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Roberts?

First of all, I want to say it is GOOD to be back. I have been talking with friends, arguing with Billy Werndl (of the Mighty 1090), and generally driving my wife nuts while talking about the Padres (she doesn’t want to hear my analysis).

My first installment isn’t going to be that long but I wanted to get something off my chest…

Kevin Towers has talked about his ‘Woody Williams for Ray Lankford’ trade as being his worst deal as the Padres’ GM. However, his acquisition of Dave Roberts may end up trumping the Williams deal.

Think about it for a moment:

- The Padres traded a poor-performing outfielder, Jay Payton, with a supposedly bloated contract ($4m) but who has a decent offensive history.

- The Padres kicked in $2.65m to get the deal done.

- The Padres threw in a pitching prospect (not a top one, but one that had performed well).

Of those last two I could see offering Boston one or the other. But remember the newest axiom is roster-assembly is retaining financial flexibility. The rule of thumb is that if you are unloading a bad contract you pitch in money or prospects. NOT BOTH! Especially since Towers was not making another ‘Brian Giles’ type deal; bringing in an upper-tier offensive player.

Towers acquired an outfielder who relies on speed, who has never played more than 127 games in a season – mostly because of leg injuries, who has a career on-base average of .335 (Roberts notched only one season with a .350+ OBA – .353 in 2002).

And maybe most disconcerting, is the decision to make Roberts the leadoff hitter. We want a career .335 on-base guy batting leadoff?

Now, do not make the mistake of assuming that I do not like Roberts. He has a lot of attributes that are VERY desirable:

- He plays a good defensive centerfield – which we need at PETCO.

- His career BB/SO total is 141/158.

- His career stolen base/caught stealing totals are 135/32 (Roberts has been successful 80.8% of his attempts – the break-even point for stolen base attempts is roughly 70-75%).

So Roberts does have redeemable qualities.

One last thing, last year en route to their first World Series title in 86 years, Boston made a big trade. They traded away SS Nomar Garciapara for the lesser-hitting but better fielding Orlando Caberra and slick-fielding Doug M… at first base. Boston GM, Theo Epstein, deduced that Nomar’s lack of glove would inhibit the Red Sox from winning a world championship. Whether or not Boston would have won with Nomar, we don’t know. But it in the same fashion, Kevin Towers decided that San Diego needed more defensive range in CF. While I don’t disagree, I just think we over-spent to get Roberts.

The most basic building block in business is “buy low, sell high.” Dave Roberts had just stolen a base in the playoffs that was very “money” and did it with the whole baseball world watching. Payton on the other hand had one of his worst offensive season in his career while playing centerfield for the first time in a long time.

The Padres drove down the value of Payton then flipped him for an over-priced shiny role player whose team had just won the World Series. Kevin bought high and sold low.

Again I don’t have a problem acquiring a player like Roberts. I just think Theo Epstein played Kevin Towers like a chump. As a Padres fan that scares me.