Turning The San Diego Padres Luck Around (The Show ’15)

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Sometimes rumors are just that...****mors. And sometimes those rumors end up being true…….

With the Washington Nationals reaching the World Series last year but losing to the Los Angeles Angels, one thing was for sure.....They had to resign Jordan Zimmerman to a long term contract......After all he was the Cy Young AND MVP of the National League and probably all of baseball with the sick stats he displayed, and the Nationals paid him like he deserved it.

So that left the question of where does that leave Stephen Strasburg. The past couple of weeks, with Spring Training right around the corner, the rumors started to swirl heavily that Strasburg was unhappy in Washington. Although Strasburg and the Nationals agreed to a deal, it was only for 1yr/10.3 million.

When the rumors leaked, Brian Cashman picked up the phone and tested the waters.....they proved to be cold at the time, but the past two weeks they have been warming up........AND now, if the reports are true, The San Diego Padres have acquired Stephen Strasburg in a trade with the Nationals. There are no further details, but it was first reported by Tom Verducci earlier this afternoon.

Hopefully we have some more details later on this blockbuster move……….

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Stephen Strasburg is coming home!!! The rumors about Stephen Strasburg to the Padres have ended……IT’S OFFICIAL!!! Strasburg has been traded away to the Padres from the Washington Nationals.


Brian Cashman and the Padres have been looking for a frontline starter for their rotation and they’ve found one. After negotiations with the Philadelphia Phillies fell through while trying to get Cole Hamels, Cashman heard the reports about Strasburg and the Nationals and quickly made a call.


Cashman: “It’s all about improving our team, putting a winning product out there. We are in a tough division and we need to stay leveled with the rest of our competition.” When asked about a long term deal with Strasburg, this is what he had to say…..”Obviously us trading for Stephen Strasburg right before training camp, we feel that he is that missing piece. The long term deal has been discussed and right now we have agreed with his team to put that on hold, but yes, our intentions are for a deal to be signed and long-term.”

Trade details:
Nationals get 2B Jason Kipnis, LF Hunter Renfroe and SP Casey Kelly

Padres get SP Stephen Strasburg and LF Derrick Robinson

We gave up one prospect in LF Hunter Renfroe and a starting pitcher that has a ton potential in Casey Kelly (A Potential // 78 OVR). With the Nationals thinking they would not be able to resign Strasburg, they wanted something in return. Kelly is a 24 year old pitcher who hasn’t yet reached his max potential but certainly is capable of holding a spot in the rotation

LF Hunter Renfroe (24 years old // 68 OVR // B Potential) was the other centerpiece in this trade. With Jayson Worth getting up there in age, Renfroe is going to have a chance to showcase his talent and be brought up rather sooner than later.

Signing Justin Upton to a deal in the off-season, it was going to be tough to see Renfroe make it to the show in 2016 unless an injury occurred.

Obviously for us the main piece of this trade was Strasburg. He comes back to San Diego, born and bred, spent his collegiate years in San Diego State. Things just seemed like they were falling out of whack with the organization over in D.C. He comes in as the ace of the San Diego Padres and a chance to lead us to where we want to go.


Also in the trade we received LF Derrick Robinson (28 years old). Nothing to blow you away with. He has a D Potential and 56 OVR. What stands out about him is his SPEED and BASERUNNING AGGRESSIVENESS and his FEILDING. He’s got below average batting attributes.

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The 2016 season is upon us……Spring Training is here!!!

Our expectations have now risen with the acquisition of Stephen Strasburg. I feel like our pitching is going to our strong point again. It will be interesting to see if Andrew Cashner can duplicate what he did last year after going 16-8 with an ERA of 2.41. In 2016 he won’t have the pressure of being the ace of the team, so if can repeat his success from last year as a number 2, then we should see a dominant 1-2 punch atop of the rotation.

The signing of John Lackey at the backend of the rotation brings some experience to the team and a chance for Lackey to eat up some innings while giving the bullpen periodic rests.

Corey Leubke and Tyson Ross in the middle of that and they have to be much better. Especially Ross and his 4.22 ERA from last year. Leubke went 7-9 but had a huge lack of run support.

The bullpen remains in tact, besides for James Russell being signed and veterans Matt Thornton and Jeff Frasor coming in as middle relievers, along with Joaquin Benoit who led the team in Holds.

The bats remain a question mark to me…………..The lineup did not get an overhaul. Matt Kemp and his contract remain and I look for Kemp to have a big year, while Justin Upton and his new contract bat right behind Kemp. Just like in real sports I find it scary when a player gets that new long term contract so lets hope Justin Upton’s numbers don’t decline.

Along with Wil Myers in centerfield, our outfield is pretty much squared away.


Yangervis Solarte, Jedd Gyorko, Alexi Amarista and Yonder Alonso round up the infield. I look for Solarte to be the best out of the infielders. He hit .289 last year, and for him to hit .300 or better would be ideal.

Three questions that we can expect answers for as the seasons starts:

What kind of season we will see from Stephen Strasburg?

Who will step up offensively for the Padres?

Do the Padres have enough to compete for the NL West crown?



Spring Training News & Notes:

We had a decent spring and finished 16-12. We were in the top 10 in BA, R, H, 2B, 3B, HR, RBI, BB, SLG, OBP, Total Bases and still striking out plentiful.

Also in pitching we finished top 10 in ERA, SHO, BS, Runs Allowed and Earned Runs. Our starters are pretty much going to be what you see in the depth chart. The only real “battle” we had was at the shortstop position between Alexi Aramista and Jung Ho Kang. Kang was signed as a free agent late in the winter. I thought he would be able to provide a good bat off the bench.

Here were their stats in Spring Training:

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As you can see Aramista did more this spring which will likely earn him the starting job at shortstop.

The new hometown favorite Stephen Strasburg, pitched for a new team for the first time in his career. His average against versus left-handed hitters sticks out a bit. Strasburg will get the nod opening day in San Francisco.

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At 37 years old, John Lackey had himself a fine spring. He pitched a total of 13 innings and finished with an ERA of zero in 13 innings.

Tyson Ross pitched 26.2 innings and posted a 3.04 ERA, while walking more than he struckout ( 16 to 14) in 8 games. Hitters had a batting average of .283 against him.

Robbie Erlin pitched in 10 games this spring totaling 26 IP and struckout 16 and walked only 4. Right hand hitters batted .194 against him. Erlin will likely start in AAA and could get a call up well before September rolls around.

Luckily, we escaped this spring with no major injuries.

The Nationals will be without 3B Ryan Zimmerman for all of 2016 as he has a Torn Rotator Cuff (Out 6+ Months). And the Boston Red Sox will be without CF Mookie Betts for 1-2 Months with a Torn Calf.

That’s all I got for Spring Training…..We’re ready to dive into the real thing!!

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A quick look at our schedule for April to start off the season. Much like last year, the early part of our schedule is filled with divisional opponents.

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San Diego Padres Depth Chart - 2016

• Catcher
• Derrick Norris
• Austin Hedges

• First Base
• Yonder Alonso
• Tommy Medica

• Second Base
• Jedd Gyorko

• Third Base
• Yangervis Solarte

• Shortstop
• Alexi Amarista
• Jung Ho-Kang
• Yangervis Solarte

• Left Field
• Justin Upton

• Center Field
• Wil Myers
• Melvin Upton Jr

• Right Field
• Matt Kemp

• Starting Pitcher
• Stephen Strasburg
• Andrew Cashner
• Corey Leubke
• Tyson Ross
• John Lackey

• Relief Pitcher
• Kevin Quackenbush
• Joaquin Benoit
• Jason Frasor
• Matt Thornton
• James Russell
• Nick Vincent

• Closer
• Craig Kimbrel

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Before we get into the start of the season, I wanted to give a quick review of the players we drafted back in June of last year. All six were signed to minor league contracts.....

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We went with the highly scouted first baseman in the first round. As you can see Eric Castro has a ton of potential and could very well debut in the bigs this year!! Possibly a September call-up. Not projected to be a speedy guy but Castro has shown otherwise and has decent speed for a first baseman. He is very near the potential that scouts have given him, so look out for Eric Castro this year, he will be starting AAA.


Antonio Rosa is another player that has a high potential but is still a good way from reaching it. Only 19 years old, I wouldn't look for him to hit the big leagues until 2021. His velocity and break on the ball is what stands out the most.....He'll start in SINGLE-A ball to have time to work on his control.

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Series #1

Nothing smells like Opening Day in baseball when two aces from division rivals face off against each other. Our first series saw us travel to San Francisco to battle the Giants.

The Giants had just revamped their roster after tasting defeat in the NLCS against the Nationals last year. We’re trying to get things started on the right foot and no way better than to pit our newest acquisition of Stephen Strasburg against the dominant lefty, Madison Bumgarner on Opening Day.

It was a great matchup indeed between these two. We got 2 early runs in the second and third inning and again 2 more runs in the top of the eighth. As you can see from the screenshot below, Strasburg and Bumgarner were pretty evenly matched up. But Strasburg did get the last laugh in this one as we shut out the Giants on Opening Day, 4-0.

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The next 2 games, both teams would split as Andrew Cashner took the loss in game two and Tyson Ross looked sharp in game 3 and got the win. Both games finished with the same score of 6-2. Cashner was sharp in game up until the fifth and sixth innings. He finished the day giving up 4 earned runs and only striking out 1.

Matt Kemp helped the Padres win 2 out of 3 by doubling twice and hitting a homerun in the rubber match. Kemp also had a homerun in game 1 of this opening series.

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Series #2

After we took two out of three from the Giants we traveled to Los Angeles to continue opening week. This time the Dodgers were our opponent for 4 games.

In the first game, the Dodgers got up to an early lead by the second inning, leading 2-0. In the top of the fifth, San Diego was able to load the bases against Dodger starter Brett Anderson with no outs, only to have Kemp-Upton-and Gyorko strikeout after LA went to their bullpen. Brett Anderson pitched very well holding us to only two hits.

Poor game for us offensively and our errors matched our total number of hits. The two hits came from Jung Ho Kang and Wil Myers.


The next game were able to get the bats going with nine hits. In the top of the 8th, with the bases loaded, Derek Norris gets hit by a pitch which scores Matt Kemp. You’d like to see a base hit with the bases loaded, but we’ll take a run however we can get it.

Key play: Bottom of the eighth and with Joaquin Benoit pitching and Howie Kendrick on second base, Carl Crawford bloops a singles to LF and Justin Upton comes up throwing and nails Kendrick at the plate for the out to preserve the 4-3 lead.

Another intriguing matchup in the third game of the series was Strasburg against Kershaw. One would expect a low scoring affair when these two took the mound. But in the third inning both teams exchanged three runs as the game remained tied. Kershaw gave up a 3-run shot to Wil Myers and Strasburg gave up a 2-run shot to Yasiel Puig.

Both weren’t at their best today. Justin Turner singled home 2 runs in the fourth to give LA the lead. It was Kershaw who would end up getting the best of Strasburg, Kershaw singled to center to put the Dodgers up by a score of 6-3. Matt Kemp helped close the gap to 1 run in top of the seventh with a 2-run shot but the Dodgers answered back in the eighth and were up 8-5 for good.

In game four we needed Andrew Cashner to pitch better than he did in his first start, and we needed our offense to get it going against Zach Greinke. We got to Greinke early with 2 runs in the first and another in the second inning.

Matt Kemp hit his fourth homerun of the year in the fourth that upped our lead to 5-0. Cashner really settling in this one, cruising nicely as the game went on. After Upton hit a 2-run bomb in the sixth, Cashner gives up a 2-run blast to Adrian Gonzalez in the bottom half. Then four more runs in the bottom of the seventh that made it 7-6, Padres winning. The score would hold as Upton’s homerun prove to be the insurance runs. The bullpen held up in innings eight and nine.

We escaped out of LA with the split and evened our record with the Dodgers, both are 4-3 and are tied for third place.

Although Andrew Cashner allowed 6ER and 10H, he still got the W. Nice to see the offense bail out the pitcher.

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Series #3

San Diego opened up at home this season against the division leading and suprising Arizona Diamondbacks. Arizona is 5-1 on the season, while the Padres finish splitting four games with the LAD are 4-3.

In game one, Corey Luebke would get a chance to go for his first win of the season, facing 1-0 Archie Bradley.

Matt Kemp homered in the third for his league leading fifth homerun of the year and now has homered in three straight ballgames. By the the time the fourth inning came around, we had knocked Archie Bradley out of the game. His final pitching line: 3.1 IP // 7H // 6R // 6ER // 4BB.

Luebke on the other hand pitched fantastic, his pitching line: 6.2IP // 7H // 1R // 1ER // 2BB // 6K. Kevin Quackenbush pitched 2-1/3 innings in relief work as we beat Arizona to improve to 5-3. Soalrte provided 3 RBI’s.

In game 2 the Padres kick started the runs early thanks to a Wil Myers 3-run homerun in the first. Three runs is all we would need as the Diamondbacks got 10 hits in the game but stranded runners killed them.

Tyson Ross was a huge reason why coming up with key outs in tough situations. Ross improved to 2-0 (6IP // 8H // 1R // 1ER // 2BB // 4K) and now has ERA of 1.42. Benoit got the hold and Kimbrel came in for his second save of the young season.

Jeremy Hellickson was the losing pitcher for Arizona, only lasting 4.1 innings and walking six.

In the top of the fifth, Justin Upton came up big again with his arm by throwing out AJ Pollack at home to keep the score 3-1.

Game 3 came around and it sure would be nice to get the sweep. Again we jumped out to an early lead in the bottom of the first on Jung Ho Kang’s RBI double scoring Alexi Aramista. John Lackey erased the lead by giving up a 2-run shot to Blaine Swihart in the top half of the second.

With the Padres down 3-1 entering the bottom of the fourth, Wil Myers connects for solo HR. Tommy Medica gets in on the action, starting at first for Yonder Alonso in this one, drives in Matt Kemp to tie the game up a three in the sixth.

It would be tied as we headed into the bottom of the ninth. After Austin hedges walked and later advanced to second on a single by Amarista, Jung Ho Kang had the chance to win it for us. He did just that!! Kang singled to left center as Hedges rounded third and scored easily to win with the walk-off.


Key Player This Series:
Wil Myers – 5-9 // 2 R // 4 RBI

We’re 7-3 in our last 10, all within our division….The sweep of the Diamondbacks gets us into first place.

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