Padres Press Clips Monday, December 21, 2015
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Padres Press Clips Monday, December 21, 2015 Article Source Author Page Padres betting on Blash’s power potential UT San Diego Lin 2 Padres take advantage of goodwill trip to Japan MLB.com Brock 6 JAWS and the 2016 Hall of Fame ballot: Trevor Hoffman SI.com Jaffe 8 Friar talk: ‘Pen has more questions than answers UT San Diego Sanders 16 1 Padres betting on Blash’s power potential Rule 5 selection has been one of the minors’ most accomplished sluggers By Dennis Lin | 3:56 p.m. Dec. 18, 2015 So far this offseason, the Padres have moved on from two notable sources of right- handed power. Left fielder Justin Upton, who hit a team-leading 26 home runs, is a free agent. Second baseman Jedd Gyorko, who went deep 13 times after the All-Star break, is a St. Louis Cardinal. Jabari Blash may be an unlikely candidate to replace much of that production, but his new club certainly plans on giving the 6-foot-5 slugger a shot. A corner outfielder from the Virgin Islands, Blash twice switched organizations on Dec. 10. He woke as a longtime member of the Seattle Mariners organization, which in 2010 used an eighth-round draft pick on a raw power hitter out of Miami Dade College. By mid-morning, Blash had been selected sixth overall in the Rule 5 draft by Oakland. Before lunchtime, he had been officially dealt to San Diego, revealed as the player to be named in the Padres’ Dec. 2 trade with the Athletics. Blash absorbed the news from the Peoria Sports Complex in Arizona, where he was rehabbing a bruised knee. Then he gathered his belongings and walked across the complex; the Mariners and the Padres share the spring-training facility. The jump to the majors will be considerably wider. As a Rule 5 selection, Blash must spend all of next season on the Padres’ 25-man roster or else be offered back to the Mariners. “It was a very exciting day,” Blash said by phone from the Virgin Islands. “I’ve been waiting a very long time for this opportunity.” Jabari Blash Positions: RF/LF Bats/throws: R/R Height: 6'5" 2 Weight: 225 lb. Born: July 4, 1989 in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands 2015 stats (AA-AAA):.271/.370/.576, 32 HR, 81 RBI Blash, who will turn 27 in July, may seem a bit old for prospect status, but the Padres were more focused on his upside. General Manager A.J. Preller identified Brian McBurney and Wells Oliver, who help run the club’s proprietary information systems, as key in the decision to acquire Blash. Publicly, it’s not hard to see why someone would gamble — the claiming fee for a Rule 5 pick is a mere $50,000 — on Blash’s power potential. Between stints with the Mariners’ Double-A and Triple-A affiliates last season, Blash hit .271/.370/.576 with 32 home runs. He grew stronger as the year progressed, culminating in a 14-homer August, during which he batted .290/.381/.750. Among all players with at least 200 plate appearances in Triple-A, Blash ranked first with a .640 slugging percentage. He played half his games in Tacoma’s Cheney Stadium, one of the few pitcher-friendly ballparks in the Pacific Coast League. “Jabari is a guy who was regarded as one of the big power threats in the draft five years ago,” Preller said. “I think that power is playing out in games. ... We were looking to replace a little right-handed power. Hopefully, he can provide that for us.” The primary obstacle to Blash’s advancement has been a similarly eye-catching propensity for swinging and missing. Last season, Blash had a 27.6 percent strikeout rate, in line with his career rate of 29.2 percent. Two scouts who have seen Blash play each described him as a “specimen” with big pull power and a plus arm, but both expressed concerns about Blash’s ability to make enough contact, especially against major league pitching. The raw ability, however, is hard to ignore. Last season with Tacoma, Blash’s Isolated Power (a measure of how often a player hits for extra bases) was .376, a career-best as well as the highest of any Triple-A player. 3 “It was just letting the power play out, not trying to do too much,” Blash said. “When I get into slumps, when the strikeouts bunch up, it’s from trying to do too much. Last year was key, figuring out how to focus on putting the ball in play, putting together good at-bats.” Growing up on the island of St. Thomas, Blash participated in Little League but mostly stopped playing baseball by the age of 14, choosing basketball instead. His senior year in high school, he was brought back to baseball by Darren Canton, who founded a program to teach the sport to youngsters on the island and in some cases pursue college and professional careers. Largely owing to his physical tools, Blash was twice drafted (in the 29th round in 2007 by the Chicago White Sox, then in the ninth round in 2009 by Texas) before he went pro with Seattle. More than five years later, he is on the cusp of his first big- league shot. “It’s great for me to have the opportunity,” said Blash, who received one of his first congratulatory phone calls from fellow Virgin Islander and former Padres infielder Callix Crabbe (San Diego selected Crabbe in the 2007 Rule 5 draft, later returning him to Milwaukee the following May). “There’s not much for kids in the Virgin Islands to look up to. ... Just the fact that anything’s possible, no matter where you’re from or who you are.” Padres manager Andy Green, who met with Blash at Petco Park on Monday, compared Blash’s potential career trajectory to that of a former minor league teammate, Dan Uggla. In 2005, Arizona left Uggla exposed to the Rule 5 draft. The next season, the then-26-year-old second baseman debuted with 27 home runs for the Miami Marlins and made the National League All-Star team. In 2013, Green was managing the Diamondbacks’ Double-A team in Mobile when an imposing figure from the Mariners’ affiliate stepped to the plate. “He took an Andrew Chafin fastball and hit it up on the berm. Annihilated it,” Green recalled. “He made a big impression on me.” 4 Blash primarily has played right field throughout his career, but with that spot occupied by Matt Kemp, the rookie figures to see most of his time next spring in left field, where he also has experience. He said he is looking forward to working with new Padres bench coach Mark McGwire, he of the 583 career home runs. “That’s one of the guys I really can’t wait to meet,” Blash said. “With all he’s accomplished, what he went through, it kind of correlates to my career.” The Padres acquired three other Rule 5 selections Dec. 10: pitchers Luis Perdomo, Josh Martin and Blake Smith. It would be a surprise if more than two of the recent additions stick on the major league roster all season. First, of course, they have to make the team out of spring training. “From a starting position, he probably comes in behind the veterans we have in the outfield,” Green said of Blash, “but if he shows the bat we think he has, anything is possible.” 5 Padres take advantage of goodwill trip to Japan Delegation of front-office members, players made trek to baseball-rich nation in November By Corey Brock / MLB.com | @FollowThePadres | 11:26 AM ET SAN DIEGO -- It makes perfect sense, given Padres general manager A.J. Preller's background, that he wants the organization to be more active in the Pacific Rim. "It's an area our eyes are always on from a scouting standpoint," Preller said. "What we've tried to do is build a staff little by little and start to get some presence over there. I think we've been able to do that, little by little." It started last year when Preller hired Acey Kohrogi as an advisor to the Padres' Pacific Rim operations. Kohrogi came to the team with a vast background in the region, having spent 20 years with the Dodgers, many of which came as the team's executive director of Asian operations. Kohrogi is responsible for establishing and maintaining relationships with the Asian Baseball Leagues, including the Japanese Professional Baseball League (Nippon Professional Baseball) and the Japanese Amateur and Industrial Leagues. Kohrogi's duties also include aiding with scouting and recruiting in the Pacific Rim, as well as facilitating player and roster transactions between the Padres and Asian Professional Baseball teams. Last month, Kohrogi even got to play tour guide, as he helped organize a recent Padres trip to Japan. A San Diego delegation that included Preller, Kohrogi and other front-office staffers and pitchers Brandon Maurer and Colin Rea, spent time in Japan. "It was awesome. The thing that stood out to me was how smart these kids were as far as the questions they asked," Rea said. "They were 9, 10, 11 years old and they were asking questions I never would have thought at that age." MLB Japan put on two youth clinics that the Padres participated in -- one in Tokyo and one in Kochi -- with Rea and Maurer handing out pitching tips. "It was a goodwill trip and a scouting trip," Kohrogi said.