Tag Archives: A.J. Preller

The offseason: Ending with bangs? Whimpers?

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Jacob Wilson

Jacob Wilson, secured as an Athletic for seven seasons and $70 million . . .

I confess. I’m not sure whether the January portion of the Hot Stove League offseason ended with more bangs than whimpers. I’m willing to wager that not too many others are, either. So, here’s some news as January’s end arrived . . .

Sale? What Sale? Dept. — It’s been speculated often enough that Padres general manager A.J. Preller is somewhat hamstrung making offseason moves with the team’s pending sale and its attendant Seidler family squabbling. Preller would like us to know that such speculation is slightly exaggerated.

“You get to this point, and obviously you get the opportunity to hopefully get some players that are motivated, that want to be here, and get some deals that we feel like line up for us from a price standpoint and what we get in the player,” he told the Padres FanFest. “Hopefully we’re going to look to add some guys here in the next couple of weeks that help us a lot.”

In other words, Preller hopes to make some moves this month. Padres fans can only reply, “We hope!” They may temper that with their fingers crossed now that Luis Arraez signed a single-season deal with the Giants, where his wish to play second base full time is likely to come true for now.

Jacob’s Ladder Dept. — The ladder goes further up with the Las Vegas Athletics of Oakland via Sacramento. The A’s and their All-Star shortstop Jacob Wilson have agreed on a seven-year, $70 million contract with a team option for an eighth season, according to ESPN’s Jeff Passan.

“With exceptional bat-to-ball skills, Wilson stamped himself as a likely future batting champion last season and spent much of the year atop the AL batting average leaderboard,” Passan wrote. “His power output surprised evaluators, who were concerned Wilson’s desire for contact — he struck out just 39 times in 523 plate appearances last year — would limit his home runs.”

The Wilson deal means the A’s have 2025 Rookie of the Year Nick Kurtz, Wilson, designated hitter Brent Rooker, and outfielders Tyler Soderstrom and Lawrence Butler locked down until at least 2030, according to Passan. Wilson and Soderstrom will be under team control through 2033, Butler through 2022, and Rooker through 2030, he added.

Translation: the somewhat loaded offense the A’s have been building without big fanfare is aimed squarely at making sure the A’s have more than just their presence, their uniforms, and a garish-on-the-outside ballpark to offer Las Vegas when they finally move there in 2028. If only the maneuverings making the move possible were done a) on the square; and, b) on owner John Fisher’s entire own dollars and not too many of those of Nevada taxpayers, without c) screwing Oakland in the bargain.

Insurance Running Dept. — You may or may not have noticed, but a rising number of major league stars aren’t going to be playing in the World Baseball Classic after all. That’s because MLB’s chief insurer is taking a tougher line on insuring players for the international tournament. So much so that Puerto Rico is considering pulling out of the tournament . . . because as many as ten of their team, including Mets superstar shortstop Francisco Lindor, are denied coverage.

The concern is comprehensible. The affected players have incurred injuries either in the most recent seasons or in the WBC itself. Perhaps the most notorious was relief pitcher Edwin Díaz, who missed the entire 2023 major league season after he was injured during a WBC celebration in that year’s tournament. The Athletic says WBC injuries to Díaz and Astros star Jose Altuve that year prompted MLB’s insurers to toughen up approval for play outside MLB.

Aside from Altuve and Lindor, Puerto Rico’s non-cleared players also include Astros third baseman Carlos Correa, Blue Jays pitcher José Berríos, and Twins catcher Victor Caratini. Puerto Rico’s team operations manager Joey Sola told The Athletic they’d have to withdraw entirely if they can’t find substitutes.

Pohlaxed Dept. — The departure of Twins general manager Derek Falvey disturbed a good many people who watch the Twins closely — except for Falvey himself. The Athletic‘s Aaron Gleeman reported this weekend that, if anything, Falvey now seemed like a man with tons of weight removed from his head.

“It’s been a challenge at times,” Falvey told Gleeman. “I’d be lying to say anything else. Everyone is going to have different limitations or challenges they have to navigate through. I do think for us over the course of certainly the last 16 or 18 months, those were ratcheted up.” Falvey seems to have a future as an understatement expert.

“Those” included the Polhads dropping the Twins payroll by $30 million in 2024 and by another $30 million this offseason, the non-reward for Falvey taking a $165 million 2023 payroll and shepherded it to the American League Central title and the end of the team’s two-decade-long postseason winless streak. Gleeman said the Twins’ projected $100 million 2026 payroll “left Falvey with few appealing options to improve a 92-loss team that needs all kinds of help following last year’s trade-deadline fire sale and second-half ineptitude.”

Good luck with all that. As Gleeman pointed out, the Twins’ owning family “pushed out Joe Pohlad as the executive chair in December, replacing him with older brother Tom Pohlad, who has since repeatedly made it clear he expects the Twins to be competitive this season without actually giving the front office the resources to add impact talent.”

That’s something along the line of American Airlines demanding its pilots fly Dreamliner jets across the Atlantic with their fuel tanks an eighth full.

There is Good News This Morning Dept. — It’s only seven days before pitchers and catchers begin reporting for spring training. They’ll be almost as happy to escape this winter’s cruel lash across the upper and eastward regions of this nation as baseball fans will be to welcome them back.

The 20th century New York Times writer/outdoorsman Hal Borland once observed, “No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn.” Now hear this, Mr. Borland, serene in your perch in the Elysian Fields: For those nine words alone, the reading of which baseball fans are grateful beyond expression, you should have been awarded the Pulitzer Prize.

First published in slightly different form at Sports Central.

Accountability isn’t dead, entirely

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Emilio Pagan

Emilio Pagan, relief pitcher, avatar of self-accountability.

When players hold themselves accountable, not ducking the harder questions, it’s admirable and—to enough people—rare enough. When a player willing to hold himself accountable seeks to do so without being asked first, that’s not just somewhat out of the standard box, it ought to give him some kind of share of some kind of prize.

Case in point: Emilio Pagán, Padres relief pitcher. In a game meaning nothing to the Padres anymore but everything to the Dodgers Wednesday night, the Dodgers bludgeoned Pagán and fellow bullpen bull Nabil Crismatt for five home runs—Pagan for three, Crismatt for two.

All when the Padres entered the bottom of the eighth holding a nice 9-6 lead including battering Max Scherzer, of all people, for six runs in six innings. The inning ended with the Dodgers leading 11-9, holding on to win by that score Wednesday night, and the Padres wondering further just when things like a disconnect between the clubhouse and the front office would be redressed.

Pagán got torn back-to-back by Max Muncy and A.J. Pollock, then by Cody Bellinger one out later, to tie the game. Crismatt got pounded for the one that mattered, Corey Seager’s two-out, two-run shell into the right field bleachers to yank the Dodgers ahead. Some thought that eighth-inning meltdown was too emblematic of the Padres’ seasonal dissipation.

They were supposed to win the West this year, right? They were anointed World Series champions in waiting this year, by enough commentators, right? They had the hottest young star in baseball this side of Shohei Ohtani, a solid pitching staff, and were just itching to lay the division to waste, if not the league, right? That’s what you all heard too much of coming out of spring training, right?

Didn’t happen. And while plenty of teams had to find ways around the ferocious enough injury bugs this year, the Padres couldn’t and didn’t, if not wouldn’t.

They became testy in the clubhouse as the season went forward. Enough players reportedly became more disillusioned with oft-overwhelmed manager Jayce Tingler. Enough became just as dismayed by seemingly half-connected general manager A.J. Preller, whose reputed genius at scouting and building was undermined this year by failures at true fortification at the trade deadline and a sense that he’s out of touch with his clubhouse, willfully or otherwise.

So when Pagán buttonholed San Diego Union-Tribune writer Kevin Acee, Acee was only too willing to listen and write. The righthander who surrendered the home run that just about killed what remained of the Padres’ season in St. Louis—Tyler O’Neill’s two-run blast in the bottom of the eighth on 18 September—had more to say.

He’s said in the recent past how nice it is to be part of a team as talented as the Padres actually are. But now, by holding himself up to task, he implied without saying that such talented teams should be just as accountable above and beyond the real issues beyond their control.

“We scored nine runs in a game that Max Scherzer starts,” Pagán told Acee. “You’ve got to win that game. I mean, plain and simple. I love this game too much to not look at the numbers and not look at the results like I’ve got to take some of this. I can’t just be upset, I’ve got to look at it and grow from it and come into next series, next season a better pitcher.”

Acee indicated the two spoke after Pagán reviewed video of his outing, asked coaches whether he was tipping pitches, pondered trying to develop a third pitch during the offseason, and lamented that he felt his pitches were both getting better in the season’s second half but he was “getting my teeth kicked in. So it hasn’t been a lot of fun.

“I’m going to look at everything because, as laughable as this comment is, I’m just too good for this,” Pagán continued. “I know type of talent that I can be on the mound. Unfortunately for the San Diego Padres organization I haven’t been what I can. And that’ll change. If I’m kept around, I will get better. I don’t know if I’ve been this angry in a long time at my individual performance on a baseball field, so I’ll get better. I care about this game too much to not get better.”

A 2.31 ERA for the 2019 Rays suggests Pagán can still fix whatever went wrong for him this season. An attitude such as he showed in seeking Acee out before the scribe could seek and question him first suggests wisdom beyond his 30 years.

“In these times of pandemic-induced postgame zooms,” Acee wrote, “the media often does not get to immediately speak to players involved in key plays. But Pagán, being both a veteran who has been around when clubhouses have been open and an honorable man, was willing to face questions before I could even ask if he would.”

Preller seems to leave somewhat different and contradictory impressions, according to Athletic writers Ken Rosenthal, Dennis Lin, and Eno Sarris:

The combination of an untested manager, veteran coaches with strong personalities and prominent players with strong personalities has sometimes proven volatile. A pair of confrontations in the dugout two weeks ago . . . attracted national attention, but according to sources, there have been an unusual number of heated moments this season, including when the Padres were well above .500. Some of the same sources have questioned whether front-office executives have enough empathy for those navigating complex situations inside the clubhouse.

“I don’t think (Preller) feels that at all,” said one former coach.

If there’s a further shakeup in the Padres’ offseason to come, it seems as though few would be surprised. If a new, more experienced and attuned manager is on the priority list, it may be easier said than done bringing aboard someone else Preller may or may not think he can command at will.

Whomever it proves to be, he’ll have at least one veteran relief pitcher on board with the concept and the continuing practise of accountability.