FS Faux Winter Meetings Padres Starting Line-Up

By Daryll Dorman |

If you didn’t visit this page for the past week or so, first of all shame on you, second of all you missed a little simulation we dubbed the FanSided Faux GM Winter Meetings. Faux is French for fake, if you thought that the Padres actually traded Andrew Cashner for Yoenis Cespedes. Who ever got Tomas anyway?

TomahawkTake editor Alan Carpenter posts a pretty comprehensive summary of the entire event, but I thought I would briefly review what your 2015 Faux Padres Starting Lineup would look like and let you, the reader chime in on what you think.

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I won’t recap all of the trades, but I know it was very enjoyable for Devin and I even if we still ended up with Will Venable and Cameron Maybin on the team at the end of it.

We came in with a lot of major league-ready depth, and admittedly by trading both Cashner and Ian Kennedy our rotation is decidedly less fearsome on MLB experience headed into the season, but confident there are more minor leaguers ready to step up the same way Jesse Hahn and Odrisamer Despaigne did this season. Here is what we would have:

Starting Rotation:

1) Tyson Ross

2) Jesse Hahn

3) Odrisamer Despaigne

4) Robbie Erlin

5) Signed Kwang Hyun-Kim to a 3 year $6M deal and will put him in the rotation

“On-Deck”: Casey Kelly, Cory Luebke at some point, Burch Smith, and Matt Wisler. Only real minor league pitcher we had to give up with Joe Ross.

Bullpen:

Lost Alex Torres, and acquired Luis Avilan from the Braves to replace as the lefty reliever, plus a couple of young lefty arms from the Royals for Carlos Quentin.

Going to roll with Nick Vincent as the 7th inning man, Dale Thayer as the 8th inning setup man for closer Kevin Quackenbush with Joaquin Benoit having departed.

Infield:

1B: We argue to give the job to Tommy Medica. Gauge the interest for Yonder Alonso or platoon if necessary.

2B: Looking for a bounceback year for Jedd Gyorko, as you will see he does finally have some power hitters with him in the lineup!

SS: Betting on giving the job here to Cory Spangenberg.

3B: Chris Johnson. This one wasn’t without controversy, but we figure he can hit .290 for us and hit 10 homers and provide some veteran leadership.

C: Yasmani Grandal / Rene Rivera. Sorry, same tandem, but here comes the outfield!!

Outfield:

LF: Yoenis Cespedes. Get pumped people!!

CF: Seth Smith / Cameron Maybin. We want to get Smith in wherever needed, be it left, center, or right.

RF: Yasmany Tomas. I mean you heard the Padres bid 7 years and $105M in our faux meetings right to win the prize?

Backup OF: Venable if we have to, Rymer Liriano.

All in all, we love how the team looks, and only had to increase the payroll by about $6M. Totally do-able to get Cespedes and Tomas. It was fun going back and forth with the other team Faux GM’s through email and text all through the week and into the evenings.

It was also fun going back and forth with Devin as we argued about several ideas for the Padres moving forward (he hated giving up Joe Ross, I was willing to give up Alex Torres as well. I also think Gyorko will rebound and he’s not so sure). The contract aspect of this makes the real the job A.J. Preller has – and makes me glad my job isn’t based on other people’s performance!

The other good part of course is that we won’t be forced to live out a season and hope that Tomas doesn’t tweak a hamstring the second week of Spring Training and miss the first month of the season.

Chime in! Do you think this team would win more games than last year’s squad or did we throw money down the drain? Is the pitching still good enough with the renewed offense to win the NL West or at least one of the wildcard spots?

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