If the Padres want to trade Adrian Gonzalez, I'm surprisingly okay with that

And I actually trust Hoyer to make a good baseball decision.

Or that they want him around only because they’re emotionally attached?

In fact, what fan, of any team, anywhere, wouldn’t trade their franchise player if it meant they would win in the postseason in “spectacular fashion?”

The debate maestro has been bringing up lately has a little more to it than that. I guess the underlying point of your post is that no player is untouchable, but I think most people rooting for a losing team already agree with that.

I’m tired of seeing the Fred McGriffs, Gary Sheffields, Kevin Browns leaving SD. Trading AG for 3/4 players doesnt guarantee that those players will ever be even avg MLB players. Look at the deal we did for Peavy. The #1 guy in the deal Poreda,so far, was getting shelled in AAA and somehow lost his mechanics and his mental aptitude for finding the plate. Richard had a good record but his ERA wasnt anything really acceptable, Russell was fine. I guess what I’m saying is that in the case of young, premiere talent ‘a bird in hand is better than 2 in bush’

we really do need guys like Adrian to make a ‘deep postseason run’.

On the one hand, I think it’d be possible to extend Adrian with a contract of something like 5yrs/$90mil beginning in 2012. That would eat $18 mil/yr from our payroll, but if we were spending around $55mil on payroll at that point, that still gives us $37 mil to build the rest of the roster, which is more than we’re spending now anyway.

We would then have time to develop talent around Adrian (Latos, Porreda, Cabrera, Tate, Decker, Williams, Dykstra, etc.); see who pans out amongst Headley, Kouz, Blanks, Venable, and Hundley; and depend on Jed to make some moves to bring in the remaining pieces. We could have a very good team in a few years that’s centered around Adrian.

ON THE OTHER HAND, I can’t imagine Adrian’s trade value ever being higher than it is right now. A trade could bring in a ML-ready starter (Buchholz?) and some promising, controllable prospects. This would allow us to move Blanks to his natural position and we might find out that we already have a guy who is every bit as good as Adrian. I don’t think anyone would disagree that Blanks’ production would likely increase with a move to 1st — and we can stop worrying so much about the inevitable injuries that will occur when you’ve got a 6’6’ 275lb guy playing the outfield.

Moving him would give us a ton of payroll flexibility. It’d allow us to not have to worry about being able to sign some of our other players and would even give Jed some ability to go after free agents.

I guess it would be fine with me whichever way they decide to do it, as long as it’s done right.

is that there’s an expectation here that we won some games towards the end of last season and that will necessarily carry over into next year. That’s not necessarily the case.

The fact is that we only have one bonafide major leaguer on the team—Adrian. We’ve got a couple of players with potential (Blanks, Cabrera, Latos) and a bunch of AAA and complimentary players. And there’s virtually nothing in the minor league system on its way, other than more complimentary players. Signing Tate, Sampson, and Williams was a good start, but we need more drafts like that and more prospects with lots of upside.

This team doesn’t have the money to sign free agents and make it an immediate competitor. What it really needs to be doing is investing its money in the draft and the international signing market, and having one player take up half your payroll isn’t conducive to that, especially when he’s still not going to be playing on a legitimate championship team for the foreseeable future.

What trading Adrian can do is eliminate what’s going to be a huge drain on the payroll in a couple years, as well as bring in a couple young controllable players and some good prospects to help in rebuilding the farm system. It’s not the same as the Peavy situation, because Adrian’s value is head and shoulders above Jake’s. Adrian’s younger, MUCH cheaper, and doesn’t have ridiculous home splits (in fact, his splits are better away, which favors the team getting him).

I’m torn on this, because I love Adrian and don’t want to see him go, but I’m having a hard time justifying keeping him.

Say you get three major league starters for Adrian. Their output would have to equal Adrian’s output plus the output of the players they are replacing. Even if they are replacing the bottom two contributors from last years team, you will not get equal output in return for a trade of Adrian Gonzalez.

There’s barely any. Look at him, he’s not an exciting person unless you’re in to families.

My motivation for wanting to keep Adrian is Tony Gwynn. I want another Tony. Adrian doesn’t have to hit .400, but he can satisfy me by being an All-Star and being a Padre for 20 years.

Sure, trade Adrian for three good players. And then three years from now when two of them are good, and become too expensive, trade them for three more. And then three years after that, repeat.

The problem with this whole idea is that it’s a never ending cycle of trading good players for future good players who are then themselves traded.

Gonzalez is the kind of player you build your team around, not trade for possible talent that you’ll just end up trading later anyway.

is what you think Adrian is worth, and what he’s going to produce in the future. In 2009, Adrian doubled his production from 2008. Doubled. That’s a huge improvement.

So you have to ask yourself, which is the real Adrian? The one from 2008 that was worth 3.4 WAR, or 2009 that was worth 6.4 WAR? The former could actually be re-signable at a rate the Padres could absorb. The latter wouldn’t be.

The flip side of that is, if this year was somewhat fluky, then his value will never be higher and if you don’t trade him now but want to in the future, you won’t get nearly as much.

I love AGon and yes he is cheap, but I am not so sure he is going to stick around with a hometown discount. Even if that discount is $15 million a year that is still a large portion of a payroll in the 40’s.

If you can get 4 real players for him that are going to help this team going forward and that you will have under control for awhile then pull the trigger. I trust Jed to either take a haul for him, hold onto him and try to work enough payroll room to afford him.

Sure, draft and develpment better and spend more money on that, but low payroll teams do not win very often. 40 million is not going to cut it, the losing will continue.
Evan Grant from DMN has a good article on this:

40 million is close to the bottom of the league.

This whole thing just sucks. With his combination of power, plate discipline, and defense, who else is better? Pujols and Teixiera are the only ones I can think of that are better right now and thats it.

But a talent like Adrian just doesn’t come along for the Padres like other teams. He might already be the greatest 1B for the Padres and he has only been here 4 seasons. Garvey? Nevin? McGriff? If he stays this year, he will probably pass Nate Colbert for the all-time HR record for the team. Really? We have to trade him to get better? I thought it was the GM’s job to surround good players with other good players?

This is why baseball is ruining itself. Watching Lee and Sabathia pitch against each other really sucks because Cleveland should have been able to keep them. But no, like the Padres they have to “rebuild” and “build up the farm system” and “have payroll flexibility”. Its getting old.

Anyways, for what Adrian’s worth, I don’t think we will get equal value for him.

is going to be a bit easier than the last few years due to The Dodgers fire sale. I don’t think being competitive is out of the picture.