Padres Press Clips Sunday, November 26, 2017
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Padres Press Clips Sunday, November 26, 2017 Article Source Author Page Will Padres be active pursuing former Braves prospects? SD Union Tribune Lin 2 Lucky Duck Foundation shifts focus to helping homeless SD Union Tribune Warth 4 Padres provide Thanksgiving meals to families MLB.com Cassavell 7 Winter Padres: Urías, Naylor Named to All-AFL Team Friar Wire Center 9 Padres On Deck: Bumber Crop of Starting Pitchers Friar Wire Center 11 Await Harvesting 1 SD Union Tribune Will Padres be active pursuing former Braves prospects? Dennis Lin The Padres, according to sources, have $300,000 left in their 2017-18 international bonus pool, an amount they figure to reserve for a leaguewide bidding process. The Major League Baseball Players Association this week agreed to a new posting system, clearing the way for Japanese superstar Shohei Ohtani to make his stateside debut in 2018. The Padres and 11 other teams that exceeded their bonus pools in previous signing periods will be limited to offering Ohtani a maximum of $300,000. That restriction is nothing compared to the punishment MLB dealt the Atlanta Braves on Tuesday. The penalties, levied after an investigation found circumvention of international signing rules from 2015 to 2017, include a lifetime ban for former general manager John Coppolella and the loss of 13 prospects who are now free to sign with other organizations. Despite the creation of a new market, the Padres are not expected to be especially active in pursuing those prospects, sources said Wednesday. The new free agents range from infielder Kevin Maitan, whom the Braves signed for $4.25 million in 2016, to a number of teenagers who received $300,000 from Atlanta. While the players will keep their original signing bonuses, the league has established a special set of rules that will govern their free agency. Under-penalty teams such as the Padres will remain limited to maximum offers of $300,000. Only the amount of a signing bonus beyond $200,000 will count against a club’s pool. For instance, if the Padres sign one of the players for $300,000, their pool would shrink by only $100,000. A team can choose to use funds from its 2018-19 bonus pool instead, and the Padres will start with $5.25 million at their disposal. But San Diego will be capped at $300,000 per player for one more signing period. 2 Aside from the financial restraints, sources say the Padres are not nearly as high on the ex- Braves prospects as Atlanta was. In multiple cases, the industry perception of those talents has deteriorated since they entered the Braves’ system. The Padres continue to be more enamored with the prospects they signed themselves during the 2016-17 period, which saw a franchise- record $78 million dropped on international players. (After the institution of a hard cap, San Diego has spent nearly all of its $5.75 million pool for 2017-18 on 34 players.) Were it not for their $300,000 limit, the Padres would be even more aggressive in pursuing Ohtani, who will be posted by the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters early next month. Ohtani will soon become Japan’s most coveted export, and the craze surrounding the 23-year-old contains plenty of mystery. By choosing to come to the U.S. now, Ohtani is forgoing a nine- figure contract he could land by waiting two more years for unrestricted free agency. For now, the most a major league franchise can offer is Texas’ $3.535 million. The Rangersand other large-market teams are currently viewed as frontrunners, but much remains unclear about Ohtani’s preferences except for the fact that money will not be the deciding factor. The Padres — rebuilding, operating in a smaller market and capped at $300,000 — are seen as long shots, but Ohtani looms as a tantalizing bargain; virtually every team is expected to make some kind of bid for his services. Padres sign Brewer The Padres made their first major league player acquisition of the offseason Wednesday, signing right-hander Colten Brewer to a one-year deal. Brewer, who had been a minor league free agent, will compete for a spot in San Diego’s bullpen. In a corresponding roster move, right-hander Kyle Lloyd was designated for assignment. Brewer, 25, has never pitched in the majors. A fourth-round draft pick by Pittsburgh in 2011, he posted a 2.82 ERA across three levels of the New York Yankees’ system in 2017. Brewer, who is capable of mid-90s velocity, relies on a cutter-curveball combination. Lloyd, a former 29th-round selection, made his major league debut in July, allowing four runs in a spot start at Petco Park. The 27-year-old had a combined 5.01 ERA with Double-A San Antonio and Triple-A El Paso. 3 Lucky Duck Foundation shifts focus to helping homeless Gary Warth After raising millions of dollars for various causes over more than a decade, the Lucky Duck Foundation has shifted its focus to concentrate solely on San Diego’s homeless population. “It’s just gotten so devastating in San Diego County,” said Stephanie Kilkenny, one of the foundation’s co-founders, acknowledging situations faced by thousands of unsheltered people living in the area. “It made sense for us to make the transition now so we could maybe save some lives this winter,” she said. The organization has raised more than $8.5 million since it was formed in 2005 as The AGI Foundation, named after the Arrowhead General Insurance company formerly owned by Kilkenny’s husband, Pat Kilkenny. Half of the money came from the couple’s matching donations. Their new effort will pay for essentials such as water, socks and other items to help people living on the street, and the foundation has funded two of the large tents under construction to house hundreds of homeless people. In recent years, much of the foundation’s work has benefited Father Joe’s Villages, the Challenged Athletes Foundation and the Helen Woodward Animal Center. The Del Mar couple announced the change in focus to donors at the foundation’s annual Swing and Soiree fundraiser in October and at a Nov. 13 news conference at the University of San Diego. While the foundation’s focus on homelessness is new, the couple has been passionate about the cause for years, and both were active in Father Joe’s Villages even before Lucky Duck was founded. 4 Stephanie Kilkenny said she remembers being affected by seeing homeless people on the street as a child in New York, and her husband said in a 2016 interview with The San Diego Union-Tribune that he saw homeless people in Portland on trips away from his family’s farm in Heppner, Ore. “I was a grade-schooler at the time, but it always stuck with me because we never struggled like that,” he said. “It was embedded in my mind and heart for many years. So when I was able to give back, homeless missions became my cause.” Patrick Kilkenny, 65, attended the University of Oregon and in 1984 bought Arrowhead General Insurance, where he created the AGI Foundation to encourage charitable giving from employees. After he sold the company, the foundation was expanded and rebranded in 2009 with a name that reflected his Irish heritage and his university’s mascot, the Ducks. The foundation’s new focus coincides with new countywide efforts to help the homeless and a sense of urgency to get people off the street. A record 117 homeless people have died in the county this year, with another 14 among the 20 who died in a hepatitis A outbreak that largely targeted the homeless population. An annual count of the homeless throughout the county taken last January found about 9,100 homeless people, including 5,600 who were unsheltered, an increase of about 4 percent. Of the unsheltered,1,300 were in downtown alone, a 27 percent increase from 2016. Earlier this year, the Kilkennys worked with restaurant owner Dan Shea and San Diego Padres general partner Peter Seidler on one of the most ambitious attempts to get homeless people off the street temporarily. The two business leaders’ effort paid off, and three structures are under construction and expected to open within weeks to shelter about 700 people. Each tent costs about $800,000 to purchase and construct, and Seidler donated $1.5 million to the foundation for two tents, with the city funding the third. He donated another $1 million to the foundation to match future donations from others. 5 The foundation is collecting money to pay for socks, toiletries and Med-Naps cleansing antiseptic towelettes to help prevent the spread of hepatitis A. It also has a goal to distribute 30,000 bottles of water and 15,000 Med-Naps a month over the next 12 months. The foundation also has launched One Act of Kindness San Diego, or 1 A-OK SD, to encourage donations of any size. 6 MLB.com Padres provide Thanksgiving meals to families By AJ Cassavell SAN DIEGO -- More than 600 families arrived at Petco Park earlier this week, and more than 600 families returned home with a full Thanksgiving meal ready to be enjoyed. The Padres' second annual Thanksgiving Turkey Distribution was a success once again. And the event appears to be growing into a staple of the San Diego community going forward. The Padres have partnered with the San Diego Food Bank to host the event each of the last two years. This month, the Food Bank identified 620 local families in need who turned up at Petco Park on Monday morning to receive a full Thanksgiving meal, including turkeys and traditional Thanksgiving sides.