I’m Pretty Sure it Means “Saint Diego”
We’ll Have to Agree to Disagree

In searching for an overrated NL team or one who is ripe for a big fall, there are a few obvious choices. First, the Florida Marlins are a lock to lose more than 79 games, but that story is not particularly exciting or surprising, so I’ll skip it. Losing the Rocket puts Houston in the same boat, looking at a mediocre offense to go with only two of the big three. Washington and St. Louis are in similar trouble, facing an uphill battle to get back to their level of performance established last year. But the team I’m picking to spotlight is one that had a superficially successful off-season coming off of a postseason performance. So what makes San Diego’s situation problematic? Just as in the case of the Yankees which I discussed last week, the Padres have age issues which could start to slowly become a drag on the offense. Unlike the Yankees, many of the Padres have troubling injury histories which makes the age even more of a problem. Also like the Yankees, the Padres’ win total last year was bloated from what it should have been based on their run totals. Before going into greater detail, I’m going to officially anoint the Padres an upcoming disappointment by bolding their name.

San Diego Padres
2005 Record- 82-80, Pythagorean Record- 76-86
Notable Gains- Mike Cameron, Mark Bellhorn, Chris Young, Termel Sledge, Vinny Castilla, Doug Mirabelli
Notable Losses- Ramon Hernandez, Sean Burroughs, Chris Hammond, Akinori Otsuka, Joe Randa, Mark Loretta, Xavier Nady, Rudy Seanez, Adam Eaton

For a team with as much roster overhaul as this, the San Diego core remains relatively the same as it has been for the last several years. The lineup is still centered on Ryan Klesko and Brian Giles with Trevor Hoffman closing out games at the end. For all the noise they made in the offensive changes, the new starters look quite a bit worse than those whom they replaced. Here’s a look at it, position by position.

C: Out- Ramon Hernandez (29 years old, .274 EQA last year), In- Doug Mirabelli (35, .259)
2B- Out- Mark Loretta (34, .267 while injured), In- Mark Bellhorn (31, .256)
3B- Out- Joe Randa (36, .273), In- Vinny Castilla (38, .260)
OF- Out- Xavier Nady (27, .270), In- Mike Cameron (33, .285)

There is also the possibility that Mark Bellhorn loses out to Jesse Barfield at second, a 24 year old who hit .310/.370/.450 in the hit-happy PCL last season. Also, the defensive upgrade of Nady to Cameron allows Dave Roberts to shift to left, giving them two speedy glovemen to man the wide open spaces of Petco, albeit two glovemen on the wrong side of thirty with substantial injury issues over the last few years. No matter how you look at it, the offense is old with only Khalil Greene under 30. Brian Giles, the best offensive player is 36 and has nowhere to go but down.

The crux of the issue is that the Padres were not a very good team last year, lucking out and winning a terrible division with a sub .500 Pythagorean record. Now, Kevin Towers, who is a very good GM, seems like he has to remain competitive rather than trying to build from within. While some of their moves show foresight- like the acquisition of Chris Young for Adam Eaton, which makes the younger and cheaper, not to mention possibly better-, others are positional patch jobs that sacrifice value- like trading Loretta for career backup Mirabelli- and still others are image conscious moves that keep the team old and expensive and prevent retooling- Giles, Hoffman. Last year’s strong bullpen took a couple of hits when it lost Seanez, Hammond and Otsuka, but they have shown the ability to squeeze value out of live arms. The bigger problem is that they stand to get worse due to age, injuries or plainly bad moves across the board while the rest of the division gets a little better. San Diego’s best hope is that Roberts and Cameron have the same effect that Rowand and Podsednik had on last year’s White Sox, winning several games on difficultly quantified defensive ability. More likely, they will fail to again win six more games than their Pythagorean projections and they will fall behind resurgent Los Angeles and San Fransisco clubs.