The Padres’ acquisition of Phil Hughes was clearly more about acquiring the Twins’ competitive balance draft pick than the pitcher himself, and GM A.J. Preller and scouting director Mark Conner spoke to MLB.com’s A.J Cassavell about the swap. Preller told Cassavell that he’s been calling every team that received pick in the competitive balance lottery on a near-weekly basis in an attempt to acquire an additional selection — something that’s long been a priority but was magnified in 2018 after San Diego surrendered a pick to sign Eric Hosmer. “The game now is about making your money work for you,” said Preller. “…You have to figure out what’s the best bang for your buck. Having the extra pick gives you more options.”
The move was met by excitement from Conner and his scouts, who’ll now not only have an extra pick (No. 74 overall) but an additional $812,200 in their draft pool. The Padres, of course, spent considerably more than that to obtain the pick, relieving the Twins of just over $7.6MM of Hughes’ salary. While it seems a shrewd (albeit expensive) pickup of a resource with limited availability, not every organization agrees; one exec from another club told FanRag’s Jon Heyman last week that the Padres were “insane” for taking on that much of the remaining contract to obtain the pick.
More from the division…
- Ross Stripling, who looks to be in the midst of a breakout season with the Dodgers, spoke to Pedro Moura of The Athletic about the role that data and analytics have played in his emergence (subscription required). The 28-year-old righty has turned in a ridiculous 1.68 ERA with 11.0 K/9, 2.1 BB/9, 0.56 HR/9 and a 47.6 percent ground-ball rate in 48 1/3 innings for the Dodgers so far in 2018. Stripling’s success is derived in large part from advance scouting of opposing lineups and taking deep dives into hitters’ strengths and weaknesses. Specifically, Stripling discusses the importance of knowing the quality of contact a hitter will make against pitch types in various portions of the strike zone. “I don’t care about average,” said Stripling. “I just want to know where he pulls the ball at 100 mph. I’m a believer in limiting slug, which is basically limiting exit velocity.” Moura’s column takes a long look not only at Stripling’s sudden success, but also his amateur days, his childhood fascination with baseball statistics and his path to professional baseball.
- The D-backs have had rotten luck with injuries at the big league level in 2018, and it’s apparently extending to the farm system as well. Zach Buchanan of The Athletic tweets that the team’s top prospect, right-hander Jon Duplantier, is dealing with biceps tendinitis and has been shut down from throwing for at least a week. The 23-year-old Duplantier has dominated in Double-A this year, working to a 2.52 ERA with 10.4 K/9, 2.8 BB/9, 0.5 HR/9 and a 59.8 percent ground-ball rate in 35 2/3 innings. He’s currently ranked as the game’s No. 50 overall prospect over at Baseball America and No. 65 overall at MLB.com.
Yeah, and what exec was that? Probably one with a crappy farm system
Not really. Thats a lot of money to take on for a pick in the 70s.
Picks in that range make the majors at a pace greater than 33%
The 7 million is roughly the value of 1 Win. So a 33% chance to make the majors and only need 1 Win return from the guy to recoup the cost (before even getting to the fact that they are spending now money they don’t have anything else they need to spend on, for future production which will save them money at that point)
It’s not really a bad investment for currently losing teams desiring picks for the future, even before factoring for the unlikely but still possible value return on Hughes
Except when you factor in that only 165 players, who have either 10 or more IP or 10 or more AB, have a WAR of 1 or higher, out of 993 total players. When you run the numbers it comes out to roughly a 5.5% chance that it pays off.
Except they don’t need a 1 WAR return – that is just their “the lotto ticket ended up costing us nothing” point.
If they got pretty much anything I am sure they would be happy, and it’s all icing from there. All the shot cost them was money they didn’t have anything better to spend on right now anyway, and now they will be injecting a guy with a pretty good chance to at least make the majors or become a trade chip to help down the road when they can use the value more.
(plus they have a once fair-good starter to see if they can turn into a trade chip, which is another chance that similarly would have cost them money to take otherwise)
My money is on the O’s.
Seems like such a them mentality; they don’t appear to care for picks and prospects much
Farm systems win pennants
I bet the Reds would’ve considered trading their competitive balance pick if the Padres took Homer Bailey and a significant portion of his contract
Significant as in less than $7.6 mil??
Probably not. But it depends what else they sent in return (they sent a prospect in the Hughes trade, though I’m not sure how good of a prospect he really is). The Reds’ competitive balance pick is also a few picks earlier than the one the Twins traded to the Padres, so that likely would have made a difference as well.
All I hear minors wow the best who cares! Where are the real players
Someone please explain to me how Preller is still employed.
A blindfolded monkey throwing darts at a target would have greater baseball talent evaluation acumen than him or anyone on his staff.
The Padres are perpetually awful and his picks and his trades are beyond pathetic.
This culture starts at the top and this is all you need to know about their ownership and why the ballpark is virtually empty every night. They’ve convinced themselves that the public is stupid enough to think there’s a plan in place and that they’re actually building a competitive team.
Spoiler alert!!!!!!! They’re not.
This hands down the worst minor league system in baseball. Everybody agrees. #fakenews
Huh? What the heck are you talking about ? The Padres? If so, you are wrong about their farm right now anyway!
Ya it’s not like the Padres have a top 3 farm system or anything
“…and why the ballpark is virtually empty every night.”
Fyi, the Padres are 11th in 2018 attendance
That means there are 19 other clubs that probably wish their stadiums were as “empty” as San Diego’s
Lots of people who moved to San Diego and want to see their home town team win? Whenever I’ve seen a Cubs, Cardinals or Mets game on tv from SD, you’d think they were the home teams.
My true at all
The Padres’ farm is a consensus top 3 farm in all of baseball. That’s why Preller is still employed.
Time to start winning in 2019.
Those who aren’t paying attention only remember Prellers’ “swing for the fences’ attempt at building a winner in a single off season and then the “scandal”,with the Red Sox trade(that was really nothing but not disclosing muscle relaxers ingested and it turns out Pomerans has been much healthier than Espinosa.
But if they “were” paying attention they might be amazed at the amount of talent he has acquired in the 3 off seasons since that legendary 15’ offseason.
That’s great but when is it going to lead to wins at the big league level?
You could ask that same question to any of the rebuilding teams with top farms right now (White Sox, the Braves up until this year, etc.).
The key here is that the Padres finally have a plan in place, for the first time in years. They are no longer in baseball purgatory, like what the Orioles are currently experiencing.
As much as we have to love what Stripling is doing this season, we also have to suspect that he’s currently punching well above his weight. Difficult to imagine him continuing to post super-ace numbers at age 28 and having never flashed that kind of ability before.
He’s pitching now with help from analytics not just throwing. He’s woke. Sometimes players work smarter not harder…..
When and why would he have ever been pitching without them, considering he has always played for one the most analytics oriented organizations in baseball? As usual the secret sauce theory doesn’t really hold up.
Analytics, sure that’s a part of it in game planning. Which he basically admitted to a change in attack. Throwing less fbs. But realistically, the development of a third consistent pitch, put away pitch has allowed an opportunity to somewhat thrive so far in the rotation. Which is huge when hitters are no longer able to automatically eliminate one and split the plate in half. He was a pretty good reliever in 16 and the peripherals pointed to it. In 17, he basically had to learn how to become a multi inning reliever at the mlb level which people don’t usually acknowledge. But at the end of the day he’s now a fb/cu, sl, and the Cur (has been the difference) guy. I’m not sure he holds up for remainder of the season if they do double his workload, but I know that his role is a pretty significant pen piece come playoff time.
And yes he’s always thrown that Cu, it bit, but it wasn’t tight and that was more so a fly ball pitch. Now it’s tighter and with the late action its now a put away pitch. So the difference seems quite similar to what Maeda has done in development of the Cu this year.
None of which actually addresses any of my points.
Preller is such a clown. He’s wasted 80 mil from disaster signings and trades of 2014. 220 + for light hitting 1B and waste Myers. 13 mil for Mitchell on and on
Has Preller made 1 good trade in 4 years?
Well he traded for Tatis so that’s 1.
So he’s hitting at about the same average as Myers when he’s healthy.
Tatis Sr? Because I don’t count minor league standouts sorry
Have you made a good comment in the last 4 years?
Seriously it gets old, and it reeks of trolling.
Preller so clever that’s why he’s been suspended twice
Aside from the outlier season of 2015, how long have the Padres been rebuilding?
From what I can remember, 1999.
The padres really need to work on their farm system if they plan in being contenders anytime in the next 20 years.
Right, because having the 3rd best minor league farm system, #1 by another clearly won’t get it done!
They fly banners for best minor league don’t they?