Padres Press Clips Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Article Source Author Page

Gold Glove: Marte, not Upton, the winner UT San Diego Sanders 2

Minor moves: Decker, Tate now free agents UT San Diego Sanders 4

J. Upton falls short in Gold Glove voting MLB.com Brock 6

Why the best relievers, DHs should have a real shot at making the Hall ESPN.com Stark 8

Padres acquire Yankees infielder Pirela UT San Diego Lin 10

Yanks send Pierla to Padres for right Herrera MLB.com Nowak 11

1

Gold Glove: Marte, not Upton, the winner Metrics favored Pirates' left fielder over Padres' By Jeff Sanders | 5 a.m. Nov. 10, 2015 | Updated, 6:09 p.m. UPDATE

No real surprise here: Starling Marte has beat out the Padres' Justin Upton and the Marlins' Starling Marte for the National League's for left field. The results were officially announced Tuesday evening, though it was difficult to see Upton coming away with the award no matter how many highlight reel catches he managed this season. The metrics alone heavily favored Marte, who made fewer errors, recorded more assists and a better fielding percentage and rated better in six of the seven highlighted metrics below.

Most telling was Marte's 24 defensive runs saves (three times Upton's total) and a 12.1 Ultimate Zone Rating/150 that dwarfed both Upton (2.8) and Yelich (0.9).

Scroll down for the entire breakdown, as well as a glossary (don't worry; we needed it, too).

EARLY VERSION

Once upon a time, your bat and reputation had as much to do with winning a Gold Glove as your defensive prowess. Case in point: Rafael Palmeiro won one in 1999 with 28 games at first base and 128 as a designated hitter.

Over the last decade, however, the ever-growing power of analytics has unlocked a wealth of defensive information, all of it adding to the credibility of the Rawlings Gold Glove Awards that will be unveiled tonight at 4 p.m. on ESPN.

Eye tests aside, here’s a look at the categories that may have assisted voters – managers/coaches (75 percent) and the sabermetrics community (25 percent) – deciding between finalists Justin Upton (Padres), Starling Marte (Pirates) and (Marlins) as the National League’s best left fielder. For the record,

2 two of three all-inclusive metrics – DRS, UZR/150, Def – prefer the Cubs’ Chris Coghlan (0 DRS, 18.9 UZR/150, 5.3 Def) to the finalists above.

And yes, a glossary (thanks, fangraphs.com) follows the alphabet soup below.

Gold Glove Finalists | Left Field Marte Yelich Upton Inn 1186.1 786.2 1260.1

E 1 2 3

A 15 5 9

FP .995 .989 .988

rARM 8 2 -4

rGFP 5 2 2

DRS 24 13 8

RngR 3.1 0.2 4.4

ErrR 0.5 0.5 0.4

UZR/150 12.1 0.9 2.8

Def 1.8 -3.4 -4.5

 Inn – Innings  E – Errors  A – Assists  FP – Fielding percentage  rARM – Outfield Arms Runs Saved above average  rRGP – Good Fielding Plays Runs Saved above average  DRS – above average  RngR – Range runs above average  ErrR – Error runs above average  UZR/150 – Ultimate Zone Rating (factors in outfield arm, range and errors in a metric scaled to a 150-game rate)  Def – Defensive Runs above average (Measures a player’s defensive value relative for league average, complete with positional adjustments that allow for comparisons across different positions) 3

Minor moves: Decker, Tate now free agents Tracking the Padres' minor league transactions By Jeff Sanders | 10 a.m. Nov. 11, 2015 With the third overall pick in the 2009 draft, the Padres gambled on a two-sport high school athlete they hoped would one day roam center field and hit in the middle of their order and signed him to a club-record $6.25 million signing bonus. Then, 651 picks later, they gave a power-hitting college senior with a few thousand bucks and, essentially, wished him luck in his climb up the system.

One exceeded expectations. One … well … did not.

Today, both Donavan Tate and Cody Decker are minor league free agents. Their paths to this point in their careers, of course, have varied greatly.

Decker is free to seek a new employer after amassing 154 homers across seven seasons, a record for a Padres minor leaguer. He hit a many as 29 in 2012, slugged .524 across nearly 3,000 plate appearances and didn’t get an opportunity in the majors until the final weeks of the 2015 season. The 28-year-old infielder/designated hitter/sometimes-/rarely-a-catcher went 0-for-11 with five and a sacrifice fly while appearing in eight games.

The 25-year-old Tate, meanwhile, never advanced higher than high Single-A Lake Elsinore in his six years of Padres control. In fact, he returned to the Cal League this year for a third time in an attempt to resurrect a career derailed by injuries and addiction. In 95 games, Tate hit .211/.290/.334 with six homers, 34 RBIs and 112 strikeouts in 376 plate appearances. http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2015/jul/23/padres-donavan-tate- sober-lake-elsinore-addicition/

A full accounting of the 589 minor league free agents can be at BaseballAmerica.com.

4

Padres signed to minor league contracts for 2016

 C: Jason Hagerty (AAA)  SS: Diego Goris (AAA)  RHP: LHP Jeff Ibarra (AA)

Padres’ pending minor free agents

 C: Miguel Del Castillo (Hi A), Griff Erickson (AA), Tim Federowicz (AAA), Adolfo Reina (AA)  1B: Cody Decker (AAA)  2B: Benji Gonzalez (AAA)  SS: Hector Gomez (AAA), Mike McCoy (AAA), Ramiro Pena (AAA)  OF: Luis Domoromo (AA), Tyson Gillies (AA), (AAA), Donavan Tate (Hi A)  RHP: Juan Arias (DSL), Jordan Hershiser (Hi A), Daniel McCutchen (AAA), James Needy (AA), Aaron Northcraft (AAA), Adys Portillo (Hi A), Chris Smith (AAA), Jerry Sullivan (AAA), Cecil Tanner (R)  LHP: Eury de la Rosa (AA), Jason Lane (AAA), Caleb Thielbar (AAA) [email protected]; on Twitter: @JeffSanders_UT

5

J. Upton falls short in Gold Glove voting By Corey Brock / MLB.com | @FollowThePadres | November 10th, 2015

SAN DIEGO -- Justin Upton accomplished some very big things in his first, and likely only, season with the Padres. Upton led the team with 26 home runs, he knocked in 81 runs and even stole 19 bases, all while playing above-average defense in left field. But Upton missed out on what would have been his first Rawlings Gold Glove Award on Tuesday, as Starling Marte of the Pirates won the honors.

Marte finished third in the National League in DRS (defensive runs saved) with 24 and led all NL with 16 assists.

Upton had eight defensive runs saved and had a career-high nine outfield assists in 146 games. The eight DRS were the most for Upton since he also had eight in 2011 with the D-backs. Christian Yelich of the Marlins was also a finalist for the Gold Glove in left field. Yelich won the award a year ago. A week ago, the Padres opted to extend Upton a qualifying offer, which means he can accept a one-year contract for $15.8 million in 2016 or, the likely scenario, turn it down for what figures to be a lucrative, multiyear contract.

Players like Upton who were extended qualifying offers have until 2 p.m. PT on Friday to accept or decline the offer. The Padres are also awaiting the same decision from right-handed Ian Kennedy.

6

Why the best relievers, DHs should have a real shot at making the Hall

Jayson Stark, Senior Writer, ESPN.com

The 2016 Hall of Fame ballot went out this week. And I know a lot of you think that filling it out ought to be as easy as making out a grocery list.

Oh, really? Well, here's the part that's easy:

Ken Griffey Jr.: Hall of Famer. Randy Winn: Not a Hall of Famer. But now it's time for a 21st-century reflection on what's not so easy. What does a Hall of Fame relief pitcher look like? What does a Hall of Fame designated hitter look like?

Does anybody know? Does anybody even think about trying to define these things? No? Well, we'd better start figuring it out.

We'd better start figuring it out because Trevor Hoffman and Billy Wagner are two of the most important first-year candidates on this ballot. We'd better start figuring it out because, otherwise, Edgar Martinez's eligibility is going to be up before our esteemed electorate notices he was one of the great hitters of his generation. And we'd better start figuring it out because the game keeps evolving. So we, as voters, need to evolve with it, or else the social media world will have every right to keep tweeting about what a bunch of mixed up Neanderthals we are. (And come to think of it, I'd almost take a tweet like that as a compliment these days.)

So here's a new way to look at this. Suppose there was a separate Hall of Fame for every position on the field. When election day rolled around for the Designated Hitter Hall of Fame, would you vote for Martinez? C'mon. Of course you would. If he isn't the greatest DH in history, he's at least on the Mount Rushmore.

And suppose there was also a Relief Pitcher Hall of Fame. When that ballot arrived, how many seconds would it take you to check Hoffman's name and Wagner's name? If the answer is a number greater than 30, you're clearly one of those people who believes there's nothing in the game more overrated than relief -- until the guys in your team's bullpen all stink.

OK, even if you don't agree with any of that, humor me. Here's where I'm going with this:

Best we can tell, relief pitchers are going to continue to be employed for at least the next several centuries. And apparently, DHs will continue to roam the earth for the rest of our lives, not to mention the rest ofDavid Ortiz's great-grandchildren's lives. And the men who do those jobs play real positions, appear in actual box scores, often have long careers. In other words … they exist! So why do so many Hall of Fame voters act as if they don't?

If they exist, and if they're going to persist in existence, here's the deal. Don't we need to start hanging their plaques in Cooperstown one of these decades?

7

The Hall of Fame is a place to honor the best of the best, not just the best of the positions we feel like recognizing. So that answer is yes. Maybe even hell, yes. And if we're going to start honoring these people, then let's go back to the questions we started this conversation with.

What does a Hall of Fame relief pitcher look like? What does a Hall of Fame DH look like? Here's what:

I made the mistake Monday of comparing, on Twitter, one entry on Wagner's stat sheet to Mariano Rivera's entry in the same category. Sorry! Didn't take long before several trillion tweeters had decided that was pure sacrilege. Little did they know, it made me think. Take a look at these numbers, gang. They're the numbers of three prominent members of the 400-save club. I've removed names and save totals. Do you know which is which?

WHIP SAVE PCT. K/9 OPP. AVG. OPP. OPS

Reliever A 1.06 88.8 9.4 .211 .609

Reliever B 1.00 89.0 8.2 .211 .558

Reliever C 1.00 85.9 11.9 .187 .555 Before I identify them, look at those stat lines again. Is it clear, from looking at them, which of those three relievers was the greatest of all time? It may be to those of you who play really close attention. But the point is, they're closer than you think.

So here goes: Reliever A is Hoffman. Reliever B is Rivera. Reliever C is Wagner. Now, it's true Wagner doesn't have nearly as many saves as the others, and it's obviously even more true that Mariano's postseason record separates him from the other two -- and from everyone else who has ever attempted to get a 27th out.

But we can argue about that part some other time. What we should really be judging, when we fill out our Hall of Fame ballots, is a player's total body of work. It's my job to make sure you recognize that all three of those guys were awesome and dominant at what they were asked to do, in real games, playing real positions. So feel free to refer back to this when their Hall of Fame voting experiences turn out to be dramatically different.

Meanwhile, there's Martinez, the man who makes us ask, What does a Hall of Fame DH look like?

We can't really use Paul Molitor or Frank Thomas as guideposts because they whiled away too much time wearing a glove. Molitor spent just 44 percent of his career at DH. Thomas spent 57 percent as a DH. But Martinez was close to 70 percent. So those sorts of disparities make it tough to use counting numbers, or even wins above replacement, to make this call. What we're stuck with, then, is just trying to measure total offensive impact. So here is a look at how three high-profile hitters fared during Martinez's heyday -- the 13 seasons from 1991 to 2003. One is a Hall of Famer. One is a likely Hall of Famer. The other? He has never gotten more than 36.5 percent of the vote. (Yep, that would be Edgar). So which is which?

8

AVG OBP SLG OPS OPS+

Player A .309 .428 .569 .996 162

Player B .318 .428 .539 .967 155

Player C .300 .411 .549 .959 153 Player A is Thomas. He's in. Player C is Jeff Bagwell. He's gotten at least 54 percent in four straight elections. And Player B? That's Martinez, as elite and productive a bat as there was in the whole sport over a long, long period of time. But voters continue to hold his lack of leatherworking (and trots) against him, even though his full complement of numbers makes it clear he was one of the five best hitters alive -- during a period of sheer offensive insanity, I might add. Is that fair? Ha. If DH is going to keep being an actual job, then no, it's not close to fair.

So this would be the voting philosophy I'd propose: If a guy was one of the best players in his sport at his position, in his era or any era, then he should meet our definition of "Hall of Famer." Period.

That holds true for DHs. That holds true for relief pitchers. It should hold true for everyone except the bat boys. But does it? Nope. Because there are still voters in our midst who aren't sure relievers and DHs deserve full credit on this exam, even though their positions are vital parts of the sport -- and will be pretty much forever.

So let's fix that, OK? It's Hoffman's first year on the ballot, it's Wagner's first year, too, and Martinez's eligibility runs out after 2019. If you don't want to vote for them, that's fine. Just don't base that decision on the position they played. The game has changed. So should we, the voters.

9

Padres acquire Yankees infielder Pirela San Diego deals RHP prospect Ronald Herrera By Dennis Lin | 10:17 a.m. Nov. 11, 2015 | Updated, 10:25 a.m. A quieter winter than last offseason’s frenzy appears in store, but Padres General Manager A.J. Preller still moved quickly this week, consummating a modest trade at the GM Meetings in Boca Raton, Fla. Early Wednesday, the Padres dealt minor league right-hander Ronald Herrera to the in exchange for utility infielder Jose Pirela.

Pirela, who turns 26 next week, figures to give San Diego a versatile bench piece, having played all over the field in the minors. He opened the 2015 season as a second-base option in New York, but he struggled in limited time with the big-league club, hitting .230/.247/.311 with one home run in 78 plate appearances.

With -A Scranton/Wilks-Barre, Pirela hit .325/.390/.433. Primarily a second baseman in recent years, Pirela, listed at 5-feet-11 and 215 pounds, is viewed as a bat-first player lacking standout defensive skills. The Venezuelan native also has played third base, shortstop, first base and all three outfield spots.

Still, Pirela possesses some upside. After debuting for the Yankees in 2014, going 8-for-24 in seven games, he was regarded as an interesting prospect as recently as this spring. He suffered a concussion toward the end of spring training, however, and wound up underwhelming in 37 Yankees games across three big-league stints.

The acquisition of Pirela, currently playing in the Venezuelan Winter League, could portend further infield movement. The Padres, with limited success, used a combination of Jedd Gyorko, Cory Spangenberg, Yangervis Solarte, Will Middlebrooks, Alexi Amarista and Clint Barmes at second, third and short. In particular, Pirela’s arrival might push out Amarista, another utility player.

Herrera, 20, came to San Diego last May as the player to be named in the trade that sent to Oakland. Advanced for his age but also undersized, Herrera, another Venezuelan native, was promoted to -A this summer. Between San Antonio and high Single-A Lake Elsinore, he went 8-7 with a 4.08 ERA in 26 appearances (25 starts).

10

Yanks send Pirela to Padres for righty Herrera By Joey Nowak / MLB.com | 12:37 PM ET The Yankees and Padres agreed to a trade Wednesday that sent right-hander Ronald Herrera to New York and infielder Jose Pirela to San Diego.

Herrera, 20, went 8-7 with a 4.08 ERA in 26 games (25 starts) between the Padres' Advanced affiliate in Lake Elsinore and Double-A club in San Antonio this year.

He was acquired by the Padres from the A's in the trade that sent outfielder Kyle Blanks to Oakland in May 2014.

Herrera is 23-24 lifetime with a 3.79 ERA in 82 games (74 starts) spanning four Minor League seasons.

Pirela, 25, hit .230 with a homer and five RBIs in 37 games with the Yankees this past season. He missed the first month of the season while on the concussion disabled list following an injury sustained during a March 22 Spring Training game.

In 64 Minor League games between Class A Advanced Tampa, Double-A Trenton and Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, Pirela hit .310 with three homers and 23 RBIs. He was signed by the club as a non-drafted free agent in 2006 and made his Major League debut in 2014.

11