Should someone from the Padres be fired?

Let me catch up real quick if you are out of the loop. The Padres were accused by as many as 4 teams of concealing player medical information in a proprietary database to gain an edge during trades. As a result the MLB suspended GM A.J. Preller for 30 days and fined the Padres an undisclosed amount of money.

Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal tweeted that there would be no further punishment from the MLB.

And according to Bob NIghtengale’s sources the Padres have no plans to fire Preller.

Yet, despite the severity of the penalty, Preller will not be fired or receive further discipline from the Padres, a high-ranking club official told USA TODAY Sports.

In a statement from owners Ron Fowler, Peter Seilder and President Mike Dee the Padres backed Preller and denied any intentional attempt to mislead their competitors. No one seems to be buying it. This defense just doesn’t make any sense and you’ve got to think someone in Baseball Operations intentionally planned this to game the system.

FanGraphs.com

The idea that this was an accident, and that no one in the organization realized what the team was doing, is laughably unbelievable absent a compelling explanation, which the Padres did not provide.

And even if the MLB does nothing more, shouldn’t the Padres? One would think that someone would be fired for such an egregious offense. People in the Padres organization have been fired for much less. If it’s not going to be Preller then will President Mike Dee be held responsible? After all he oversees baseball operations and hired Preller, knowing his previous infractions.

Yesterday before the MLB’s ruling Baseball America’s Kyle Glaser tweeted the possibility that both Dee and Preller could be forced out by the MLB offices. He covered the Padres for the past two years and is familiar with the organization.

Glaser talked to the Mighty 1090’s Scott and BR yesterday evening about Mike Dee’s suspected role in the events:

I think we’re going to see something on Mike Dee here. Whether MLB is public about it and how they go about it is one thing but he is a guy who’s name has not been put into this yet, but took an active role in a lot of this based on a lot of people I’m talking to, including being in on the conference call when they were dealing with the Rea/Castillo situation.

More on Dee's involvement:

What I've heard that at very least was that he was knowledgeable about the situation and what was going on with the medical records to the point of being involved with Major League Baseball and having discussions with them and letting them know.  This was not something he was ignorant about.  That's the general baseline now.  Regarding whether he orchestrated it, none of that is clear or come out yet but at very least there was knowledge.

When asked if according to his sources if Dee knew what Preller was doing, Glaser answered "Yes."

While the Padres have already cleaned house on the field, with a long rebuild ahead of them, maybe it’s time to clean house in the front office too. If changes were to be made, this would be the time to do it, so as not to set the organization back even further.