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Countdown to the firing of AJ Preller (1 Viewer)

Bojang0301

Omar4Heisman
Tigers fan but former local of SD. Giving Randy Smith a run for his money. 

Padres record: 0-3

Runs scored: 0

Official countdown day: 1

 
Well the best of the worst was ultimately ending up with BJ Upton for Matt Wisler. I also liked acquiring Wil Myers to ultimately play 1B. Solid offensive additions like Alexei Ramirez and Matt Kemp. This team should be a powerhouse for the next decade. 

 
Padres ownership deserves some of the blame.  Based on their hire of Preller and support of his 14-15 moves, they appear to have been unwilling to tank like the Astros and 76ers.  This arguably would have been their best long-term option because of the lack of talent in the organization at all levels. 

There really wasn't much of a farm system for Preller to gut.  The best prospects he dealt are Wisler and Trea Turner, neither of whom projects as a big star.  Kemp and Shields aren't great contracts but every team has an overpaid veteran or two and their payroll is still only around the $100M mark.  Ramirez and Jay aren't great but they fill needs and their contracts don't have long term implications.  The churn of Kimbrel didn't really hurt the team.

If Preller survives, his ultimately success will depend on whether the Padres organization can acquire and develop young talent.  I think his worst move as a GM was to effectively not have a first rounder the past two years.  They dealt Turner and lost their pick last year as compensation for the Shields signing.  But drafts are more than one round deep so we'll have to see how their other 2015 picks pan out. The Padres haven't been very active players in the international free agent market aside from signing a young Dominican pitcher named Henry Henry.  The current international system favors teams spending big in one year of a three year cycle.  I'll be curious if Preller is a big spender starting this July.

 
i don't really know much about Preller, except that he came from the Rangers organization. And by asking the question, i'm not being argumentative. I had noticed the Padres rough start, and had wondered if Preller would start getting some heat.

For the sake of discussion, i looked up Padres key moves since AJ took the job.

1. 12/14 - signed Brett Wallace

2. 12/14 - traded Grandal & Wieland to LAD for Kemp + change

3. 12/14 - traded RJ Alvarez & Jesse Hahn for Derek Norris + change

4. 12/14 - traded Trea Turner & Joe Ross + change for Wil Myers + change

5. 12/14 - traded Mallex Smith & Jace Peterson & Max Fried + change for Justin Upton + change

5. 12/14 - traded Seth Smith for Brandon Maurer

6. 2/15 - signed James Shields

7. 4/15 - traded Cameron Maybin & Carlos Quentin & Matt Wisler for Craig Kimbrel & Melvin Upton

This collection of movies was heralded as a solid "win now" approach, which as i recall, had most Padres fans pretty excited, and made the Padres a hipster pick for the playoffs in 2015. Instead, they won only 74 games and had 3 managers. Justin Upton and Ian Kennedy left in free agency.

Which brings us to this past offseason...

8. 11/15 - traded Benoit for two decent minor leaguers

9. 11/15 - traded Kimbrel for 4 decent minor leaguers, including Manuel Margot

10. 12/15 - traded Yonder Alonso & Rzepczynski for Drew Pomeranz & Jabari Blash + change

11. 12/15 - traded Gyorko for Jon Jay

12. 1/16 - signed Alexei Ramirez

 
in Preller's only draft, he didn't have a 1st round pick, and chose big (6-4, 200) high school pitchers in rounds 2 & 3.

 
Padres ownership deserves some of the blame.  Based on their hire of Preller and support of his 14-15 moves, they appear to have been unwilling to tank like the Astros and 76ers.  This arguably would have been their best long-term option because of the lack of talent in the organization at all levels. 

There really wasn't much of a farm system for Preller to gut.  The best prospects he dealt are Wisler and Trea Turner, neither of whom projects as a big star.  Kemp and Shields aren't great contracts but every team has an overpaid veteran or two and their payroll is still only around the $100M mark.  Ramirez and Jay aren't great but they fill needs and their contracts don't have long term implications.  The churn of Kimbrel didn't really hurt the team.

If Preller survives, his ultimately success will depend on whether the Padres organization can acquire and develop young talent.  I think his worst move as a GM was to effectively not have a first rounder the past two years.  They dealt Turner and lost their pick last year as compensation for the Shields signing.  But drafts are more than one round deep so we'll have to see how their other 2015 picks pan out. The Padres haven't been very active players in the international free agent market aside from signing a young Dominican pitcher named Henry Henry.  The current international system favors teams spending big in one year of a three year cycle.  I'll be curious if Preller is a big spender starting this July.
Wisler and Turner might not be big stars, but both are probably going to be contributing MLB players. That's not nothing, as are guys like Smith or Joe Ross. And taking on bad contracts because every team has bad contracts is, again, flawed thinking. Kemp's a disaster. So is Shields. And they're going to be millstones around Preller's neck now as he tries to rebuild.

It's boring, but I think SD's best course of action was to just keep the ship on course. Spend carefully in FA, bring up prospects, etc. They didn't need a full tear-down until Preller blew it up, but obviously "going for it" was utter folly.

The Kimbrel trade was an inspired bit of business. If SD didn't see to firing him immediately after they knew what he was doing, might as well give him a chance to turn it around. But if I'm a fan of any other NL West team, I think I'd want him staying there as long as possible.

 
Perhaps the ownership will be comfortable having them tank now (doubtful given the stadium upgrades are less than a year old).   Trea Turner, RJ Alvarez and Max Fried were well thought of prospects within the system. Kemp is overpriced and they're already stuck with him until he is way past his prime. Perhaps he didn't have a lot to work with when he got there but where Theo sat on the talent they did have, this guy traded a lot of it away for a lot of mediocrity and a lot of players no longer with the Friars. Color me not impressed. He probably has a lot more rope then I'm giving him though.

 
yeah, i thought that first off-season was a strategic mistake for SD. in a division with a team with the Largest Payroll in the World and another team that had just won the World Series, it seemed nutty to try to scale the wall in Year One.

this past offseason was much better strategy, but it may prove too little, too late.

 
Wisler and Turner might not be big stars, but both are probably going to be contributing MLB players. That's not nothing, as are guys like Smith or Joe Ross. And taking on bad contracts because every team has bad contracts is, again, flawed thinking. Kemp's a disaster. So is Shields. And they're going to be millstones around Preller's neck now as he tries to rebuild.

It's boring, but I think SD's best course of action was to just keep the ship on course. Spend carefully in FA, bring up prospects, etc. They didn't need a full tear-down until Preller blew it up, but obviously "going for it" was utter folly.

The Kimbrel trade was an inspired bit of business. If SD didn't see to firing him immediately after they knew what he was doing, might as well give him a chance to turn it around. But if I'm a fan of any other NL West team, I think I'd want him staying there as long as possible.
All true to a degree but Myers + compensation pick for Kimbrel may exceed the value of Turner + Wisler.  The Kimbrel/BJ Upton deal also allowed Preller to dump $23M worth of Carlos Quentin and Cameron Maybin money.

I think you're underestimating the marching orders Preller got from SD ownership.  They won 77 games the year before he was hired, 11 games out of the wild card.  That's a lot to make up but not beyond the realm of possibility.  Obviously, things didn't work out but staying the course usually involves building around more talent than Yonder Alonso and Andrew Cashner.

 
God I forgot how giddy and excited gunZ was last year for the kemp-Upton-Myers outfield. That seems really sad now. 

 
All true to a degree but Myers + compensation pick for Kimbrel may exceed the value of Turner + Wisler.  The Kimbrel/BJ Upton deal also allowed Preller to dump $23M worth of Carlos Quentin and Cameron Maybin money.

I think you're underestimating the marching orders Preller got from SD ownership.  They won 77 games the year before he was hired, 11 games out of the wild card.  That's a lot to make up but not beyond the realm of possibility.  Obviously, things didn't work out but staying the course usually involves building around more talent than Yonder Alonso and Andrew Cashner.
Do you really think the Padres could trade 3 years of Myers for Turner and Wisler (let's assume they're on the same team) right now? That's insane. I wouldn't even assume that Myers would net a compensation pick. I certainly would give Turner a better chance of netting one.

The Padres did dump Quentin and Maybin, but they also took back double that amount of salary in Melvin Upton. As I'm sure you remember. And while he's more highly regarded, Kimbrel only netted the Padres a win and a half last year.

For all of the double-speak and business school platitudes that were rife in Hinkie's interview and resignation letter this week, I think he did make a really good point about a GM's priorities (e.g. keeping one's job) not always being aligned with the team's (usually, realistically building a contending team). I have no clue if the ownership told him to go for broke, or gave him carte blanche, or what. Certainly they do deserve some blame in this mess.The Padres weren't terribly exciting pre-Preller, something that GunZ repeatedly pointed out last year, and he wasn't wrong, but if that was the problem, 2015 wasn't the answer. They're reeeally not exciting now.

 
The 1969 expansion teams haven't had a lot of success.  The Padres, Pilots/Brewers and Expos/Nationals have three World Series appearances between them.  Even the Royals had a long stretch in the wilderness.  

The Padres' two pennant winners were pretty much overmatched against their World Series opponents.  No shame in that because the 84 Tigers and late 90s Yankees were some of the best clubs in recent memory. 

 
Do you really think the Padres could trade 3 years of Myers for Turner and Wisler (let's assume they're on the same team) right now? That's insane. I wouldn't even assume that Myers would net a compensation pick. I certainly would give Turner a better chance of netting one.

The Padres did dump Quentin and Maybin, but they also took back double that amount of salary in Melvin Upton. As I'm sure you remember. And while he's more highly regarded, Kimbrel only netted the Padres a win and a half last year.

For all of the double-speak and business school platitudes that were rife in Hinkie's interview and resignation letter this week, I think he did make a really good point about a GM's priorities (e.g. keeping one's job) not always being aligned with the team's (usually, realistically building a contending team). I have no clue if the ownership told him to go for broke, or gave him carte blanche, or what. Certainly they do deserve some blame in this mess.The Padres weren't terribly exciting pre-Preller, something that GunZ repeatedly pointed out last year, and he wasn't wrong, but if that was the problem, 2015 wasn't the answer. They're reeeally not exciting now.
Wisler was part of the Kimbrel deal.  Turner was a PTBNL in the Myers trade.  In retrospect, the Myers trade was the worst move of Preller's tenure.  They gave up Joe Ross and Jake Bauers in addition to Turner.

But the directive was to go for it in 2015 and Myers figured to be more valuable in the short term.  The Shields contract and Kemp trades were made under the same assumption that there was some window of opportunity for the club.  They miscalculated how far away they were.  They're probably a little worse off than they were when Preller was hired but I factor in the fun we've had analyzing the moves and ridiculing him so it's a break even proposition.

 
What happened to Myers? I know his K rate was high in the minors and his season in Tampa...but what else? Pretty hard fall for him. 

 
Loney's not a bad final piece at a $500k salary.

he's a terrible starter piece at a $8 million salary, which is what he made last year with the Rays.

 
I agree.  He's a decent depth option at that price.  Myers and Kemp have had injury problems in the past and Upton/Blash is no great shakes in LF.

 

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