TODAY: Discussions between the two sides are “very preliminary,” according to Jon Heyman (via Twitter). While there is an expectation that the Pads will have talks this week with Desmond’s camp, Heyman says the purpose will be “to see if there’s anything to talk about.”
YESTERDAY: The Padres and free agent shortstop Ian Desmond are having ongoing discussions, according to major league sources who spoke with Jon Paul Morosi of FOX Sports. Even though that match would make a lot of sense, no deal appears to be imminent between Desmond and San Diego, Morosi adds.
Morosi notes that Desmond hit 88 home runs over the past four seasons and in that same span the Padres scored the second-fewest runs in the majors. Meanwhile, their 2015 shortstop Alexi Amarista had the worst OPS (.544) of any National League player with at least 300 at-bats last season. Financials and, perhaps, their timeline for contention aside, the Padres sound like the perfect landing spot for Desmond.
Desmond picked up three straight Silver Slugger awards from 2012 through 2014, and owns a .264/.317/.443 since he began his breakout in 2012. While that line was down overall in 2015, his .307 BABIP did fall shy of his career .322 mark and he showed more life at the plate at times later in the season. The 30-year-old’s calling card is his ability to deliver power from a middle infield position, but his reps have also been highlighting his defensive ability when meeting with teams. The Padres would slot Desmond in as their starting shortstop without hesitation, but Desmond appears to be open to playing other positions in an effort to broaden his market.
Desmond declined his qualifying offer from the Nationals back in November, but San Diego’s top pick (8th overall) is protected. The team also stands to add two compensatory picks if and when Justin Upton and Ian Kennedy land elsewhere. At the outset of the offseason, MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes predicted that Desmond would land a five-year, $80MM deal.
If they were to sign Desmond the Padres would only be giving up their 2nd round pick #47 overall since their 1st rounder is protected.
Actually, they’d be surrendering a mid-20s pick for him. The rules change a few years ago means it costs their first unprotected pick, which will be the Upton comp pick.
That would be true but since Upton hasn’t signed with anyone yet as of right now they would be giving their 2nd round pick. Although I have little doubt at some point Upton will sign with someone.
I think Upton goes to the angels or white sox. But I thought the Padres have a couple of young short stops waiting in the wings. what they need to do is try to trade Cashner or Ross to get back a nice package.
Yup. I hope they don’t sign Desmond, unless it is for a 2 or maybe 3 year deal MAX.
White Sox don’t want Upton
The Padres best prospect is Guerra, a shortstop prospect that they got in the Kimbrel trade. He will start the year in Lake Elsinore and is still a 2-3 years away from contributing for the big league squad. Another good shortstop prospect is Rondon, but he struggled after his promotion to AA after the break last season and like Guerra is a few years away. Right now the only shortstop on the Padres 40 man roster is Amarista.
So if they sign him before Upton signs they lose the the 2 nd rounder but if Upton signs first they lose their 20ish pick? Does the pick change once Upton signs?
You’re only confused because “pinballwizard” made an incorrect statement and “disgruntledreader” called him on it. (correctly, I might add) Nothing changes, the Padres will have their 1st round pick and gain 2 more “comp picks” when Upton and Kennedy sign elsewhere. If the Padres sign Desmond, they lose their 1st unprotected pick, (the 1st comp pick) which will be mid to late 20″s.
Makes sense for the Padres if his price has fallen well below the MLBTR projections. Padres clearly aren’t going anywhere in this division anytime soon, so spending too much for too long doesn’t make sense.
If he signs, I would be ok with it but super excited. His addition along with John Jay make us a better team but far from a contending team. Another blah season…but I’ll continue to watch and hope.
But not super excited-correction
How does Jon Jay make the Padres a better team? A light hitting, poor defensive CF with not much speed that is making $7 million is not exactly a boon to the Padres. If he struggles with the wrist injury and cannot hit for a high average, a very real possibility with that type injury, it could be a very bad move as it ties up a 25 man roster spot that could be filled by Jankowski who is a very promising prospect.. .
Not sure where your evaluation comes from but Jon jay has great defense, he went without an error for nearly two seasons straight, makes many exceptional plays, he always hits for high average(excluding last year due to injuries), and has above average speed. Agree that the wrist injury could be an issue but it’s a great gamble for the Padres. Also gives them a good lead off hitter, jay has outstanding on base percentage.
Last 3 seasons at 1 DRS. 2 before that at 3 DRS, and the one before that at -2 DRS. I don’t know what Watermelon has as the basis of his information, but I would say Jay is mediocre on defense at best.
Teams don’t rely on DRS or UZR or any other guess or estimation. Good teams don’t rely on the eyes of scouts alone either. Teams have exact measurements of what a player is actually doing. Fans are starting to get an inkling of what teams have available to them with Pitch F/X and Statcast. So whatever you think you know, think again. Preller made a small but expensive mistake in Jay and a huge mistake in Kemp. Looks like he may have made another huge mistake in Desmond.
DRS isn’t an exact science. He has close to always had a positive defensive war and has a career .354 obp even with the bad year he had last year. He’s not eye popping but a great all around player.
Guerra wasn’t even the best prospect in that trade. Manny Morgot is.
As a die hard Padres fan, I really hope this doesn’t happen. We need good defensive players, not another strikeout machine who’ll hit .220 in our lineup. It’s time to wake up and smell reality, and realize we’re not competing for the division when now there’s 3 teams clearly ahead of us. Trade for younger guys and start over because the last place a team wants to be is the middle of the road, and that’s exactly where the Padres have been for the past 8 years
I want to see the Padres finally competitive for once with a booming farm system. I just dont understand the organizations moves the last couple years. Not to mention a lot of the time your uniforms dont even closely resemble baseball ones lol.
Agreed but they just cleared Kimbrel, Gyorko and Benoit’s salary maybe not to rebuild but to presumably spend on a gaping hole like SS. Pads lack options at SS, whether via trade or otherwise. Guerra is several years away so I imagine Preller may spend on a bad contract like this.
There have always been three teams ahead of the Padres. If they can keep their pitchers on the field for most of the season, I bet the Rockies beat them, too.
Makes sense for the Padres, and would make sense for Desmond if he can get an op out clause written in. The Padres are really weak at short. Both sides could benefit from this.
Desmond refused like a 7 year deal worth over 100 mill from the nationals, he should of taken it, because he is not going to get that on the open market right now, he had a down year especially on defense. On a good year like 2012, he can give you 25 home runs and over 80 rbi’s. I thought the white sox would of been in on him as well.
Padres will be better than they were last year PERIOD. A J is not going to just sit still.
traded kimbrel and benoit , if they want a nice package back, they should trade ross
They could probably get Baez for Ross…..with a few other pieces changing hands. Baez can handle SS until the other guy is ready, then he could play anywhere in the IF…….he’s figuring out the K’s…..he’s going be a force at some point.
He’s a safety net for the Cubs in case any of their infielders (- 1B) go down. And now he’s been playing the outfield in winter ball so he’s got more value to the Cubs. They don’t have any other back up options in case Russell goes down. And he’s a great second option. If the Pads wanted to trade Ross for Baez I think that would have went down. But now that Castro has moved that trip has sailed.
Alcantara is the emergency SS….but I agree that Baez is too valuable to the Cubs to be traded. We’ll see what the Cubs do to obtain another SP…….They have a couple coming up in 1-2 years……maybe they can trade Almora and Alcantara, along with Vogelbach and another lower prospect, in exchange for Ross……keeping Baez on the Cubs.
Ross is a #1 pitcher on all but a handful of teams. He is worth a lot more than a prospect, any prospect. Maybe Baez and 2-3 of Cubs top 10 prospects.
The Cubs would be ecstatic if they could get Ross for just Baez or Soler alone. Preller has made some bad moves, but he has been asking for a package that is as big as what the Diamondbacks gave up for Miller. That would be the right move to go along with moving Kimbrel and Benoit if he wasn’t also hanging on to Kemp, Shields, Upton and adding guys like Jay and possibly Desmond.
Based on last off-season, I think you might want A to “sit still” … Unless you want him fired, which is his current destination.
Keep on believing that. Keep the faith.
Does anybody know what other teams are interested?
As a Padres fan it is frustrating to watch this front office operate. They made a horrible, horrible trade in acquiring Kemp, a poor defensive, 30+ year old RF’er with a scary injury history. And now they are thinking of signing a 30+ poor defensive shortstop who is exhibiting any number of red flags from an offensive perspective. But beyond that, the Padres seem to be trying to play the ‘tweaner game. They aren’t rebuilding but they aren’t making any sensible moves to get appreciably better either; they have been rumored to be shopping Ross but now we learn that they are connected to Desmond. Makes no sense. Pick a strategy and go with it, Pads!!! Either trade your guys (i.e. get who you can for Shields, try your damnedest to trade Kemp, trade Casher and Norris, and make sure you get a haul for Ross) OR go for it again (I guess) – try to sign Desmond for NO MORE THAN 3 YEARS and then go get yourself either Alvarez or Carter and take your chances. For me, I’d go full rebuild. The NL West is tough and Ross is never ever going to have a higher value than he has right now (2 years of control, etc.).
I agree, and I wouldn’t mind at all if they decided to go for a full rebuild. The Dodgers, Giants, and Diamondbacks all look better and are in much better position to contend for the playoffs.
Instead of doing things like this that will keep them in a middling stage, they should just restart and build the farm back up, starting by seeing what Ross will bring back.
They’re so, so screwed ..
Ruddy Giron / Jose Rondon aren’t close to being ready
So why not try to trade for a guy like Jean Segura from the rebuilding Brewers
Maybe grab a guy like Jonathan Villar who is totally blocked by Correa
Or sign a guy like Brendan Ryan as a stop gap?
There are many creative ways to go about things instead of throwing money at FA.
Villar is on the Brewers now……so maybe your Segura idea would work…….but he’s really only had “1 good half-season” in his whole career.
Be careful what you wish for……
I agree that he has only had one good season and may not be good again but the pads did way worse there last year. He would be way better than what they have now. Also the pads farm system ranks last in most of the rankings I’ve seen. Doubt they could trade for anyone with more value.
Anyone is better than Amarista, and you’re right: Ther eare other ways to deal with SS than sign an expensive Desmond.
Did Preller not learn from his mistakes last year?
If they can get him for 4/50 then they should do it. Nothing more in years or salary.
I hope they don’t end up signing him. They don’t need to add to the big-contract, aging guys from last year.
White Sox should sign him for 1 year/14 million. Give him a year to build his value back up, while adding a potentially above average shortstop to bridge the gap to Tim Anderson in 2017.
I think that he could be a good piece for us but only at most 4/60. He is at least a starting caliber shortstop which we haven’t had since Evereth Cabera had his All Star season (PEDs?). Even if Guerra is ready in a couple years we can shift Desmond to LF or 3B.
Preller dug a huge hole for the Padres because of one mistake. Believing expensive 30+ year old hitters won’t decline. The problem is they do. Almost all hitters do and they decline consistently at a rate of 7% or more per season on offense. If you can find more than 20 player seasons over the past 20 years where a regular offensive starter improved year over year offensively past the age of 30 I would be amazed. I am willing to bet that you can count them on your fingers. Yes there are some that came off an injury that limited playing time and improved, but those are not the ones I’m talking about. Guys that played a full year and then improved the following year. Since we are talking about the Padres, lets look at Kemp. He hit .287/.346/.506/.852 with a .140 OPS+ in 2014. In 2015 he hit .265/.312/.443/.755 with a 111 OPS+. His offensive production fell off more than 7% across the board. Expect a similar decline from Melvin Upton next season. Look for Jon Jay to decline from his career numbers as well.
Ian Desmond is going into his age 30 season. The chances that he will decline from his .264/..312/..424/.736 and 99 OPS+ career numbers is pretty high. Why make that investment with the chances of decline so high?
Even if you exclude guys coming back from injury-shortened years in 2014, just last year you have, among others, Curtis Granderson, Nelson Cruz, Edwin Encarnacion, Shin-soo Choo, Brian McCann, David Ortiz (the 4th time since his 30th birthday he’s improved year-to-year), Kendrys Morales. Other guys I can think of in just very recent vintage include Adrian Beltre, Jose Bautista, Ian Kinsler, Russell Martin, Howie Kendrick,,
That’s just from a list of guys I had a pretty good sense had done it in the last two years… certainly aging curves provide a general downward trend, but it’s a spectacularly bad leap to jump from statements about averages to near-universal claims…
Also, I like your new name.
Shin-soo Choo -123 games played, David Ortiz 142 games and Edwin Encarnacion -128 games were returning from injuries and McCann didn’t play a full season in either the 2014 or 2015 season or improve his BA and regressed hugely from his age 29 season kind of proving that guys premise. Morales played 98 games in 2014 so he wouldn’t count in terms of Watermelon’s premise either. But otherwise nice research.
Of the others, Beltre peaked at age 25. it’s been good since then, but never better with 6 seasons that he spent time on the DL. In no full season following a full season has he seen improvements across the board since turning 30. Joey Bats peaked at age 30 and while he saw an improvement in HRs in 2015, he saw dropoffs in BA, OBP, OPS and OPS+. Those were the only two seasons since age 30 in which he played a full season. .Howie Kendrick’s only full season was 2014. Russell Martin spent two stints on the DL in 2014 at age 31 but hit better except for power and dropped substantially across the board from his career numbers in 2015 in everything except HR. Ian Kinsler has hit for better average each year with drops in power. Maybe you can count him.
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Seeing that you found 2 and maybe a 3rd for last season, you could probably find 20 or maybe even 60 guys that improved after age 30 out of 8162 seasons played by guys over 30 in the past 20 years. While it proved Watermelon wrong on his statement about being able to count them on your fingers, it served as great proof of his premise and really made me think about the merit of signing any FA over 30. Thanks.
You blew it my friend. You included mostly guys coming off injury years or years in which they started less than 150 games. If you are going to take that tactic, at least read my post and write something that is halfway in line with it. No matter how you look at it, players over 30 decline and do it predictably. The few exceptions prove the rule, not the other way around. Even if its 100 out of the thousands of player seasons over the past 20 years. Any GM that has focused his efforts on acquiring mostly players over 30, even superstars, has seen the strategy fail. Even the Yankees went out and acquired hitters that were in their prime, not over 30.
Of course focusing mostly on players north of 30 would be a bad strategy. That certainly has not a damn thing to do with what we’ve seen of Preller’s approach so far, but it is a poor strategy. I wasn’t arguing in favor of it, though. I was rebutting your attempt to make a nearly universal statement out of a general trend.
Would Desmond actually be an improvement over Jed when you think about it? Jeds stats werent too bad the 2nd half at least. Could of saved millions by hanging on to him instead of giving a multi year deal to a possibly permanetly declining Desmond with likewise production
Yes, so overall, the Padres need to start looking at building up younger, cost-controlled talent than go for aging veterans like Desmond.
4yr deal for 50 million, 2 year opt out – great 5 hole hitter for the Padres but he has got to cut down the strikeouts
Forget Desmond honestly, he should be getting no more then two years, the Padres shouldn’t throw money away on a guy who may not hit the Mendoza line, there’s always Segura, urshela, Maybe Ryan goins, or even Marwin Gonzalez that they could trade for that I would personally have over Desmond
He would give Pads legit SS w/a bat for first time since Gary Templeton (Kahlil Green was almost that guy) and would plug a huge hole up the middle and in the lineup. I would not give him more than 3 yrs and def. have an opt out after 2.
Does it really matter? Any move at SS that replaces Amarista is a win. The Padres have no chance to do anything this year, so why spend the $$$??? Build the farm.
I spent $22k last season on season tickets (that pays for 2 innings of Matt Kemp I believe) and that was after they made the Upton trade. When they made the Kimbrel trade I was even more stoked. Then they fired Black mid-season, brought in a babysitter, now they have hired a coach with ZERO track record with a winning organization. I did not renew my seats, and the Padres front office calls me weekly to try to sell me. Why? Because I guarantee season ticket sales have tanked since the debacle last season. Preller has made a marginal team from 2014 into a laughable team in 2015, and it will be the comedy hit of the year in 2016. Congrats Preller, your club got $22K in 2015, but no more. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
Wow 22k? We have one of those partial season ticket plans, so it’s obviously not nearly as expensive, but that’s still a lot of money!
But I agree, they fell flat on their face last year, and this year they won’t be doing much better. The NL west is looking like it will be a three-team race, with the Padres putting on a Comedy of Errors ( no pun intended).
At least it will be putting them in good draft position.
It was 6 seats, 3 rows back…thought we would enjoy the seats for the playoffs if we made it. We are big baseball fans, and would support the Padres if they could get their act together, but this is a ship without a rudder, can’t buy in…yet
Bottom line is, Padres need to replace the offense that they will be losing once Upton signs somewhere else. If that means doing it unconventionally by signing Desmond primarily because the shortstop market is weak this year with most teams having solutions and not having holes there then so be it. I agree with the consensus of giving him 2-3 years with a mutual opt out after year 2, benefiting both sides hopefully.. Desmond to regain value and suitors for a long term deal, guerra being big league ready for 2018.
If Desmond signs I think our lineup would look something like;
1. Jay, CF
2. Myers, 1B
3. Solarte, 3B
4. Kemp, RF
5. Norris, C
6. Desmond, SS
7. Blash, LF
8. Spangenberg, 2B
9. Pitcher
Not horrible, but Desmond gives the lineup a little more life. I still see it being a tough year regardless based off what the Dodgers, Giants and D-Backs have all done.
Replacing Amarista with anyone else will be an improvement. If they do end up signing Desmond, it better be for a short term deal, like others have been saying. The last thing they need is to have another big contract to an aging player on the books.