Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1325: Book Learning

Episode Date: January 22, 2019

Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about Willians Astudillo and the Sonny Gray trade, then (19:11) bring on Padres podcaster David Marver to talk about the Padres supposedly opening their books, what information the team actually revealed, the ways in which that information may be incomplete or misleading, why Padres ownership hasn’t spent more, San […]

Maybe he don't care, maybe he don't care That's why you're so scared, maybe he don't care Maybe he don't care, maybe he don't care Oh, even headed, yeah, you count in odd numbers Oh, even headed, yes, you count in odd numbers Hello and welcome to episode 1325 of the Wild Egg Fangraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I am Jeff Sullivan of Fangraphs, joined as always by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Hello, Ben. How are you? Hello. Back-to-back Jeff intros. That's something.

Don't get used to it. We're not going to keep this up. I'm a lot more uncomfortable leading. Anyway, later on this podcast, and actually very shortly on this podcast, we don't have a lot to banter about. We will be joined by David Marber of AtChangeThePadres on Twitter, also co-host of the Gwynntelligence podcast to talk about the Padres. This was a weekend where there was an article dropped in the San Diego Union Tribune where the Padres allegedly were said to have opened their books for public consumption. And we're going to talk to David about how that is and is not true and the state of the Padres, what the state of the Padres has been before we get to the Padres.

Always a favorite team to talk about the Padres. Someone should talk about the Padres. We have, I think, at least a couple of things to talk about the Padres someone should talk about the Padres we have a well you have I think at least a couple things to talk about one I overstated my case I made a grave mistake last week Williams-Estadio's winter is not complete because I forgot you one of the conditions we weren't going to talk about him until the season started or something and we didn't make it one episode I am an idiot to that I'm an idiot because I forgot about the rules of the Venezuelan Winter League, where when a team is eliminated in the next round, the team is still alive.

Get the draft players. And Williams Astadillo has been drafted for the championship by the Cardinales de Lara. He will be playing against, I don't know, the other team that's in there. I don't care where the other team is. I only care about Astadillo's team. So Williams Astadillo, after having been eliminated from the playoffs playoffs will remain in the playoffs as he competes for the championship what do you think the vibe is in the club i mean look the clubhouses are different every year it's the winter league it's not like team chemistry is the same as we might talk about it in the major leagues

but what do you think it's like for a player to just show up for between four to seven games and try to win a team a championship but like if he if he were to hit a player to just show up for between four to seven games and try to win a team a championship like if he if he were to hit a walk-off home run for example in game seven the most dramatic home run possible would his celebration be any different than had he hit it for his own team that he'd been with for the three months prior yeah probably not i don't know maybe you just get into the spirit of the thing but yeah it would be hard not to feel like a mercenary i would think that's why in general i don't really like this idea of drafting players from defeated teams in the playoffs. But I think that it's great that Williams-Casadillo can keep playing. Now,

in this case, he is joining the team that lost Luis Valbuena and Jose Castillo earlier this season in the accident. Well, not really accident, but tragedy that we discussed on the podcast. And because they lost two of their best hitters or their two best hitters in that way, they especially needed someone like William Testadio. I can't think of anyone better, not only to bring in to fill a hole in the lineup, but also just to cheer people up than William Testadillo. So they managed to make it to the finals despite suffering that. I would think that means this is a good story surrounding this team, despite the terrible story that enveloped it earlier this

season. So Williams-Estadillo, hopefully he can bring some joy back into the hearts of fans of the Cardinales. So I think the only other thing that's really happened this weekend, assuming you don't want to talk about Martin Perez signing contract with the Twins, because I know that I don't. Sonny Gray is seemingly about to be traded. What remains unclear is exactly where it seems as we are recording this Sonny Gray. I think there is an agreement between the Yankees and the Reds. And I understand this will be published probably after the deadline, so I don't know exactly what's going to happen. But it seems as if, based on reports, the Reds are trying to sign contract-year player Sonny Gray to a contract extension. And if they can't do that, then maybe the trade will be modified or maybe Gray will be sent to another team because other reports say that the Yankees have reached other agreements with some other teams. I guess there can only be one, right? There can only be one other agreement.

with some other teams i guess there can only be one right there can only be one other agreement you can't all get sunny gray but if teams were to share sunny gray whatever it seems like it would be most beneficial for him to not be in new york anymore i one of the things about sunny gray that just really jumps out the page whenever you see an article talking about like single year home road splits i always just ignore them because that's like that's so sabermetrics 15 years ago i generally don't care but have you looked at sunny gray's home road splits from this past season nope great name a statistic what would you like what split would you like me to start with here tops plus obviously all right well then i should open up that page because i was looking at fan graphs sunny gray okay so let's go with t ops plus for

the year 2018 so gray started i think a roughly equal number of games when he was at home 286 player appearances on the road 296 player appearances at home a t ops plus of 142 at home sunny gray allowed a weighted on base of 399 on the road 274 at home an era of 6.98 on the road an era of 3.17 at home a fip of 5.98 on the road a fip of 2.65 at home a strikeout minus walk rate of four percent on the road a strikeout minus walk rate of 19 percent sunny gray genuinely last season one of the worst pitchers of baseball in new york and a legitimately really good pitcher starting pitcher on the road i still assume it doesn't really mean anything but you look at the way that the yankees have handled sunny gray and this has been uncommon right because, right? Because they have basically decided and even said to the public, we think it would be best if we

just moved on from this. The Yankees seem to have come to the conclusion that Sonny Gray actually is really uncomfortable pitching in New York or at least pitching with the Yankees. Yeah, it does seem just from their public comments. And Brian Cashman said at the start of this offseason, basically, yeah, we're going're gonna trade Sonny Gray which doesn't seem like the the greatest thing from a leverage perspective just to announce that you're going to deal the guy but maybe it was just so obvious to everyone that they figured there'd be more benefit to just telling interested suitors hey make your best offer than there would be in pretending that they were ever going to keep him. So yeah, I mean, when you look at his full season, I mean, you think it's like a total disaster season and they took him out of the rotation and they didn't want him pitching playoff games. And then you look at the numbers and, you know, he had like a 4.17 FIP and a better XFIP and was like basically an average fangraphs war in only 130 innings. So clearly there's still something there.

Like his strikeout rate was still as high as it's ever been, and he still gets ground balls half the time, and his control wasn't great. But, you know, there's still clearly a lot to like there, and he is only 29 years old. So you wouldn't think that like a pitcher would go from the Yankees to the Reds and get better. If anything, you would think the opposite. The Yankees are one of these teams that's good at optimizing players and using the data to find things that would make the player even better,

and the Reds have not been that team. The Reds have been the team that trades guys, and then those guys go on to be better with other teams. But in this particular case, maybe there is something to the New York narrative. I mean, there has been something to that with some players in the past, and I always hesitate to say that it's something with any particular player because you're saying that the player has some sort of psychological hang-up when really we're talking about small samples here and it could very well statistically be meaningless but if the team is

behaving that way maybe they know something we don't right and now i should uh i should tell you i looked using the play index looking all time i guess this is like an early stat blast looking all time from 1908 to 2018 minimum of 50 innings pitched at home all-time split sunny gray just had the 11th highest home tops plus so that would be the 11th worst home road split at least by this metric now still nowhere close to 1914 dave davenport's tops plus of 179 pitching for whoever the hell he pitched for uh more recently in 2013 marco estrada had a tops plus of 168 in 2013 so i just gotta pull that up for a little easy browsing 2013 estrada pitched for the brewers he had a season era of 3.87 uh so let's let's dig a little deeper what uh what

happened to marco estrada in? So more meaningful home road splits. So Estrada, wow. Estrada in 2013 had nine starts at home in the area of 6.62 on the road in the area of 2.09. Marco Estrada was a lot better on the road. And the next season, he got worse. So Marco Estrada, anyway, he's kind of gone back and forth. But there is a somewhat interesting case because now, again, as mentioned, the Yankees have seemingly concluded it's time to move on from Sonny Gray. And realistically, they're out of room in their pitching staff anyway because they just have better or more expensive pitchers or they have qualified relievers.

But in 2016, Tyler Chatwood, I know he was pitching for Colorado at the time, but let's just look past that. In 2016, Tyler Chatwood at home had an ERA of 6.12. And on the road, in an equal number of innings, he had an ERA of 1.69. He was extremely good away from Colorado. He was much better. And I think that this is one of the things that the Cubs were banking on when they signed Tyler Chatwood for three years and $38 million. They thought, well, of course, Tyler Chatwood has this really really good stuff and he'll be more comfortable pitching away from colorado like anybody would be more comfortable pitching away from colorado wonder what happened is that

he was dreadful he was absolutely fell on his face for any number of reasons and so these things are never quite as predictable as you think as you already said cincinnati hardly the first ballpark you think of for a soft landing for a player but one of the things that i think there must be there must be some sort of amendment now that whenever you talk about sunny gray and the reds you have to talk about his college pitching coach who is the reds pitching coach so derrick johnson the reds pitching coach was sunny gray's pitching coach in college and sunny gray then became a first round draft pick and it feels kind of like how the the phillies hired like one of manny machado's

mentors or something a former coach for years ago and of course the white socks have signed john j and acquired yonder alonzo like buddies or in one case the brother-in-law of manny machado it feels like it's kind of the same idea but like i understand sunday gray has a pre-existing relationship with derrick johnson and and that could be good because he was a good pitcher then. But other than maybe the Astros, is there a team that seems better at player development than the Yankees? There's certainly no team that invests more in the player improvement department, I think, than the Yankees, and the Yankees couldn't get Sonny Gray straightened out. So are we going to put this in the lap of just a pre-existing relationship from like seven years ago?

Yeah, I mean, every now and then you do hear that, like so-and-so got away from what was working for him before, and then he just reconnected with some old coach, and they looked at video and reminded him of what he was doing when he was pitching well, and all they had to do was go back to that. So that has happened, I think, but would I bank on it? I don't know. that. So that has happened, I think. But would I bank on it? I don't know. Yeah, it's kind of like the Astros, the Dodgers, the Yankees, these teams that have shown some skill for making players better. The Reds are not that kind of team. So I don't know. You mentioned the ballpark. And is Great American Ballpark, is that, it's almost, it feels like in the minute-made category of like overblown in terms of how much of a hitter's park it is. It's not in the Minute Maid category because Minute Maid is like really not a hitter's park at all. And people still think of it as one as it's a pitcher This reputation like if you look at Let's say Fangraph's three

Year park factors so Using data from the past three Seasons and Great American Ballpark looks like it's the I think Eleventh in terms of Inflating runs so Kind of middle of the pack and Certainly relative to Yankee Stadium

Yankee Stadium is right up There at fourth, along with Colorado and Texas and Boston, and actually then Progressive Field, which I would not have expected, and then the Yankees. And so, I don't know. If you look at the five-year, the Reds are higher.

If you look at the one-year, the Reds are higher. But there is this perception that that's an incredibly hard place to pitch or, you know, Yasiel Puig is going to go there and hit 50 homers or something because it's such a hitter friendly park. And it is, but I don't think it is. And if you look at just the home run park factors, then Great American Ballpark is tied for the fourth highest home run park factors behind Yankee Stadium. It's behind Citizens Bank. It's behind Coors Field. And it's tied with Miller Park. But there's a difference, of course, between home run park factor and an overall park factor. Because it turns out Great American Ballpark is also tied.

And I can't explain this. I think we've never been able to explain this. But it's tied for the highest strikeout park factor strikeouts go up in cincinnati for reasons that are completely unknown to me so anyway it will be it's actually going to be a more pitcher friendly environment for centigrade than the yankee stadium if he actually does go to cincinnati but that much at least as of this recording remains unclear the reds are rumored to be giving up prospect shed long and a a one of the tradable draft picks which is not the first round draft pick but i believe is currently the 37th overall draft pick so a near first rounder

or maybe semantically still the first rounder i don't really know but it's a relatively heavy haul for a pitcher who recently was bad and so we'll see if the reds actually agree to do this if they don't get a contract extension with sunny gray lined up because then i would just be another one year addition to a cincinnati team that still profiles is maybe the fifth best in its own division so what do you think philosophically we've spent so much time thinking about teams not trying to win or not trying the hardest and the reds are a team that seems to be making an effort to try to win but there is the downside of they're bad or at least they're not as good as the cardinals the brewers and the cubs and maybe they're about even with the pirates so what do you make of the reds activity yeah don't know. They have made themselves more interesting, I suppose,

in that they have watchable players who would keep them out of being truly terrible, and that's a plus, but I don't think it gets them any closer to winning the NL Central or even really being a wildcard contender. I guess you could

sort of squint, and if they get gray, you could kind of imagine where and if they get gray, you could kind of imagine where everything goes right and maybe they win 80 something games and are in the running. I just, everything really would have to go right. And they're in exactly the wrong division to be making any sort of run with a mediocre team at this point. So I just don't see it. I mean, maybe they're not really setting themselves back that much. I don't know. I guess they're not trading like they're a number one top prospect types. And so maybe they're just trying to make themselves more watchable while

they bide their time for certain prospects to get good and really build a more sustainable winner. But I just, I don't know. It's an improvement, I guess, relative to where the Reds have been recently, but I still don't get the sense that they have that coherent a plan, or at least that it's coming together this quickly. Yeah. As I look at the Reds, you can squint and kind of see a Braves thing going on. If Joey Votto plays the part of Freddie Freeman, and of course, Eugenio Suarez is one of the more underrated, really, really great players in the game today. I realize now we're talking a lot about the Reds.

Philosophically, this episode is backwards. And then we're talking about the Padres. Wow. I mean, we're recording this on a holiday, so maybe no one will listen. But then you have, I think, the big wild card for the Reds, to say nothing of any of their pitchers, is going to be Nick Senzel,

who, at least according to rumors, his other teams have wanted him i think specifically the pagers have wanted senzel according to reports but the reds have not traded him yet and he is a very good player who in his minor league career has a 904 ops he is good he might play some center field even this season he's kind of in a sense blocked at his regular position by Suarez but he can move around he's young he's the athletic you know he's uh maybe he could end up being part of the MVP machine as he uh learns through analytics how to move around and make himself defensively capable so you know if Senzel comes up and he does the Ronald Acuna thing or the Juan Soto thing then congratulations Reds you have another team that can hit really well and

maybe pitch a little bit I think you and I both like Luis Castillo in the rotation but even with the additions that they have made or are trying to make to the rotation it's still a rotation that would go Luis Castillo Anthony Di Sclafani I guess you would put Sonny Gray third or Alex Wood third I don't know the other one's fourth and Tanner Roark is in there and still not a complete looking team but you can at least see I guess you can see 80s win total in the 80s and maybe that's enough to justify some long-term resource depletion they've done enough to get us to talk about them multiple times this offseason and each time we're like I don't't know, is this going to work?

But hey, we're bringing them up on the podcast, which is something that we haven't really done. We have been notorious for not doing, just because they have not really forced us to talk about them. So that's a change. I guess that's a change for the better. Yeah, I got nothing else to say about the Reds. We can see if the Reds actually get something great maybe in the next episode

we'll talk about more implications alright so we'll take a quick break and have to cut finances and Padres and the sorry history and some ways sorry present but promising future Nate Colbert

will be referenced at least once I think just the once so stick around Nate Colbert will be referenced at least once, I think just the once but I believe that is true stick around I hope you don't repay me forever in debt I hope you don't repay me forever in debt

I hope you don't repay me forever in debt. I hope you don't repay me. So in the past, Ben and I have talked fairly often about whether things would be better if baseball team ownership groups opened up the books. And over the weekend for the San Diego Union-Tribune, Kevin Acey, a reporter, wrote an article where the Padres allegedly, according to the Padres at least, opened their books so that they could be discussed and shared with the public. Now, that has caused a little bit of a, I don't know if a firestorm, but there's a lively discussion that has taken place around the article. And one of the people who has helped to lead that discussion is David Barber at Change the Padres on Twitter, also the co-host of the

Gwyn Intelligence podcast talking about the San Diego Padres. So David, hello, how are you? Good. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. Thank you very much for coming on. I guess the first question I should ask you is, did the Padres really open their books? No, no. And this is the misnomer that drove me crazy at the beginning. I use an analogy on our podcast, which was, you know, it's like you're playing poker with someone and they start talking about their cards at the table. And maybe they're telling you they have a two in their hand, you know, and that's not them showing your cards, right? I mean, if they wanted to show you their cards, they would just show you their cards. So for me,

it's the Padres talking a little bit about their books to a willing journalist who will basically regurgitate whatever they put in front of them. And so, you know, it might be a potential look in the books, but to say it's an actual opening of the books and that we're getting a look into the books is not necessarily true, right? I mean, if they wanted us to do that, they would just show us the books. Right. Yeah. So beware of baseball owners sparing financial figures, I guess, because what they are showing you is probably not the whole picture. So can you sort of summarize for people who haven't read the

article, which we will, of course, link to what did the Padres present here or what did they claim to have presented? Yeah. So there's a number of figures in the article. So basically, Kevin Acey released an article and the purpose of it, I believe, is for the Padres to explain to their fans why they're not active this offseason. I'm not sure why it's this offseason they've decided to do this. Perhaps there's more unrest than normal. But in any case, in the article, they go through a number of reasons why they believe they shouldn't spend yet. And their hypothesis here is that it's wise for them to wait until they have a decent team and then supplement it with veteran players.

But some of the excuses they use therein are not very salient to Padres fans. One of the biggest ones is that they've basically been saddled with this heavy ballpark deck structure. So for those of you not familiar, when the Padres built the new stadium, or had the new stadium built in conjunction with the city in 2004, it opened. Padres built a new stadium or had the new stadium built in conjunction with the city in 2004. It opened. And since then, you know, they haven't spent basically according to what they had promised before the stadium was built. Another big reason why the stadium was built was that the Padres had threatened to leave San Diego if they didn't get a new stadium. And now in this article,

unfortunately, they're blaming some of that debt structure and the interest payments on that debt for why they haven't been able to spend money on the Major League roster. And, you know, that's a major portion of it. There's, there's, it's a pretty long article. Another area that they hit on are the lessons the team learned in 2015. That takes a lot to unpack everything, but there's a lot in here, but mainly it's just an excuse for why they're currently aren't spending. And if you go through it line by line, which we did on our podcast, it's not necessarily the most, the logic doesn't entirely make sense. But that's the gist of the article. And as Joshian pointed out in his newsletter, and maybe other people have

pointed out elsewhere, the team claimed that they were not taking any debt when they purchased the team. So you go back to statements they made August 29th, 2012, and you have Ron Fowler saying that the purchase of the Padres is an all-cash deal. We are not taking on any debt, said Fowler. The new ownership group is oversubscribed. In terms of debt outside of the ballpark, the Padres have less today than they had yesterday, said Peter Seidler. So this was over six years ago, and the Padres were claiming not to be taking on any significant debt, and now they're saying that the significant debt has been holding them back. Now, he did say outside of the ballpark, so maybe there was a lot of ballpark-related debt. But even if you use the numbers in the article about the debt, it doesn't seem like they're that big by baseball team standards. What are they, like 12 million or something like that,

where it's kind of onerous, but not really if you have the kind of budget and the kind of revenue and valuation that a baseball team does. Yeah. And that's part of the article that was pretty maddening. They mentioned the exact payment that they're making on this interest and debt over time. And as a Padres fan, I think our complaint about payroll isn't that it's $85 million. Our complaint has been that it's not $135 million, right? And the amount they're paying on this debt is somewhere between $8 and $12 million a year, based on the figures in the article. That would only increase payroll to the mid-90s, and it's 2019. I guess for us, that's not really a great excuse, because it doesn't rectify how far

away they are from not even league average, which I don't think we really expect them to get to league average, but maybe close to it. It's a staggering figure how far away they are, and the amount they're actually paying on this debt is so small in comparison to how far away they are. So I'm not sure if they just kind of missed the ball in terms of how much we, how far away we think they are, and they thought this explained it all or what the deal was. But yeah, going back to, you know, the point you made about Ron Fowler's initial statements when they got the team, the other part of that is that Ron Fowler was part of the Jeff Morad minor ownership group. And so he was aware of all this prior to becoming the spokesperson for the new ownership

group and continuing to invest his money, part of the upfront television money the Padres got from Fox Sports San Diego into his ownership share. I mean, these are all things that were known variables to him when he decided to go forward with the purchase. And so now to look back on it and say we can't spend as a result, you know, the one conclusion I think we all draw is that maybe you shouldn't be an owner. But yeah, it's been a frustrating day or series of days for Padres fans here. One of the sections in the article discusses when AJ Preller and the Padres tried to rapidly

build up in 2015 And of course that was a failed experiment at least in the way that it was executed And you can understand why a team might change direction after that There was of course the whole Matt Kemp trade There was the whole litany of moves, we didn't have to go over them line by line But there's something that struck me near the bottom of the article Maybe this is out of sequence, it doesn't really matter Something just jumped out to me off the page And this is talking about the people in bottom of the article. Maybe this is out of sequence. It doesn't really matter.

Something just jumped out to me off the page, and this is talking about the people in charge of the Padres, and it says, quote, the 50 to 60 hours the pair spends each fall winnowing down numbers and lining up budget projections serve to convince them splurging for a player before the right time is the wrong thing. Now, this is the penultimate paragraph of the article. Maybe it's used not so much directly,

but maybe it's used at least in part to justify why the team isn't, for example, bidding on Manny Machado, as would seem to be befitting of the roster. But how do you even reconcile having that paragraph in an article like this and have the Eric Hosmer signing last offseason for $144 million? How does that go unmentioned? million dollars how how does that go unmentioned and i'm saying this as if i'm accusing you of writing the article but how how how do you say that with a straight face with hosmer on the roster for another seven years yeah i don't know and when we were on the podcast we broke down that sentence line for line actually we said because it says the 50 to 60 hours a pair spends each fall which would obviously you know include more than one fall, which would include last fall, which is prior to signing Hosmer.

So what happened there? Was it an impulsive buy? Did Hosmer's contract fall into a range where they were comfortable doing it? Or is this what we mostly believe that this is just a whole hunk of baloney and this is just kind of them being a little bit trying to come out with something that will make them look smart as to why they're not spending as opposed to just cheap. And so they've thrown together these excuses. And if you actually read through all the pieces, it doesn't really fit together with what's really happened over time. And, yeah, I mean, that's that, they talk about how Ron Fowler learned a lesson about 2015 and how spending money, you know, it will bring in some incremental revenue, but it won't necessarily cover the cost of all the new players.

And, you know, the whole point for us is, well, it was a pretty poor plan in 2015. They tried to shove all of their free agent cramming into one offseason as opposed to steadily building up a roster over time. And in one offseason, you have very limited choices, right? There's only a handful of players available. They might not be values by your analytics. And many other teams in the trade market know you're trying to add payroll. And so you're not going to get quite as much leverage on those deals. And so what you see is in 2015 as a result of basically trying to rush the process in one offseason. And I think that's one of the main things that we're struggling with is the fact that the strategy that's outlined in the article doesn't make too much sense from a

strategic perspective. At the very least, sure, 2015 is one data point that maybe that method of doing it doesn't work. But I think more than anything, it just proved that AJ Preller's method that offseason didn't work. I don't think it's indicative of any time you increase payroll, you're not going to have an incremental increase in revenues that exceeds that. I think maybe the Padres were just bad at it once, but it seems like they're assuming that that can never work. And so that's an unfortunate strategic decision that you see the team make. And as a Padres fan, maybe that's just as maddening as hearing them complain about the ballpark and some of these other things. Just the fact that they're not making wise statistical decisions, which will have a really seemingly large impact on the future of the franchise. What did you think of that Preller transaction spree at the time?

Because it was something that kind of captivated all of us because here are the Padres not usually making these kind of moves. And then all of a sudden, here's AJ Preller, and the Padres are in on everyone, and they're trading for everyone, and they're signing guys. And even, I think, at the end of that offseason, we all looked at it, and we thought, well, the Padres were maybe the most active team this offseason. They still don't project to be that great, really. And then, of course, they weren't good. still don't project to be that great, really. And then, of course, they weren't good. And in retrospect, it seems like they set themselves back and they had to then sell all those guys and kind of rebuild and it just pushed back the timeline. But was it kind of fun, at least when your team was doing all this stuff? Because like we hear now, you know, there's all this criticism of teams that aren't doing anything and are just kind of sitting there at, you know, the 80 win range or whatever, or they're just deciding to focus on the future and not focus on the present. And this 2015 thing probably gives you both the positives and the negatives of doing that kind of thing. Because on the one hand, it must have been pretty fun for fans. On the other hand, it didn't work out and it probably would have been better just to

rebuild and maybe they'd be even further along at this point if they hadn't done that. Yeah, I mean, obviously I'm a fan. It was extremely exciting. I think in the back of our minds, everyone knew this could fail. There were some people that were much more vocal about it likely to fail than others, including the co-host on my podcast. I think he was much more bearish on the moves they were making than I was. You know, there were some moves that offseason that I think fans universally didn't really care for.

The Matt Kemp trade, I think most of us didn't really understand quite as much as, say, signing James Shields after all those moves. And, you know, some of the other moves they made, you know, I guess are slightly justifiable in retrospect. I think the Craig Kimbrell trade maybe has worked out. A lot of the prospects we sent to them haven't really panned out. And we were able to get Manny Margot and some other prospects on a subsequent trade. So it's really a mixed bag. At the time, we were very excited, obviously. I mean, we, you know, we were going into the season with Justin Upton and Matt Kemp and Will Myers, and it wasn't Brad Hop playing first base. And it wasn't, you know, all these, you know, terrible revolving door positions across the diamond. It was really just shortstop that we felt very weak at. We were still

starting Alexi Amorista on opening day, but I think, you know, that season did teach us a little, I mean, you know, a little bit about, you know, the pitfalls of potentially spending. But again, I think it was just the fact that it was crammed into one offseason and we had so many limited choices in ways to do it that we really forced ourselves into trading valuable players for bad contracts with the Matt Kemp trade, for example, or trading very highly touted prospects like Trey Turner for slightly less valuable assets like Will Myers just because there was no leverage. So it was definitely very fun. I think I am not misspeaking when I say that most of the Padres community enjoyed it, even if it fizzled out by July when Bud Black was fired. But I think in retrospect, it did serve a good lesson. I just hope that, or it's unfortunate that I think ownership has taken maybe the wrong lesson, not that spending can't work, just that spending so quickly with limited options is generally a bad strategy.

Right. And I think the good lesson to learn is don't trade a good young player for Matt Kemp. But I think we probably do that before the trade is even made. So by the terms of the collective bargaining agreement, and this is, again, something that Joe Sheehan wrote in his newsletter, teams are actually incentivized to spend on their ballpark maintenance more than they are incentivized to spend on their roster, or at least they are somewhat secretly incentivized to spend on their ballpark as it's, in a sense, deductible. And now there is a section here that Padres have spent tens of millions of dollars working on ballpark maintenance over the past few years. And the quote from Ron Fowler here, our goal when we took over was over the next 10 years to get the ballpark, Petco Park,

looking like it was five years old and keep it there. This is a subjective question and kind of a dumb question, but have you noticed, is your ballpark going experience improved? And to what extent does that even matter if the product on the field isn't improved or up to the standard that you're looking for? Yeah. So I'm maybe not the best person to ask because I was boycotting the team for quite a while. During the Morad years, at least, 2015 did serve to get me out of the boycott because whether or not it was a bright plan, it was at least some sort of strategy at spending

money. And so it got me out to the ballpark. You know, I think you would be lying if you said the ballpark now isn't improved compared to what it used to be. Certainly. I mean, they have made a number of improvements that, you know, the most obvious one is just a Jumbotron. He used to be a fairly small, low resolution screen with a whole bunch of advertisements that were static advertisements surrounding it. And now it's a giant behemoth, you know, very nice looking, pleasing Jumbotron. So, I mean, there's some very obvious improvements they've made. But when the Padres actually signed their agreement with the city of San Diego to build Petco Park, there were some lines in the paperwork called the Joint Use Memorandum that actually mandated that the San Diego Padres would have to keep Petco Park as a first class facility.

And there's some definitions of first class facility in there, but the point of this is just that they're actually required by the law that built Petco Park to do this. So it's one of those things where they're basically congratulating themselves for something they're obligated to do. It's like congratulating yourself for brushing your teeth in the morning. It's not something that I think Padres fans like to congratulate them on because they are required to do it. That's like how they got the stadium. Right. And I guess that would be a sort of follow similar lines as they're congratulating themselves for refinancing the debt that they already knew that they were going to be inheriting when they bought the team. Yeah. I mean, it's not necessarily that they're paying off the debt on

more friendly terms and getting out from under that that bothers Padres fans. I think it's the it's not necessarily that they're paying off the debt on more friendly terms and getting out from under that that bothers Padres fans. I think it's the complaining about it. And, you know, the fact that they purchased the team knowing this and said otherwise. Right. Like you read the quote earlier about how they were overcapitalized and weren't taking on any new debt and so on and so forth. I think to now look back six years later or seven years later and blame some of these things that they knew when they bought the team but didn't disclose, it just rings very hollow. It doesn't come off as a very satisfying excuse. And there's a line about this in the article, but I think it's worth pointing out that all this stuff about debt payments we're talking about is really dwarfed by the increase in the valuation of the franchise over this same span, which according to Forbes, and granted, they are estimating and guessing, but they had the value of the Padres at $600 million at the time that the franchise was purchased in 2012 and is now doubled to $1.2 billion, which is not one of the more valuable MLB franchises, I don't think. But still,

the value of the franchise has doubled in a relatively short span of time. So all this stuff about $12 million debt payments, I mean, it's not nothing. And granted, the valuation of the franchise only helps you so much if you're not actually selling the franchise. It's not necessarily money in your pocket. But still, as a long-term investment, it has been incredibly successful for this ownership group over this period of time. So that can't be emphasized enough. Yeah. And, and, you know, we, we make that point fairly frequently when they, when they pay down debt or the otherwise, you know, restructure these interest payments, you know, it's kind of like they're taking money out of one pocket,

which we've put in that pocket, right. Through ticket sales, concession stands, through the television deal and us watching and all the advertisement stuff that really comes as a result of fan interest. They've taken that money and from one pocket of the Padres, they've basically paid off the debt and interest, which is really just putting it in their other pocket because the asset that they own, the team is now more valuable. And yeah, I'm not sure if that whole 600 million increase, which is a Forbes estimate, can be attributed just to the debt. Obviously, the market's been very favorable since 2012, just in general. But yeah, it does illustrate the fact that even if the Padres themselves can show that their books are not balancing and that they're losing money in terms of a money coming in versus money coming out basis, that doesn't mean the

owners are losing money because their asset can be appreciating in value. And that's really all they care about. And so I think the main thing here is that what we're seeing as fans is that the ownership is putting the value of their asset in front of the actual on-field play. Because they have multiple things they can do with that money and they've chosen, unfortunately, to really take it out of one of their pockets and put it in their other. And it has shown, certainly, with the quality of play on the field. But I think to actually have it spelled out in front of us, I'm not sure what they're trying to accomplish by showing us this. But yeah, it's been a very difficult couple of days ingesting all this.

Yeah. Well, I wanted to ask you about what they may have accomplished. I mean, what percentage of fans do you think are looking at this and scrutinizing it to the depth that you are and are going line by line and saying, well, what about this? And this doesn't make sense. And these things don't add up. Or what percentage of readers of this article are just going, hey, look at the Padres. They've explained their numbers and here's why they couldn't spend. I mean, you know, not everyone wants to think about team finances in this level of detail. And so they might just kind of buy the team line. Yeah. And, you know, it's interesting because I'm a little siloed from all of the fans,

obviously. I'm not a season ticket holder anymore. And the amount that I actually go to games and interact with fans has dwindled considerably given my disinterest in the way they've run the team over the past decade. But certainly on Padre's Twitter, which I don't know if that's fully indicative of the fan base, it is very negative. And I have this unique position as back in 2012, 2013, we released a documentary outlining the previous ownership groups, you know, lies and, you know, frugality. And at the time, I don't know if there were too many people who felt the same way that I did.

I think I helped open some people's eyes, but really I was just that one crazy person so far in the fringe that it made it okay for other people to have slightly more crazy ideas, because at least they could point at someone and say, I'm not as crazy as that guy. But now with this article, granted, obviously we did a line by line reading of it and rebuttal on our podcast, but that was because we were asked so much by so many people on Twitter to do it. So certainly there's been a large change over time, you know, in terms of how Padres fans interpret, you know, the ownership group and how they're not spending and so on. As far as how that relates to the average fan, I just, you know, it's just so hard to know how these Twitter communities relate to the fan base at large.

I did see that Kevin Acey and the Union Tribune, their article on Twitter had only 10 comments. So I don't know if that's because Facebook's dead or because no one just, no one reads the Union Tribune anymore. You know, I think a lot of the people in San Diego have athletic subscriptions and read Dennis Lynn and some of the more local writers who have signed on there over the Union Tribune for baseball coverage.

But in any case, yeah, it's hard it's hard to really know i i can't imagine though that too many fans read this and took it at face value and actually believe it it'll it'll be something that you know i'm curious to see how it plays out over time but at least in the small sphere that i have access to it was taken very negatively i didn't really see anyone who reacted positively to it, except maybe one or two accounts here or there that are all suspected to be Ron Fowler burner

accounts. So take that for what it's worth. So this is a two-part question and maybe a two-part deep question, but the first of it would be how much reinvestment from an ownership group, this is of course all in your own evaluation, but how much reinvestment is enough? Where is the line of satisfaction versus just feeling like the owners are too concerned with lining their own pockets or increasing valuation, et cetera? Where would you like to see the average owner come down in terms of spending on the on-field product? Yeah, and it's a tough question.

You know, as a Padres fan, you just hope that they're, you know, average, right. In terms of, I would say just percentage of revenue that you intake from, you know, everything baseball related. And, you know, if you're average in terms of percentage spend on that, and I think in baseball, it's around 50% of your revenue you spend on the actual MLB payroll, then, you know, I can at least be on board with that. But it's really difficult to put an actual figure out there because we don't truly have access to it. And even in these extreme cases where we get Deadspin leaking an article on books or we get the Padres, quote, opening their books, you still only get a snapshot and it's only a snapshot that they want you to see.

And so it's really difficult from an accounting perspective to look at that and say, here's the exact figure you should be spending. But, you know, we're really snakebitten in San Diego on this topic because the most recent sale of the team from the Jeff Morad group to the Ron Fowler, Peter Seidler, O'Malley group, which was really kind of, you know, some of those previous owners stayed in the group. But in any case, there was a television deal that was signed just prior to the sale of the club, where the San Diego Padres got a $200 million upfront payment on their television deal from Fox Sports San Diego. Now, the reason this is important is because it happened just before the sale of the team,

which means the value of the team magically went up $200 million pretty much instantly because they got this liquid infusion of $200 million, which some owners, including Ron Fowler, used to then purchase a larger share of the team. And so basically the Padres, from a baseball perspective, instantly lost $200 million because that money didn't stay within the club. That money basically inflated the value of the team. And the new owners coming on board paid more money as a result and then just took their cut from that $200 million. And so we've felt for quite some time that we've been cheated anyways.

And so the percentage of revenue we would hope they would spend would exceed that because they've already used some of our revenue to buy the team itself. So it's a pretty complicated answer from a Padres fan perspective because we've just been so screwed in the history of teams. Part of our quabbles with ownership group now is, I don't know if you guys realize this, but a couple years ago they tried to induct Bud Selig into the Padres Hall of Fame. For one, he didn't really speak very loudly when the Padres threatened to move in the 90s and John Morris was calling the Padres a free agent after 1999. And the second one was that he blocked the sale of the Dodgers and got, you know, or not the sale of the Dodgers. He blocked the television deal that I think McCourt was going to use for similar reasons. The Padres used the money to retain a higher ownership group and basically forced him to sell to what has turned out to be a very nice ownership group for Daughters fans. But when the Padres had a similar thing happen, they blocked the sale to Jeff Morab,

but they didn't block the sale to another group of owners, or at least block the television deal from having this upfront payment that would then, of course, inflate the value of the franchise. So we have a lot of issues with these revenue questions because we're starting from not square one. We're starting from being so far in the red that even going forward, if they spent at 50% revenue, we would still feel a little cheated or league average. seeing the books, it's so hard to tell. And an incremental add to the payroll could be offset by a larger increase in ticket sales and attendance if done correctly. So a little bit of it also comes down to just how good the ownership group is spending money. Right. And the Potters have been bad at that. Yeah.

So the second part of this deep question, and this part might be even deeper. I'm a hockey fan. I like the Ottawa Senators. It's a situation where I love watching the team. I love watching the sport. I want to support them. And a lot of people, myself included, don't really care for the owner because the owner seems to be cash poor, etc. I don't need to go into detail about the Ottawa Senators, but it's a situation where, as a fan, you want to support the team, but you also wish that the team was under a different ownership group.

Now, I don't know nearly enough to just say that the Potters need new owners, etc. That's more your jurisdiction than mine, and maybe even more somebody else's jurisdiction than yours. But when you come into sports, you come in, of course, as a fan, and you just want to root for the local team. You want them to win, and you want to watch the game. That's the whole point. But then you also want to be a conscientious fan, and you want to have some means of holding ownership accountable if you feel like they're not doing enough. But of

course, if fans collectively boycotted the San Diego Padres, maybe the Padres leave. Maybe they go away or maybe they spend even less because there's just no support. And I know this is not unique to the Padres. We have seen people try to boycott the Pirates, for example, for similar reasons. So to you, what is the best way or what are the best ways people try to boycott the pirates, for example, for similar reasons. So to you, what is the best way or what are the best ways to try to hold an ownership group accountable if you feel like they are not meeting their end of the bargain? Yeah. So, I mean, I've been boycotting them for similar reasons for quite a while. I mean, and I wouldn't say that it's like a hard and fast boycott. It's more like there are many ways that I can spend the money that I earn. You know, do I want to spend it on very boring baseball? And the answer for me

has always been no, I don't. And, you know, it's one thing where if there are young players coming up, I might want to go see them. And maybe I will go to a game or two this year because Fernando Tatis Jr. comes up. But yeah, I think, you know, for it's just a general rule in life that I always put out there for people that you should spend money on things that you want to spend money on. And if for whatever reason, if you don't want to spend money on the Padres because of ownership, because you don't like the product on the field, well, then don't spend money on them. In terms of organizing a big, big boycott, I'm not sure. Like you said, there are other ways that can go. And the Chargers just left town. So doing anything that would potentially risk the Padres leaving is something I don't want

to do, although they're pretty set in San Diego based on the terms of their agreement on Petco Park. I do want new owners for the Padres. I think I was very open to the new ownership group when they got the job. But over the course of the past six years, through all of the various things I've talked about before, plus the fact that things have just not worked out the way that I think they've spelled out things would work out. At this point, I would prefer to see a new ownership group. Whether or not it would make a difference, that I don't know. a critical mass of people, if you were able to actually tap into their renewal season ticket numbers and gin up 5,000, 10,000 season ticket holders to come out and support the

boycott, whether it's for a few games just to drive down concession sales and get the Padres to at least respond to it, or whether it's to actually get intendants to sink so far that they feel the only way they can get people out is to spend on the team. You know, I would certainly join that boycott. But again, my concerns are that this ownership group is so bad at making strategic decisions that unfortunately that they would do something rash, like potentially trading a bunch of their valuable prospects for a bad contract just to get people out of the ballpark. So there's a bunch of variables in there that I'm taking into consideration. In the meantime, I'm advocating for everyone who's a Padres fan, if you don't like what you've seen, not to go to games. But in terms of organizing a very large boycott, we might try something, you know, something that's just to get attention national level. Maybe it's like a linking of arms around the stadium on opening day so that, you know, you have to cross the picket line of fans.

I don't know. We might try something, but I think a full-scale boycott, unfortunately, with irrational owners can go very sour. So we're trying to weigh the options. You know, when I talk periodically about other fan bases and how maybe they exaggerate their suffering and, you know, relative to other teams. It's really a franchise like the Padres that I'm thinking of who don't really have a reputation as like, oh, the, you know, beleaguered Padres fan base. Like no one really, I wouldn't say they come to mind immediately as like the team, the

fans that have suffered the most. But Padres have been around now for 50 seasons. I believe they have 14 winning seasons in that span. They have made the playoffs five times. They have won two pennants, not since 1998. They have never won a World Series. This is a team with an extremely long track record of mediocrity and has not had more than a 60 or 70 something win season since 2010 and even that was kind of a blip i mean how do you look back at the legacy of padres fandom even aside from the ownership issues that we've been talking about although of course those are connected to the results of the team But it's such an undistinguished record, I guess,

compared to some other teams that kind of consider themselves the long-suffering fans of franchise X. It seems like the Padres have about as good a case as any among teams that have been around for the past 50 years. Yeah, you know, I keep thinking that San Diego will get the reputation as a downtrodden sports town once, you know, the Red Sox win a World Series or once the Cubs win the World Series, but they always shift to another city. And I'm always like, what about us? Like, we just lost the sports franchise. Nate Colbert is still the all-time home run leader for the San Diego Padres. If you go to baseball reference, you know, and you go to where all the teams are, and you just sort reverse standings by their win-loss record as a franchise all time,

the Padres are the losingest, worse than the Tampa Bay Rays, which is surprising given how bad the Rays were when they started their franchise. We're very aware of this history. One of the things we've been driving home this offseason on Bryce Harper and Manny Machado is that Bryce Harper has already accumulated 30 wins above replacement in his career, which would rank him third all time on the Padres list behind Tony Gwynn and Dave Winfield, you know, and he's put up a nine more season, which would rank second all time for individual seasons on the Padres behind only Kevin Brown's 1998.

And we got him for one year, you know, so yeah, we're certainly downtrodden, you know, as you grow up in San Diego and root for the Padres, I think I was fortunate that I was born in 87. And most of my childhood was spent on, you know, not terrible Padres teams. And then we had, of course, a small run of not futility with the 96 Padres winning the division and King Caminiti winning MVP and then 98 going to the World Series. I mean, that's that's really what's kept me as a fan is just those memories. We had some small blips when we moved into Pecco Park. But other than that, it's been a very long period of watching bad baseball. And the latest generation of San Diegans growing up, that's all they know, right? And I'm starting a family soon. And the question I have to ask myself is, am I going to raise my son to be a Padres fan?

And it's one of those ones where, you know, there are certainly some good lessons to learn about life by watching the Padres, especially about disappointment and tempering expectations and, you know, the false illusion of hope sometimes. Like these are actually like, you know, it's almost like an Aesop's fable that I can teach my child in terms of watching baseball. But at the same time, there's so much negative to rooting for the Padres, perennial disappointment. And it's not even just having a good team and having them fail in the playoffs. That's one way to be disappointing in a team. It's just the overall futility of the franchise from everything from choosing which players to have, to drafting and developing developing players to the way they market their product off the field to, you know, there's very bland blue uniforms when obviously everyone wants the uniforms to be brown. And, you know, just, you can just go down the list of items. And I think if you ranked where the Padres, you know, stacked up against the rest of major league baseball in each of these

categories, they would be consistently towards the bottom. And so, yeah, I mean, as a Padres fan, you definitely are downtrodden. We've started to complain when we're not at the top of that list. I think Seattle's the latest one to grace the top of that list, even though the Seahawks just won a Super Bowl. We've seen Cleveland on that list, but at least the Indians have been pretty decent and the Cavs just won an NBA title. So the San Diego market has never won a professional championship unless you include the 1963 AFL Chargers prior to the merge. And so we're waiting anxiously on our first pro sports title. And yeah, unfortunately now we only have the Padres, which are the losingest baseball franchise of all time, at least by active team standards.

Yeah, I think it really just must be the weather. Like no one can feel any sympathy for San Diego residents because everyone thinks it's a paradise. Yeah, I mean, so I just lived in Delaware for the last few years. I worked for a bank and I was on the East Coast living out there and recently moved back to San Diego. And, you know, all the things they say about San Diego weather are true. Like it rained a couple of days last week and that was like seen as a major inconvenience, but it was probably very good for our drought. But in any case, yeah, I mean, that's, that's the general excuse that thrown out, that's thrown out there. At least you have the weather, which I mean, it's true, but you know

what? I would trade, I would trade a good solid month or two of sun for snow if it got me a championship. At the end of the day, I would definitely do that. I like bad weather, so I would not trade with you. But emblematic, I think, of the Padres' standing is I was reading in October a 20th anniversary retrospective of, quote unquote, the pitch that was in the San Diego Union Tribune this was about the 2-2 pitch from Mark Langston to Tino Martinez in game one of the 98 World Series that should have been a called strike and wasn't and then Tino hit a grand slam and that was kind of the end of the Padres in that series I hadn't thought of that pitch in years I mean I was at that game I was 11 years old I was rooting for the Yankees

at the time. I was quite happy with the outcome of that pitch. But I was not even aware that that pitch had taken on this kind of legacy in the memories of Padres fans because it really wasn't that. It wasn't like game seven and it's the bottom of the ninth or something. It was game one against one of the best teams of all time. Padres were probably not going to win that series, even if the pitch went their way. But the fact that this has become a big thing that you can just say the pitch to Padres fans,

and evidently they know that it's this pitch it's because, well, they haven't been back in 20 years since. So what else are you going to do the alternate history of? Because they haven't gotten anywhere close to that point in the year since. So what else are you going to do the alternate history of because they haven't gotten anywhere close to that point in the year since? Yeah. I know exactly where it was when the pitch happened. And I think part of the reason why that sticks is obviously the point you just mentioned where we just don't have too many moments like that. I mean, there's a Matt

Holiday at home plate, which would be probably up there right with it. But of course, that was a play-in game for the playoffs. It wasn't the World Series. You know, I think part of it is to, yeah, we got swept in that World Series. But if you squint hard enough, and if you go with me here, you know, that pitch to Tino Martinez would have been strike three. It would have ended the inning. The Padres, I believe, were up four. And so that grand slam tied the game.

And so, you know, a four-run lead going to the Padres' vaunted bullpen that year, we might have snuck out game one. And of course, obviously, there are many ways this could turn out. And then Trevor Hoffman blew game three at home, right? And obviously, I can't snap my fingers and get rid of a blown save. But at least if you're following your fan graphs, a winning percentage graph, you know, live during those games, obviously, fan graphs didn't exist in 98. But if you had been, I think you would have been surprised by how close, you know, that series

actually was for it being a sweep. And so as a Padres fan, I can look back and be like, man, it was almost a 2-2 series. If that one pitch was called differently and Trevor Hoffman had a, you know, didn't blow game three, we would have been right in this World Series. It's just kind of the woulda, coulda, shoulda that Padres fans do for everything, including, I don't know, trading Robbie Alomar and, you know, the list goes trading Anthony Rizzo. The list goes on and on. But yeah, that pitch has certainly taken a lot of lore. I think part of it is the fact that the Padres, after the World Series that year,

put out a documentary about the season. It was actually a very well-done documentary. And they focused on that pitch so much in that documentary that any of the diehard fans who got that documentary for Christmas the following year, like I did, and you watched that a couple times growing up, it stuck with you because they focused on it so much. But yeah, strike three to Tino Martinez.

Everyone who's a Pad padres fan should know that we all remember it so in 2007 i was i was i grew up in san diego and a friend of mine is a big padres fan and he and his family got their first ever hd tv and they were plugging it in and they turned it on so that they could watch game 163 padres versus rockies eight six padres going into the bottom of the 13th i I don't need to remind you what happened. You already brought it up. But I think that HDTV has had a negative association in that family for going on 12 years now. So I wanted to ask, and this is going to be kind of subjective, but it's something I haven't been able to get my head around. As you mentioned, the Chargers have left town.

I went to a San Diego Gulls game over Christmas break. That's very different. It's not the same kind of sporting environment. Do you think that it's a net positive or negative for the Padres that the Chargers are effectively out of the market? I think it's a negative. And I wasn't sure how it would work out at first, whether some of those San Diego Chargers season ticket holders would take up more interest in baseball and go to Padres games. But I think really what's happened is that a lot of the negative attention that may have been spent on the Chargers with apathy being spent on the Padres has now shifted because we're essentially a one sports, you know, one sport town. We do have the goals and we have the San Diego fleet now for some terrible football league

that will be defunct in five years. And we have the San Diego Seals for lacrosse. But by and large, no one really cares about those sports, right? It's not one of the major sports. And so a lot of focus is spent on the Padres. And take, for example, Kevin Acey, who wrote this article. He used to be the Chargers beat writer. And when the Chargers left, obviously a lot of the local media, they were scrambling to find new positions. It turns out Kevin Acey did the Los Angeles Angels beat way back in, I think, like the 80s or 90s or something. So he was slightly more qualified than maybe some of his co-workers to take on the Padres beat. And so now they've sort of increased their Padres coverage. And, you know, I think it's interesting, you know,

the Padres haven't been good since the Chargers left. So maybe when they start to be good, some of that money that was spent on the Chargers will go into the Padres because the money is fungible. It's all part of someone's entertainment budget, and whether they use it on sports or something else, I don't know. But there's at least a chance that it works out positively for the Padres. But at least from an attention perspective, everyone certainly is paying attention to the Padres. from an attention perspective, everyone certainly is paying attention to the Padres. And I don't know, you know, given where they are as a franchise, if that's, if that works out to their advantage, obviously if they were good, it would, but at this point, you know, it doesn't, but I think, I think I can see pros and cons and I don't think it's, I don't think anyone can

present an argument to me that would convince me that it certainly was good or certainly was bad. I think it'll, it'll ebb and flow based on how the team's doing. So we've been dwelling on the negative in the Padres' past, which maybe is inevitable because it's a lot easier to find the negative than the positive in the past of the Padres. But the present, aside from the ownership and spending issues we've been talking about, there is a lot to be excited about. Regardless of whether ownership actually spends, they have now finally put together a collection of young players that seems like it could be good even without costing that much money. So what is your mood, the mood of the Padres fan base in general when it comes to what seems to be the consensus best farm system in baseball?

How far away do you think the Padres are? Was there a belief that the Padres should spend this winter? Or was the thinking, well, maybe next winter is the time to spend? Because it's always hard to know, okay, when are we done with being in rebuilding mode? And when are we in investment mode? So what's the mood of the Padres fan base when it comes to all that? Yeah, I mean, everyone's very excited about the prospects. I don't think you can find a Padres fan who doesn't know more about the prospects that the Padres have than they ever knew. You know, we have fans who used to never pay attention to the minor league club who can

now name you their 25th best prospect, for example. You know, and certainly when you're in a small market or a smaller-ish market, I think the Padres are probably something like, you know, the high 20s for market size. You certainly have to build from within. And with a lot of these international free agent signings and draft picks, they're always a lottery ticket and it's a wait until I see it sort of approach, but they have just so many. And there are so many national media outlets saying that they have all these top prospects that it's very hard not to believe everything you're hearing and seeing in the minor league box scores, for example. And that's really fun because we've never had that. Like we've never had a good farm system, really. I know, you know, Keith Law might've rated us first a couple of years ago, but that was

really based on, you know, the depth of like number four and five starting pitchers, not on the entire farm system like it is today. And so there's just a whole lot of excitement for that reason. You know, we tend not to produce good players for whatever reason. We've just been snakebitten with our draft picks, or we've just had bad scouting in place for a very long period of time. So I think, you know, we're all bullish on the future, certainly. I think where fans start to differ is when that future is realistic,

right? And so this year we expect to see Fernando Tatis Jr., who's, you know, the crown jewel of our farm system. Luis Urias is already up. We would expect to see Logan Allen, Chris Paddock, and some of the pitching prospects come up through the minor league system this year. I think, you know, where the spending question comes in is, you know, if they're not going to go after some of these youngest free agents who could supplement that core, guys like Manny Machado and Bryce Hopper, who are 26, who, if you look at the Padres books after 2022, the only thing they're committed to is Eric Hosmer. And like, for example, Fernando Tatis Jr. won't even hit arbitration until 2023.

So there certainly is a lot of financial flexibility. If you're not going to spend on a 26-year-old mega superstar, former first overall pick, with a very long track record of being good already in Major League Baseball, when would you ever spend? And when you decide you want to spend, are you sure there are going to be players available who are equally good and young that fit what you're doing long term. I think we struggle with why they're not pursuing that. And also we look at moves like, I don't know, last year signing Clayton Richard to a two-year extension, signing Kaz Makita out of Japan, this year signing Ian Kinsler. Some of these one-off moves that they aren't a lot of money, but they don't really make too much sense in the grand scheme of things. I think when you're a team not expecting to be good, what you're

hoping for is to see your franchise at least try to develop players, be it guys who are post-type sleepers. Last year, Christian Villanueva was a good example. Former top 100 prospect, blocked in the cup system. Why not give him a chance to play every day and see what he is? And I think we learned he's a useful major league player against left-handed pitching. You know, why not do that in more of these positions instead of bringing in old veterans that you don't really, you know, I don't know what Ian Kinsler could possibly add this year that would be worth it. I mean, I think the only thing that could possibly happen that is positive for me and Kinsler is that he makes, he ends up with trade value at the deadline, but how much really, you know? And I think

those are the sort of moves we see that don't add up. And it's unfortunate because, you know, it is a sensitive part of the organization's development. I think we would have liked to see them tank more in the past few years. And by tank, I don't mean outright, purposefully lose games and put a bad product on the field. But when you're spending money for middling players to increase your wins total from, say, 72 to 74, you're really only costing yourself draft capital going forward. And so for all these years of being bad

and building up the farm system and splurging in the international free agent market and so on, the highest pick we've gotten is the third pick. It turned into Mackenzie Gore. He's one of our best pitching prospects. But next year we're picking, I think, sixth or seventh. And, you know, we picked ninth another one of these years. And it's like, you know, the difference in value between the first and second pick in the draft and pick nine is, you know, almost like $10 million in terms of future value on the field. And so these sort of strategic macro level decisions that the team

makes, you know, I don't think most of the fans like it, but I think the part of building within we all get it and we're all on board. We just wish that in addition to doing that, there were other things that they were doing that made sense in that context, right? And I think that's where we're struggling. Obviously, we're all excited for whatever year these prospects start to actually produce. We've been told different years. I think back in 2015, when they started this quote unquote plan of building from within again, I think we were told 2018, then it became 2019. Now the latest article this morning from Kevin Acey says 2022. So the goalposts keep moving on that, but we're all excited for the farm. There's no question about that. So the last thing we wanted to ask you,

you had mentioned for someone like Tatis Jr. is likely to not be arbitration eligible until 2023. And it's probably not a coincidence that when you look at the structure of Eric Hosmer's contract, he goes from making $20 million a season down to $13 million in the final three years of his deal. Seems like the Piedras are probably allowing for a little more flexibility when their young players start getting more expensive, provided they develop as they are expected to. But I wanted to circle back to Hosmer because we have heard all about Royals fans' experiences watching Eric Hosmer. We heard all about his on-field play, his first base defense, his intangibles. Now he's played for a new team. Year one of eight is out of the way. 12.5% of Eric

Hosmer's contract is in the books. I was curious, having, I know you didn't go to many Padres games, but you're still paying attention to the Padres. What was your overall experience watching year one of Eric Hosmer? Is there more to him than the numbers would lead on? Or is he just a replacement level first baseman? Yeah, so far, I would say there's not. I mean, Fangrass has done a ton of articles about how if Eric Hosmer changes launch angle, it would, you know, increase his value significantly. And I think that's the small glimmer of hope I'm holding onto here for the eight-year contract that, you know, over some period of time, he'll try a new strategy at the plate and all the velocity that he generates off the bat will translate into above replacement numbers. But in that first year,

obviously we were very disappointed with his output. You know, the Padres touted his, quote, prestige value when they signed him, which we've sort of made into a recurring meme and joke on Padres Twitter. But yeah, I mean, the signing just didn't make sense anyways to begin with. I mean, it did from a perspective of he was the youngest free agent available last offseason, and we were somewhat disappointed with Will Myers, and Will Myers had experience in the outfield. But now you look at it, and, you know, the Pottery is one of their top prospects. Josh Naylor is chomping at the bit in AA.

You know, there are some projection systems out there that rank him higher than Eric Hosmer this year. And it's year two of eight of Eric Hosmer's contract. So, yeah, it was it was certainly a disappointing season. No question. I think some of us hold out hope that if you look at his career, he seems to be an odd and even-numbered-year oscillating player. I don't know if that's an actual predictive trait

or if that's just a happenstance of randomness in baseball, but I think there are certainly some fans that believe that there's a chance that he still makes good on that contract. I think the odds are pretty low, unfortunately. But yeah, I mean, like you said, it's still not that much money. I think, you know, Padres fans just, we've never really seen the team spent too much. And so we look at $13 million in 2023 and gasp, but there are players in baseball that will be earning upwards of $30 million that year. So in context, it's not quite so horrible,

but there's no question that we were quite disappointed with Eric Hosmer. And I bet if you got ownership candidly to speak about it, they would agree with that too, that it was not a great season. And honestly, I don't see the first base defense that Orioles fans talked about, like just watching them. And obviously I'm just one person and I'm not a professional scout or anything, but I didn't see anything there that made me believe that the analytics that we've developed over a long period of time is magically incorrect for only Eric Hosmer. But again, I'm not a scout. Well, David, coming from San Diego,

I had being a longtime Mariners fan, I saw both sides of the rivalry, and I always kind of felt like the two teams were joined at the hip in terms of the misery that they just laid upon their fans, and so I don't know who's going to have a more promising season in 2019. It looks like it's likely to be the Padres, but at the moment, we have two teams still in the middle of a rebuild, so as always, the Padres and Mariners are racing for another playoff berth, and in the meantime, we thank you very much for coming on and being available. Appreciate it. And we wish our natural rivals a strong season regardless. We like to root for the Mariners, I think a little bit, but just because they're not the Yankees and Red Sox. It's easy to root for the Mariners because

they're terrible. Yeah, they're endearing. Well, after we finished recording, the Reds did indeed get their man. Sonny Gray went from the Yankees to the Reds for second base prospect Shed Long and the competitive balance round A pick. Yankees also sent Ray Iver, San Martin, an A-ball starting pitcher to Cincinnati. And the Reds then extended Gray for three years and a total of $30.5 million. And that will take him through 2022. He's already under contract through 2019. And that will take him through 2022. He's already under contract through 2019. And then, of course, Jerry DiPoto got involved, immediately traded for Shedlong from the Yankees in exchange for center field prospect Josh Stowers, the Mariners' second round pick last year. So, hey, itively Wild listeners see Trent Rosecrans' podcast, Great American Dream. He did a 12-part series a couple years ago talking about life in the minor leagues using Shed Long as the lens.

I will link to that. So that will do it for today. Thanks for listening. You can support the podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. The following five listeners have already done so. Thomas Neil Blank, Eric Ensminger, Eric Clemente, Andy Wang, and David Meyer. Thanks to all of you. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash Effectively Wild, and you can rate and review and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and other podcast platforms. Your ratings and reviews are very much appreciated. Keep your questions and comments for me and Jeff coming via email at podcast at fangraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging

system if you are a supporter. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance. You can pre-order my book, The MVP Machine. It comes out late this spring. Sam Miller has now read the manuscript, says he really enjoyed it. It's very good. He thinks it's going to do well, but it won't do well unless you go get it. So we will be back to talk to you a little later this week. See you page alive.