December 07, 2005
Busy Day for the Padres
The San Diego Padres retain one player but said good bye to others as Kevin Towers was busy remaking the club. Trevor Hoffman decided to stay in southern California instead of moving to Cleveland, agreeing to a two year contract with incentives.
"I'm just really happy that I'm not having to traipse my family across the country, although it was a tremendous opportunity with the Cleveland Indians," Hoffman said. "In particular, the class that they showed throughout the process and the respect that they showed went above and beyond and I truly appreciate it. But it came down to me making a decision for my family and not disrupting what we have going on."
Location matters. It's likely now that Hoffman will finish his career with the Padres, having only played briefly for one other club, the Marlins.
Meanwhile, Mark Lorreta is heading north and east, joining the Boston Red Sox as catcher Doug Mirabelli heads west. The Red Sox get a middle infielder with a good on-base average, and the Padres gets some insurance against losing Ramon Hernandez. Still, it looks to me that Boston got the better of the deal. Tim Wakefield can't be too happy, however.
Finally, a trade of disappointments as Sean Burroughs goes from first to worst as he moves to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays for Dewon Brazelton.
As much as I dont like Dewon Brazelton, I hope he has better luck out west than he did in Tampa. This trade though was not one I liked at all. The Devil Rays have enough infielders to go around (Jorge Cantu, Nick Green, Julio Lugu, BJ Upton, etc.) that I really dont see the addition of another infielder helping at all, especially with the weak pitching performance of D-Ray starters last year with the exception of Scott Kazmir.
Mark Loretta was the cost of making Hoffman comfortable. Last summer he said he thought he should be the highest paid reliever, based on his past regular season saves stat. So, he gets closer to his wish, while the team loses a good position player in order to give him what he felt was his reward. Most of his many press agents won't mention this.
I heard on XM that Loretta was expendable to the Padres because they have a good rookie coming up. Still, they should have been able to get more for him.
It would be completely out of character for Hoffman, who understands and has always taken the San Diego discount to say that he should be the highest paid reliever. It also contradicts his counter-offer to the Padres of $25-27M for 3 years. That wouldn't make him the highest paid reliever and that's not even what the Padres gave to him, which they offered before they traded Loretta.
With Giles, Hoffman, and Ramon Hernandez all free agents, the Padres knew they had to make some moves to free up some money. They did a decent job re-signing two of their three key players, while trading away a few expendable guys. Loretta was no longer key with Barfield playing as well as he did at triple-A last season. To say he was traded just to make Hoffman comfortable is ridiculous.
Hoffman may not have said he wanted to be the highest paid reliever, but that did seem to be his agent's goal. It's also pretty clear that trading Loretta for Mirabelli was primarily (if not purely) a money-driven move. On talent, an aging backup catcher just isn't good value for an All-Star second baseman. Given the timing of this deal and the signing of Hoffman, it's hard to imagine the two weren't at least somewhat related.
The Padres are making a lot of moves this off-season but aside from the signing of Giles, and possibly the acquisition of Cameron, I'm not sure how much they're really improving themselves. Regardless, they are definitely keeping things interesting.
padres cleaning house of all the sucky players, good get rid of klesko and i will think of getting season tickets again.
get marcus giles from atl and trade for david wells. and trade adam eaton and some minor leaguers for hank blaylock (only kidding).