Scott Miller rips the Padres

That at least their is some depth to this article. He doesn’t just quote an anonymous source and make a couple snarky comments.

The anonymous source thing got beat to death yesterday. The quoting of the NL executive is another silly device. How would that person have any knowledge about the situation. They are an outsider just like the rest of us. They do not have the internal scouting information, financial figures or other internal tools that their rival team would have. It’s one thing to ask that person to describe their current situation, but to have them try to speculate on the Padres future is a bit of a stretch.

The 1998 thing is so ancient history and if anything, hasn’t the loss of players following the season been seen as prescient at this point? How many good seasons came out of Vaughn, Caminiti, Brown, and Hamilton following that season. Finley obviously went on to take an unusual career path that I don’t think even the DBacks could have anticipated. The Padres would have been hemorrhaging money and losing far too many games with that core had they kept it together. If only they could have turned the draft picks they received into something.

Which brings us to the Kevin Towers loss of autonomy. Am I the only one who still sees that as a good thing? There a things that Towers does very well (trading, bringing in productive veterans, among others) but the drafting and player development side was lacking for years. Bringing in Alderson, Fuson, Gayton, and DePodesta has been the answer to shoring up those front office weaknesses. Most teams have a large group of important individuals who manage the front office, the days of the one-man-runs-all GM are gone as the information has made it impossible for one man to keep up. I’m sure that even Towers’ ego is hurt by these appointments, he also would know that it is probably the best way to go for the franchise.

“not spending as much as promised” is so completely asinine. I would really love for someone to produce an article where Moores said, “Once we have a new ballpark, I will spend about $70 M a year” or “we’ll be in the upper-half of league payrolls”.

The guy said we’d be competitive. Outside of this disastrous season, that has been true. We had four winning seasons in a row with 2 playoff appearances and narrowly missing one more. How does that not qualify as compettive?

And what the hell is this guy smoking? Has he seen the NL West? It’s not going to take that much to right the ship. We need solid pitching. Done.

The Hoffman news, if there is any truth to it, is clearly the most alarming. But until an anonymous source backs up the information, how can we know?

Although I stay away from the knee-jerk ripping of him that seems to be so fashionable around here these days, I was hoping Trevor would call it quits after this season. He has pitched much better recently, but I’m with the majority who believe his early season struggles would only be more protracted if he pitches another season. That being said, if he wants to come back next year, why not let him? Let’s face it, we’re not winning next year either. We won’t be as bad, we hope, but do we really believe the front office is going to do something over the off season to make us contenders next year, even in this joke of a division? Maybe I’m in the minority in thinking that, but I have very little faith at this point. Do we really want Trevor to get number 600 in another uniform? If he wants to come back and try for that milestone, we should let him. And it seems to me like he’s been quite an asset to our craphole of a bullpen lately, coming into games he should have never had to and bailing out the morons in front of him. He’s proven he can still pitch, and unless we get major upgrades to our bullpen before next year, hell, we’ll need him. If there is a better place to put the money that would be owed Trevor, and the front office is willing to put it there (always the question with these guys), fine, but like I said, this is as much about my lack of faith in the FO as it is my love for Trevor. I’d rather watch a mediocre team with Trevor Hoffman than one without him. And maybe we get a nice milestone to celebrate and are able to send him off to the Hall of Fame on less of a crap note. That being said, PLEASE RETIRE AFTER THIS YEAR, TREVOR! (But if you come back I’ll still love you!)

I was surprised to read that she wants the team. Does she just want it because it’s an asset? Or is she really interested in owning and running the team?

Arizona’s sweet-swinging pitcher, Micah Owings , is headed for Cincinnati as one of the two players-to-be-named later in this week’s Adam Dunn deal. One problem holding it up: Owings currently is on the disabled list.