I haven't been paying as much attention as I would like on the blog, but I would like some of your opinions on some conventional wisdom as far as trading for prospects verses drafting them.  With a player like Adrian, who would obviously be a Type A free agent the club would get both a 1st round pick, and a 1st round supplemental pick.) 

I understand the logic in trading the player before FA because you could get 3-4 prospects who have far less question marks.  In the same token, they are still prospects, and ones our own scouts didn't draft.  So the prospects would have more years in a different minor league system than guys we would draft ourselves.  Additionally if we got the draft picks we would be taking them from another club AND we could have much more flexibility in that draft and pick guys who could come up in the system together being drafted in the same year, and build better chemistry.

So I guess the big question is:  With all the national sports opinion makers being so pissed off at the Padres success, including some of our own team blogger thinking our success is sabotaging our future... are they all full of poo, and could "draft picks for Adrian"  > "prospects for Adrian".

Discuss.