearing about. He can f**king hit.

That year of Kouz’s still blows me out of the water. As I recall his was near the top overall line in all of the minor leagues.

Too bad about his discipline this year, 20 walks in 600 plate appearances for a .304 OBP is definitely not optimal. I think with the weak third base market this offseason, and Chase Headley just hanging around and trying to look busy, this is the time to trade Kouz. Though a 120 OPS+ season or two from the Mashin Macedonian wouldn’t surprise me.