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Upton brothers on the same team again not necessarily a good thing

By jbox

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Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports

After Padres GM A.J. Preller completed the trade that brought Craig Kimbrel and Melvin Upton to San Diego I saw some tweets theorizing that maybe taking on Melvin's notoriously bad contract was an attempt to lure Justin into a contract extension so he could continue to play with his brother for years to come.

I had quite the opposite feeling after reading this USA Today article earlier in the Spring.  I immediately thought of it when I heard the news.  It took me a while to figure out where I'd read it, but in it Justin describes the burden it became.

Castoffs Justin Upton, Matt Kemp, Wil Myers aim for redemption with Padres

But now that they're apart, Justin Upton recognizes it may have been a burden playing together. He was the younger brother, but he constantly worried about Melvin, whose struggles sometimes became his own.

There were days Justin was actually more worried about his brother than himself.

"I think it's good for both of us,'' Upton said of the trade. "I was having success, but B.J. had a rough couple of years. So we keep hearing from people, "Oh, he's struggling, and look at your bother playing well, or vice-versa.

"People started treating me like I was struggling in Atlanta.

"It was a fun two years, but I really think this will be good for both of us being on different teams.''

I can see how they'd consider it a burden.  The grind in baseball is hard enough without having to worry about someone else's struggles on top of your own.

Marty Caswell from the Mighty 1090 asked Justin about his thoughts about playing with his brother again.  It didn't go well.  Listen to the first 15 seconds:

I answered enough brother questions in Atlanta, so I'm not going to answer anymore. So if you got any questions about Opening Day I'll answer those.

Not the tell tale signs of excitement you might have expected.

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