Myers Ready for Chapter 3: Rebound Season

Wil Myers insists he doesn’t really care. He doesn’t care that it appears the Rays gave up on him after just two seasons, despite one being a Rookie of the Year campaign in 2013. Yet, as Corey Brock reports, he is certainly ready to help the Padres win his most recent trade.

“When I talked to [Rays general manager Matt Silverman], he said it wasn’t ‘giving up’ anything, it was just a business decision,” Myers said. “I can’t say what’s right or wrong, but I’m going to do everything that I can to make sure [Padres general manager A.J. Preller] looks like he won this trade.”

Certainly the Padres are hoping the same thing of Myers. For those of us who are not professional athletes, we expect the players we watch to play through injuries and see no drop off in performance. That is their job after all. Plus we are spoiled with the players like Derek Jeter and Cal Ripken Jr. who never seemed affected by injuries all that much. So when Wil Myers says that his drastic drop-off in production from 2013 to 2014 was due to a nagging wrist injury, some of us in Padre Land raise our eyebrows. Are we being too tough on the kid? 

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A.J. Preller certainly enters 2015 hoping the players he acquired will make him look good on several trades, not just one. This isn’t a Adrian Gonzalez–for-Anthony Rizzo measuring stick – this is Jesse Hahn–for-Derek Norris, Matt Kemp trying to show he’s not past his prime, Justin Upton for a center-fielder and pitcher of the future, and of course Wil Myers showing that shortstop of the future Trea Turner was expendable as well.

When you start measuring trades, it can get tricky. Who really got the best of the Braves-Tigers trade when the Tigers got veteran Doyle Alexander who helped lead them to the playoffs by going 9-0 with a 1.53 ERA? On the Braves’ side, John Smoltz of course just entered the Hall of Fame this week so we know that turned out well.

Where were Wil Myers stand in all of this? When he was traded to the Rays from the Royals, many scoffed that the Royals were mortgaging their future. Yet thanks to their spoils in that trade of 2 years of James Shields and Wade Davis, they were within a win away from the World Championship last season. Now what?

There are still many questions about Wil Myers as a Padre. How will be in center field? Can he hit for average again and how will his power be affected by Petco Park? Another question is how long will the Padres hold onto him? Super-stud idea Ruben Rivera‘s ghost still patrols the outfield for the Padres, hopefully Trevor Hoffman isn’t leaving his glove around. Certainly Myers is seen to have a much higher upside than Cameron Maybin, but the comparisons can certainly be drawn as the Padres had high expectations for Maybin when he came over from the Marlins and were not disappointed…back in 2011. Now over the last two seasons he has barely played over 100 games. He is still just 27-years old, just three years older than Myers.

Of the three new outfielders, Myers has the potential to be the franchise cornerstone that he wasn’t able to be for the Rays. With his combination of skills, he could easily make people forget about who the Padres gave up at all and make us Padres fans eternally grateful that we took a chance on him in the first place. In his own words:

“I’m working hard this offseason to do some big things, I’m ready to come out and do some big things.”

Here’s hoping history will smile on the Wil Myers Trade Part II.