Padres don't see Hernandez returning. That should probably have been obvious to everybody. The interesting thing here is the guaranteed money for next season:
LF Ryan Klesko $10.5 million
P Chan Ho Park $10 million
P Woody Williams $5 million
P Brian Lawrence $4.05 million
2B Mark Loretta $3.25 million
P Jake Peavy $2.5 million
RP Scott Linebrink $1.365 million
Mixed feelings on that list. The high end is really disappointing. The guys towards the bottom seem like they deserve more. If we were to flip flop that list almost one for one so it looked like this:P Chan Ho Park $10 million
P Woody Williams $5 million
P Brian Lawrence $4.05 million
2B Mark Loretta $3.25 million
P Jake Peavy $2.5 million
RP Scott Linebrink $1.365 million
LF Ryan Klesko $1.365 million
P Chan Ho Park $2.5 million
P Woody Williams $3.25 million
P Brian Lawrence $4.05 million
2B Mark Loretta $5 million
P Jake Peavy $10 million
RP Scott Linebrink $10.5 million
...Then I'd think there was justice in the world. Here's an Alderson quote:
Told that some fans regarded the team as boring, Alderson said: "I would have thought that some fans would have given the team a little more credit for gutting it out, which I think it did given the level of talent we had on the team and to some extent the injuries.
See, the feeling that I had wasn't that the team was "gutting it out". To me, the Padres demonstrated for exactly one month, that with the team they fielded, they could dominate anybody. Keep in mind, in May, we weren't entirely healthy. And yet, the team kept finding ways to win. The rest of the season, the team kept finding ways to lose. Suddenly, games where we didn't have a fielding error became "miracles". We routinely would strand a dozen or so runners on the basepaths. We'd run ourselves out of innings. Just because you smell like the inside of a horse doesn't mean you have guts.Another quote from the article:
Fans appeared to notice that the club went 49-61 after May 31. They watched an offense that finished 13th of 16 in runs scored and home runs.
Gee. Thanks for giving us credit for paying attention. Maybe it's time for the Padres to realize that there are fans who attend and watch multiple games in a season. All those season ticket packages didn't actually go to just ticket brokers and company gift accounts. Some of them went to fans. Give the fans a winning team. I don't mean a team that wins by default. Don't mistake the cause with the effect. By winning a lot, the fans become happy and we get to the postseason. Don't assume that getting to the postseason means that the fans are happy and that our winning was sufficient. It doesn't work that way.