Padres moves
In comments in the previous post, Matthew Shugart wondered why I hadn’t made any mention of the major Padres news. Truth is, I’ve been so busy I’ve barely had time to sort it out.
First, Bud Black is the new manager. I guess it is old fashioned, but I like the idea of teams having a hometown angle. He went to SDSU with Tony Gwynn, and later was a good pitcher (Royals) and then pitching coach (Angels). The only negative is that he doesn’t have managerial experience, but I get the impression that these days the major moves are going to be decided upstairs, not in the dugout, as is the case with the A’s. For the Padres, I think it is becoming Moneyball time (all baseball fans should check out the book, it is a great read).
Second, we traded Josh Barfield for two guys I’d never heard of (Kevin Kouzmanoff and Andrew Brown) though apparently Kouzmanoff is a very good hitting prospect. Some have argued it’s a good trade, mostly out of the belief that Barfield won’t exceed his 2006 numbers, and a hot July pumped them up. I’m not sure about that—he is so young and has so much potential (and his dad Jesse had good power). Now we also have a hole at second, which we’ll fill with a few agent (Marcus Giles’ name keeps popping up).
It is going to be a very different team in 2007, with a different style as well. Alderson and Towers do know how to win, so I’ll just try to keep the faith.
2 comments:
I sure hope Bud Black was not a good pitching coach, because if he was, the Angels--built on pitching--might be in trouble without him. I'm hoping he was irrelevant.
For what it is worth, prior to the 2006 season, John Sickels rated Kouzmanoff a B- prospect, Barfield a B, and Brown a C+.
What I would not like were I actually a Padres fan (rather than an occasional hitchhiker on the bandwagon) is that Kouzmanoff is more than a year and a half older than Barfield. I would also not like the fact that Towers claims it is easier to find someone good to play second than to play third. Since when? Sounds like a very non-Moneyball conclusion, to me.
Sckels says Brown could be very good if he can stay away from injuries. One can say that about a lot of pitching prospects.
I guess the bottom line is they got two prospects with upside for one how might have overperformed his short-term expectations. Still, if I had to bet, I would say that Barfield's longer term upside is the best of the three.
Oh, and you probably have heard of Kouzmanoff. Late in the season, he became the first player in major-league history to hit a grand slam on his first major-league pitch!
I think the idea is that in the current free agent list, there are more 2B than 3B (unless you can afford Aramis Ramirez).
The question about pitching coaches is interesting--I wonder if anyone has done any analyses to quantify their impact.
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