Padres Going Too Far?

Recently, renowned baseball columnist Ken Rosenthal posed the question “Have the Padres gone far enough? However, in his article he argues that while trading Huston Street, potentially Chris Denorfia and Chase Headley is a good idea, he wonders if the interim GM team trading pitcher Ian Kennedy and Joaquin Benoit would be too far. Or not far enough.

Naturally, this was indeed the worst time for the Padres not to have a general manager with the trade deadline coming next week. Rosenthal’s argument is that because Benoit and Kennedy are both under team control anyway for next season, it should be the next general manager’s decision when to trade them, if to trade them, or leave the team with building blocks TO trade off.

I tend to agree with this.

Timing is against the Padres for a season like this one. Your trust is in departed GM Josh Byrnes to start the season. You can’t really pull the rip-cord until June to give the team a chance to make a difference. Then, once you fire the GM, you want to conduct a thorough and exhaustive GM search. The Padres are doing this, and have recently completed the second round of interviews for the job. The trade deadline is July 31st every year. So, your options are limited. The Padres are fortunate to have experienced former GMs and assistant GMs on staff to evaluate and so far most analysts would say both trades are good for San Diego’s future. Headley would have left as a free agent. Earlier this season Nick Hundley was sent packing. Huston Street got a slew of near major league ready players from the Angels, so nice job so far.

Let’s leave some guys we have on contract though for next season. The new GM will want to build a team based on style. It takes time, and people to trade. Look at what Theo Epstein is doing in Chicago with the Cubs. It has taken some time, but now they have developed a good amount of position players ready to pounce on the field. This year their biggest chip was pitcher Jeff Samardzija. Traded for more players to make an impact or trade for pitching. Yet you have to have both players to build on and players to trade. Let’s build with Andrew Cashner and hope Jedd Gyorko gets back to this 2013 self in 2015. Let’s develop Jesse Hahn, Odrisamer Despaigne, and Matt Wisler for the future. Don’t trade away the commodities that other teams want to actually pay for. The veteran starting pitcher in Kennedy. The trusted reliever in Benoit.

Leave them for 2015, and let the new GM do their job without two hands tied behind their back because the cupboard was stripped bare before they even got here.