Mailbag, Pre-Offseason Edition
As the Rays and Dodgers get set for Game 3 of the World Series, we tackle some Padres (and football) questions.
Even outside of normal player movement—free agents in, free agents out—there should be plenty of changes on the 40-man. Whether they’ll qualify as major or not is subjective, but the Padres will continue to shuffle the roster to make room for new players and to protect prospects from the Rule 5 draft. Here’s a rough list of players with something of a tenuous grasp on their 40-man status:
Pitchers
David Bednar, RHP
Javy Guerra, RHP
Joey Lucchesi, LHP
Luis Perdomo, RHP
Taylor Williams, RHP
Trey Wingenter, RHP
Position players
Francisco Mejía, C
Greg Garcia, INF
Jorge Mateo, INF
Greg Allen, OF
There are different tiers, of course. The Padres aren’t just going to non-tender Francisco Mejía, for instance, but it’s possible they look to trade him (more on that later). Some of the other players will be easier to part with, however, like recent Tommy John casualty Luis Perdomo. There’s even some speculation, via Kevin Acee, that the Padres could non-tender Tommy Pham, but I’m not sold. Either way, as I mentioned the other day on the East Village Times podcast, the 40-man crunch is often something of a mirage. Even the Padres haven’t run out of roster spots yet.
As far as Rule 5 eligible players, the most obvious keeper is Tucupita Marcano. He slashed just .270/.323/.337 at Single-A Fort Wayne in 2019, but he was 19 and making his debut at a full-season level. In his pro career, he’s accumulated 99 walks to 76 strikeouts in 950 plate appearances, showing good plate discipline and better contact skills. The profile might not be anything more than light-hitting utility infielder, but the Padres could use Marcano in that role someday (or hold onto him to trade down the road). His advanced contact skills make him someone a team could gamble on in the Rule 5. On the other hand, someone like Tirso Ornelas—a recent swing overhaul guy who OPS’d .581 in 2019—is less likely to be taken, so the Padres might opt to leave him exposed and use that roster spot on someone else.
In recent years, we’ve seen stars like Manny Machaco and Bryce Harper get paid while middle-tier players have been squeezed. It’s anybody’s guess as to how the free agent market develops this winter, but it wouldn’t be surprising to see that trend continue. Worse for Jurickson Profar’s potential earning power is the second base (slash left field) market, which has similar (maybe cheaper) players available, like Kolten Wong, Jonathan Schoop, and César Hernandez. Those factors might combine to make Profar’s market smaller than you’d think, even though he closed out 2020 on fire and doesn’t turn 28 until February. Given the Padres familiarity with Profar, plus A.J. Preller’s longtime infatuation, a reunion with San Diego seems like one of his more likely landing spots.
I’m going to combine this question with the next one . . .
Starting with Luis Campusano’s recent legal troubles, I’m not really sure. There are two separate issues here: 1) the criminal case in Georgia, and 2) whether MLB punishes Campusano regardless of the results of said case. I’m leaning toward this not being a huge deal, but I could be wrong.
Either way, until the Padres get a clear answer, it temporarily changes the outlook at catcher. Going into the offseason, Campusano was in the driver’s seat to split time with Austin Nola next year, with Mejía falling behind on the team’s catcher depth chart. Now, if Campusano misses extended time, Mejía’s role could expand.
In the long run, Mejía might not have much of a future with the team. Assuming Campusano is available in 2021, the Padres could opt to shift Mejía back to the outfield (and/or DH), but the problem there is that he just hasn’t hit. More concerning than the small sample results is Mejía’s approach, which has been to swing at roughly everything that moves. Over the last two seasons, only 15 players have swung more frequently than Mejía, and he doesn’t have the contact rate or quality of contact to make up for his hacktastic ways. With little current trade value, the best course for the Padres might be to hold onto Mejía and attempt to rehabilitate his bat at Triple-A, pending Campusano’s availability.
Out of self preservation, I’m going to avoid ranking all five. But if I had to take one guy, I’d probably lean toward MacKenzie Gore. He’s got the best draft and prospect pedigree of the bunch, and while it was concerning that we didn’t see him in 2020, part of a prospect’s allure is the mystery element. While Luis Patiño leapfrogged Gore to debut first, when the curtain was lifted we saw a 20-year-old who needs to refine his command, not 2002 Francisco Rodriguez. And with Chris Paddack, we’ve now watched both the highs and lows of his profile. There’s still a lot to like with this group, but I’ll roll with Gore until we get some more information on everyone.
I’m a believer in Jake Cronenworth because of the quality of his at-bats. He was playing over his head early in the season, but it wouldn’t be surprising if he repeated his .285/.354/.477 slash line a few times over his career. He’s good at both not chasing pitches out of the zone (22.4 percent O-Swing rate) and making contact (85.3 percent contact rate), which allows him to go deep into counts without worrying about striking out. He’s also shown enough power (.192 ISO, 42.7 percent hard hit rate) to keep pitchers honest. Altogether, he’s got the foundation of a good offensive player, even if it doesn’t amount to a .900-plus OPS with any regularity.
As for upgrading second base, I’m not sure. Cronenworth’s only been an infielder so far, and the Padres have Manny Machado, Fernando Tatis Jr., and Eric Hosmer entrenched around the infield. With some question about whether the DH will stick around (I think it will, but we’ll see), there aren’t a bunch of opportunities for Croenworth if you take away second base. In that sense, the only upgrade that’d make sense would be a big one, like trading for Francisco Lindor. And it doesn’t sound like the Padres are going to be interested in paying what Lindor will make in his final arbitration year, not to mention the haul they’d have to give up to acquire him.
Roy Halladay is the best example I can come up with. If you count his cup of coffee in 1998, he had a 130 ERA+ over his first full season and change, although his peripherals weren’t inspiring. In his second full season, his BABiP shot up to .377, his peripherals stayed bad, and he posted a 10.64 ERA in 67 2/3 innings with Toronto. After that, Halladay won two Cy Young awards and placed second two other times en route to a Hall of Fame career.
There are plenty of pitchers who started bad and got good—Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux, Johan Santana, Corey Kluber, etc.—but it’s harder to find the good-bad-good archetype, maybe just because it’s more specific. Paddack’s a good bet to rebound, but getting that fastball back will be more important than tinkering with his repertoire.
My hunch is that they’d rather keep Adrián Morejón away from a regular starter’s role. The last time he threw more than 50 pitches in an outing was back at Double-A Amarillo on April 16, 2019. He pitched well that game, going 5 2/3 innings on 83 pitches, with seven strikeouts, three walks, and no runs allowed. But he got injured in his next start, missed a month with back/shoulder soreness, and came back in the 30-40 pitch role we’ve seen him occupy in the majors. In 2018, Morejón’s season was also interrupted by injury, that time with a triceps issue. If the Padres have enough starters, they might just prefer keeping Morejón in a multi-inning relief role rather than trying to stretch him to throw 90 pitches a game.
It’s the offseason—for the Padres, anyway—so sometimes I might ramble on about something non-Padres/baseball. If you don’t like it, feel free to holler at me.
This is one of those topics where I just keep digging and digging and digging, and when I’m done, I either hit gold or oil or water or something good, or I’m stuck in a 20-foot hole with no energy to climb out. But I’m convinced that this decision—the Dolphins benching quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick for rookie Tua Tagovailoa—is a dumb one.
On the surface, sure, it makes sense. Tagovailoa, the former Alabama QB taken fifth overall in this year’s draft, is the future of the Dolphins franchise, and Fitzpatrick, a 37-year-old journeyman, is just a placeholder. The Dolphins got six solid games out of Fitzpatrick and now want to change things up going into a bye week, buying their rookie extra time to learn the offense and heal from a hip injury that ended his final year in college.
Alright, yeah, whatever. Here’s my side of the argument: The Dolphins have played six games, and they’re actually pretty good. They’ve already played four good teams—the Patriots, Bills, Seahawks, and 49ers—and they lost by a total of 11 points to Buffalo and Seattle and throttled San Francisco by 26. And Fitzpatrick’s playing great! While his 10 touchdowns and seven interceptions aren’t going to turn many heads, two of his picks came in garbage time in a blowout win against the Jets. More than that, he’s averaging an above-average 7.8 yards per pass on a 70.1 percent completion percentage, good for a 95.0 passer rating and an even better 82.5 QBR. That latter number ranks sixth in the NFL, one spot behind MVP frontrunner Russell Wilson.
Fitzpatrick isn’t just a one-year wonder, either. Back in 2015, he went 10-6 with the Jets. Think about that: he went 10-6 with the New York Jets. Statues have been erected for lesser feats. In 2018, Fitzpatrick started the season with three straight 400 yard passing games for the Bucs before getting benched for Jameis Winston. He started only seven games that year but finished with a league-leading 9.6 yards per pass, nearly a yard higher than second-place Patrick Mahomes. He’s been something of a league-average quarterback for much of his career, but his performance has skewed better in his later years.
More impressively, Fitzpatrick’s doing it with something of a no-name cast around him. Fitzpatrick’s no. 1 wide receiver, DaVante Parker, had his first 1,000 yard season in 2019, but tight end Mike Gesicki and running back Miles Gaskin are second and third on the team in targets. Gesicki’s a third year player with just over 1,000 career yards to his name, and Gaskin’s a sophomore back with little experience.
Here’s what Pro Football Focus said about Miami’s offensive line after week 3, ranking the unit 32nd in the league:
The Miami Dolphins have had the worst offensive line in the league for some time now, and though they have thrown some resources at it, they have yet to dramatically alter the final product. That goes some way toward explaining why we have yet to see Tua Tagovailoa at quarterback — and why we may not for some time.
First-round rookie tackle Austin Jackson’s numbers look OK — he has allowed just six total pressures in three games — but Ryan Fitzpatrick has been excellent at getting rid of the ball before pass protection losses become pressures, and Jackson’s 52.7 pass-blocking grade better reflects those losses.
The rookie first rounder Austin Jackson was placed on the IL earlier this month with a foot injury and could miss significant time, further weakening Miami’s line. According to PFF, among the five current Dolphins starting linemen, only guard Ereck Flowers rates better than average in pass blocking. It’s a credit to Fitzpatrick’s ability to process and read defenses, quickly getting rid of the ball, that he’s made the offense go without sufficient protection.
Fitzpatrick has performed well without a stable of highly regarded skill players or a stout offensive line, further legitimizing his performance. Now, Miami’s asking a rookie QB to step in and replicate Fitzpatrick’s production without any pro experience, and without the same sort of safeguards that helped buoy the success of past true rookies, like Russell Wilson (a great defense), Dak Prescott (a great O-line), or Ben Roethlisberger (a great defense). Sure, Tagovailoa has more upside than Fitzpatrick, and maybe he’s better right away. But it’s probably more likely that he experiences growing pains, a la Baker Mayfield, than immediately outplaying his new backup.
While Tagovailoa will get a bye week to get better acclimated with his team’s offense, he’ll also face the Rams and the league’s sack leader in Aaron Donald. Overall, the Rams are fifth in the NFL with 20 sacks, although they only blitz a quarter of the time, 21st in the league. The combination of the Rams ability to get sacks from their front four—leaving more players back in coverage—and the Dolphins porous offensive line seems like a dangerous mix for Tagovailoa’s first start.
What’s most confusing about the move is that it just didn’t have to happen now. Miami could have simply waited, seeing if Fitzpatrick and the team could keep up the hot pace. If things backpedaled at any point, there would still be plenty of time to go with Tagovailoa. And if Fitzpatrick continued to produce, the Dolphins could have just waited until next year to unveil their prized rookie, giving them more time to upgrade their O-line and skill position talent.
It’s not like first round QBs must play in their first season. Mahomes sat behind Alex Smith for one year in Kansas City, but he threw for four of an eventual 50 touchdowns in the first game of 2018, eventually running away with the league’s MVP. He didn’t seem to miss much by watching Smith for a year. There’s certainly an argument that game experience alone is not necessarily vital for the development of a young quarterback.
In the end, the Dolphins made up their mind too soon. In turn, they caught Fitzpatrick off guard, perhaps sabotaging the relationship between team and player (or QB and QB). They’ve also put Tagovailoa into a tough situation, where he must fill Fitzpatrick’s shoes on a team that’s not built to carry an inexperienced rookie. Tagovailoa’s talent might transcend those potential roadblocks, rendering them speed bumps. But that’s not clear yet. On the other hand, Tagovailoa’s development could stall, leaving the Dolphins to wonder how much fun—and winning—they missed out on if they’d just let Fitzpatrick keep the job. After all, Tagovailoa’s got an entire career in front of him, whether it starts in a couple weeks or next year. Fitzmagic’s time is running out.