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| Latos Trade: Never-Ending Cycle of Rebuilding or Building Blocks of Future Success? |
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| 2011 Season - 2011 Season | ||||||||||||||||||
| Written by Peter Friberg | ||||||||||||||||||
| Thursday, 22 December 2011 01:06 | ||||||||||||||||||
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You know the particulars: the Padres traded RHP, Mat Latos to the Reds for three minor league players: 1B Yonder Alonso, C Yasmani Grandal, and RHP Brad Boxberger as well as MLB RHP Edinson Volquez. Mat Latos has “Ace” potential. In 2010 he was the best pitcher on the team. Last year, he started slowly and in the second half, again looked like the best pitcher on the team… Why do you give up on a player like that? I can stand on either side of this argument. In general, I wouldn’t want to give up on a player with Latos’ talent. However, if I have a surplus of talent at his position (and the Padres do), and if another team is willing to give an overwhelming level of talent back in return (and the Reds were), then I have to have to think about the deal. The Padres’ 2012 starting rotation was going to look like:
In addition to the group above, the Padres also have Robbie Erlin, Joseph Wieland, and Juan Oramas who are each essentially ready for a big league audition. While none of those guys have Latos’ upside, it is not a group of 4th/5th starters. There are several legitimate 2nd/3rd starters in the group. Now the rotation will most likely look like:
This one’s obvious: The NL Central is the single division in baseball with most extreme aggregate collection of hitters’ parks and the Reds’ park, The Great American Ballpark, is one of those extreme parks. Coming from the NL Central to the NL West alone would be an improvement, but going from The Great American Ballpark to Petco is a huge relief to a pitcher. This is the one I post the most credence in: Darren Balsley is one of, if not THE best pitching coach in baseball. When Oliver Perez was here and under his tutelage he was a borderline Cy Young candidate, away from here he developed bad habits… Similarly, when Aaron Harang came to San Diego, Balsley “fixed” his mechanics and Aaron regained some of his “lost” velocity and dramatically improved his effectiveness. I have more confidence in Balsley “fixing” Volquez than I do in Petco masking any supposed mediocrity. Let’s look at his MLB and MiLB career stats:
You can see that he has not performed anywhere near as well in the majors as he did in the minors. That reminds us of one thing: pitching in the big leagues is hard and it suggests another, that he hasn’t reached his potential. And clearly, we can see that he is walking far too many big league hitters. Again, Balsley and Petco will help with that. Now let’s look at the minor leaguers in the trade: Yonder Alonso, 1B, 6’2” 215; Bats: Left, Throws: Right; Born: April 8, 1987 Yonder Alonso is actually a very similar hitter to Jedd Gyorko. They both hit for high averages and control the strike zone well. Neither of them have premiere power. Gyorko hits from the right, Alonso hits from the left. He has a short, compact, swing that translates into a high batting average and a fair amount of power. When he was in college, he was one of THE premiere hitters in all of college baseball. He doesn’t run particularly well and despite being groomed by the Reds to play LF (to keep 2010 NL MVP Joey Votto at 1B) he is better suited for 1B. Defensively, depend on who you believe, he is either adequate or slightly above average… Physically, Alonso is a tree-trunk. He is a thick—bodied 6’2” I do NOT want to suggest he is fat; rather he has thick muscular legs and a thick, strong, mid-section. He actually appears much shorter than his 6’2” height suggests. Yasmani Grandal, C, 6’2” 215, Bats: Switch, Throws: Right; Born: November 8, 1988 Yasmani Grandal was a college teammate at University of Miami to both Alonso and to current Padres minor league catcher, Jason Hagerty. After Alsono left for professional baseball, Hagerty moved to 1B (he had been the catcher) to let the defensively superior Grandal get behind the plate. The question was always, would Grandal hit enough to be an MLB starting catcher, or would he rely solely on his defensive acumen to be a future backup. His junior year of college he came on as a hitter and has continued to hit as a professional (in 402 career minor league at-bats, Grandal has hit: .303/.401/.488). Defensively he features a strong arm and quick release. Reportedly, pitchers love throwing to him. His one negative is that he seemed to struggle with dropping the ball on occasion. It should a minor thing and easily corrected. Grandal is essentially a closer-to-the-bigs version of the recently drafted Austin Hedges. Because of the positional scarcity, Grandal could be considered a superior prospect than Alonso… Brad Boxberger, RHP, 6’2” 185, Bats: Right, Throws: Right; Born: May 7, 1988 Boxberger was a first round draft pick out of the University of Southern California in 2009. In college he was a starting pitcher and still features three pitches, a 92-95 fastball, a nice curve, and an average change-up. The fastball and breaking pitch are both above average and the change is always a nice chip to have in his back pocket… Boxberger is an elite minor league reliever and joins a deep group of Padres’ system relievers with similar profiles (Boxberger is the highest touted of the bunch). *** Alonso joins fellow rookie Anthony Rizzo, and veterans Kyle Blanks and Jesus Guzman as players who profile best at 1B. As a right-handed hitter, Blanks is my personal favorite but he (despite his appearance) has the most athleticism and can play a decent LF. Guzman can play 3B and/or LF in a pinch (both poorly). Rizzo has arguably the highest ceiling and profiles similarly to an Adrian Gonzalez-lite, but that ceiling is less than Adrian’s… Rizzo, despite his talent and upside, scares me as the Padres’ leading 1B candidate (almost solely because of Petco). Even before the Alonso acquisition, I argued the Padres should trade him while his value was still high (giving 1B to Blanks). The Padres and Byrnes will deny (as they have to) that they are trying to move Rizzo, but with their collection of first basemen, the time is ripe to move one of the 1B and Rizzo is the most likely candidate. Be surprised if he is still in the organization come Spring Training. Boxberger is the another quality arm to add to the group of elite minor league closers the Padres have assembled (joining Brad Brach, Kevin Quackenbush, and Miles Mikolas). Padres GM Josh Byrnes was ridiculed for letting Arizona’s bullpen get to historically bad levels while he was there but he now leads an organization which already had a lot of bullpen talent and he has added to it. All in all, giving up on Latos is huge. However with the Padres pitching depth, and adding to the organization’s catching depth as well as adding another premier hitter to the system cannot be overstated. One last thing: when it comes to prospects, some pan out but even more flame out… You can never have too much minor league talent. The current state of the Padres minor league system is such that there is so much talent it would be nearly impossible for some of the studs to NOT work out. Hey, I told you my opinion didn’t matter…
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