Dojji

Beane was probably charging an early buyers' premium (charge more because you seem to need the guy right now as opposed to waiting), and the Padres were willing to do the deal immediately. Any price Hill gets in trade at the deadline itself will have to be judged in the perspective that the buying team will get 3 fewer starts out of him. Since our divisional pennant race has 3 teams within three games of the top billing... I consider that significant.

DD literally came out and said that the only options were just Hill or Pomeranz. No one else was biting on anything close to an acceptable price. Beane was asking for Espinosa for Hill.. If you understand nothing else, understand that. I can't blame DD for paying an "unreasonable" price when there was literally no way on God's green earth we were going to get a meaningful upgrade for a price I considered reasonable. DD had to choose who to proect and he chose to protect Benintendi and Moncada and I agree that losing those two would hurt worse, and in ways that hurt us sooner. You literally cannot protect everyone. you have to make some valuable pieces available to get value back. Frankly given the drastically overinflated market, you can make an argument that the Padres cut us a break. I mean... did you hear what the Braves wanted for Teharan? Anderson Espinosa is an afterthought compared to the sheer rack and ruin that trade would have inflicted on our farm.

Forgive me, but I think you're underselling Wright just a little. I understand in principle about taking a few points off because of the unproven factor, but Wright has actually been fairly effective throughout his big league existence. I was calling like mad for him to break camp in the rotation because of his splits as a starter prior to this year, which were very good. He's playing up right now, yes, and he's probably due for a mild regression, but his career numbers as a starter prior to this year were about a 3.5 ERA and ~6 IP a night. if those represent closer to the "real" Steven Wright, then he's still both a #2 starter and an All-Star.

I'll be honest, I'd rather move an 18 year old A ball guy to help us for the next 2-3 years, then trade lesser talent for half a year's rental. Pomeranz, if he's any good at all, will be helping us compete during a period of time when we have a lot of young highly competitive talent both coming up the pike, and already here. He lines up with our existing windows. if you needed to get a guy anyway, lining up our interests with both the immediate and the intermediate term, with a guy who's got some talent

The big leap in minor league development is widely considered to be the leap between A and AA. Both Moncada and Benintendi have cleared that leap and just kept going. It really isn't all that absurd or ridiculous to think that they could contribute now. A small market team or a team with a hole in their primary positions (2B and CF respectively) would be seriously considering promoting them to see what they have. I think it's actually passing likely that we will see one, the other, or both, up with the team by September, especially if we sustain any more injuries. The numbers look good, scouts and columnists I trust say the skills match the numbers. There's reason for caution as always, but no reason at all to think the idea that either of those guys could transition to the major leagues in the very near future is a "f***ing joke."

Yeah not signing Hill had conseuqences, and if you want to know who's responsible for us eating a faceful of those consequences, you can thank the Bastard Batallion, especially Messrs. Buchholz, Kelly and Rodriguez.

Not particularly, but then I don't expect DD to be Madame Cleo. If the team had acquired Pomeranz in the offseason, it would have been at the expense of Steven Wright's spot in the rotation or, alternatively is signed as a swingman so just bear that in mind. With attitudes as they were on the first of April, Pomeranz replaces Wright or goes into the bullpen. Until we knew that Kelly and Buchholz were not about to live up to last year's illusion of progress, their spots in the rotation were pretty secure, and Wright was considered the last man in the rotation. The fact of the matter is that the Padres are being rewarded for taking a risk that a big competitive market may not have taken, and proved that Pomeranz was worth paying a premium for, so a premium was paid. If he was on this team, it's nowhere near certain the same risk would have even been taken.

Nope. Beni, Mon and Swihart.

Good game guys. Hopefully some good starts for Rod and the Pod (our bunch of P's) and a good start to the second half.

OK dude, three things. 1: Pomeranz' durability issues are overblown. People who are saying that this year's 100 innings are the most he's ever pitched in a season are ignoring minor league innings -- while they don't count in some areas, you HAVE to count those when discussing durability. In 2012, Pomeranz pitched 144 1/3 innings between the bigs and the littles. That means in theory that getting up to at least 170 innings isn't going to be a substantial risk for him even if he was 23 instead of 27. 2: Comparing Pomeranz directly to Buchholz ignores the many areas in which the two are very different. Pomeranz' issues are not related to the same factors that plague buchholz. For one thing, Pomeranz doesn't have anywhere near buchholz' injury history. Pomeranz' lack of innings pitches is a matter of role, not a matter of injury or incapability as has been the problem with Buchholz. Yes he struggled in the funny physics of Colorado's high altitude stadium as a young player, but that was 4 years ago, and in the meantime he's put up decent numbers in a swing role, and took a step forward at age 27 -- not that unreasonable age for a pitcher of that high status as a prospect, to take that step forward. 3: One thing I'm looking forward to out of Pomeranz is at least some chance of being healthy and effective in the playoffs. If buchholz had ever once given us at least that much, I'd be a lot less hard on him. Pomeranz has also done at least one thing that Clay Buchholz has never EVER done in the big leagues -- pitch effectively IN his role FOR a full season WITH a minimum of drama and catastrophe for THREE straight seasons.

I very strongly disagree with you. Be educated by the Vazquez-Swihart issue this year. They're promising prospects, but prospects is all they are. The answer to the questuion "Who is our starting LF in 2018, Moncada or Benintendi" could very very easily be "Neither one." Pedroia seems to have stabilized for the time being (I'm still a bit of a Pedroia skeptic only because of age and injury history, but credit where it's due, he's put those concerns to rest for now) so I'm not too worried about forcing Moncada into an heir-apparent role at second base. At the same time though, we have good starting caliber regulars in all 4 infield positions right now and zero of them will be leaving us at the end of the year, and zero of them have enough issues with their performance that they should be in any way worried about being replaced by a prospect. Shaw is the closest thing we have to a weak link but he's been very satisfactory on both sides of the ball at third base and in my mind he is our incumbent 3B, no question. Since it's working, I'm not for messing with that until it's clear it needs to be messed with. So with that said we have to put Moncada somewhere. So of our three potential LF candidates, the first one that's ready, plays left field and we figure it out from there.

I thought that confidently in April. Then somewhat less confidenty in May. Then in June I resignedly determined that surely one of the Bastard batallion has to be serviceable at some point, the laws of probability of them all being complete duds is too remote. By July I was done with the lot of them.

I assume he'll arrive by air like most athletes.

excellent fangraphs article thanks for linking

We can't trust any of the current incumbent guys. Bastard 1 and Bastard 2 have multipled into a battalion of bastards and none of them are worth further time this year. E-Rod is the guy I have the most faith in, but I think E-Rod deserves some time in AAA to get right before we try to force him to be the guy we wanted him to be from the offseason. Buchholz and Kelly I will be happy if I never have to see again in this team's uniform. I would not mind at all seeing DD pull the trigger on a trade for Josh Tomlin. Shouldn't cost an untouchable to bring in that kind of guy and he'd finish of this rotation better than the Bastard batallion in all its horrible glory.

I would like to pick up a rock solid #5 guy, wouldn't have to have electric stuff but it would be nice to get a guy who could do 5 IP 3ER on a consistent basis.

What you seem not to understand is it would cost multiple untouchables, including Espinosa. To get the kind of you you're describing, with "no question marks," you'd have to gut a farm system. There's a reason that that kind of guy almost never changes hands. I'm fine with Pomeranz. Perhaps my perspective is skewed by not knowing that much about Espinosa beyond that he's a highly regarded A baller and with the fact that Pomeranz is quite frankly better than the SP's I was looking at.

There isn't an 18 year old in history that, at 18, has even a 25% chance to be Pedro.

Probably not. The price of pitching is extreme right now with a lot more demand than supply. And Espinosa is an 18 year old

I don't think this was a panic move. I think he did what DD usually does -- identify his guy and pays what it takes to get him. In DD's world the farm system exists to serve the big league roster not the other way around, and I agree with him. I will note that there are guys that are untouchable to DD. An 18 year old in A ball just doesn't qualify. He's protected the Killer B's as well as Benintendi and Moncada. At a certain point you just have to recognize that you can't make EVERYONE untouchable. To bring a starting pitcher onto the team and improve the team from the top down, the price is going to hurt, it's only a question of how much and which kind of pain. Any trade for a guy of this caliber that we were perfectly happy with, the Padres guys hang up the phone. That's what "seller's market" means. No one understands that better than DD, who has the sense to keep his eyes on the prize and works to win the World Series rather than winning the trade.

Yeah, that's a great point actually. People saying he "failed" in Detroit don't have enough memory to recall what the Tigers were up until 2003 when DD came in. In In 2002, the last year of the previous regime, the Tigers went 55-106. The year he took over, the Tigers were 43-119 3 years after he took over the team the Tigers were in the 2006 World Series and in the next 6 years they made the WS one more time and the ALCS twice. For a team that is simply not a powerhouse and usually ranges from terrible to slightly above average, that's simply impressive. Considering where the team was when he started, and where it was when he finished (a regular in the playoffs and coming close to winning a title several times), I'd have to call BS on people calling Detroit his regime a "failure." May not have gotten all the way but turned the Tigers from a joke to a contender, and developed quite a few homegrown guys in the process.

If Pomeranz lives up to the billing, this trade is a win-win. We get what we need right now, to compete over a 3 year playoff window, which is about as far as you can predict playoff contention. And the Padres, who need to do a full rebuild, get a potential centerpiece of that rebuild. Both teams gave up a lot, and both teams picked up a piece that suited their needs. I think this trade was well thought out on both sides from that perspective.

because my brain does weird things sometimes, I can't help but thing how much having a Ryan Dempster clone in the #5 slot in our roration would be a really good thing right now.

That's a pretty danged good rotation, especially if one of the eleven hundred options for #5 starter does eventually get his act together.

For some reason Baseball-Reference is lagging the hell out on me, too many ads or something.