The Swingin Friars take a fall

It’s been a few days, but I still find myself rather disgusted by the Andy Green firing in San Diego. Yeah, every time a bad team dismisses its manager/coach, there’s a course of “(insert your favorite choice here) couldn’t have won with that group.” I don’t like looking at it that way; a team’s win-loss record is an awfully poor reflection of a manager’s performance. Managers/coaches need to be judged on their own merits, and outsiders aren’t working with anything closer to perfect information there. Still, I think there’s reason to believe Green is a pretty good manager, and his firing is more of a case of GM A.J. Preller deflecting blame for the flawed major league teams he’s put together than anything else. Even though the Padres added one of the market’s very biggest free agents for the second straight winter, not much should have been expected from them this season. How could it be when this was the Opening Day rotation:

• Joey Lucchesi: Eight career MLB wins, simply not enough
• Eric Lauer: Six career MLB wins, barely visible
• Chris Paddack: Rookie who missed 2017 and totaled 90 innings in 2018, good but not much.
• Matt Strahm: Eight career MLB starts, painfully inadequate
• Nick Margevicius: Rookie who had never pitched above A-ball, woefully horrible stats

It looks like the rotation of a team that lost four guys to injuries in spring training, but that wasn’t the case here. Not only did Green have to hope for quality results from this crew, but he had to manage their workloads at the same time; not one of the five had ever topped 140 innings as a pro. The bullpen was going to have to be relied upon heavily, but outside of closer Kirby Yates and Craig Stammen, it was largely dreck. Of the other six relievers to make the team, only Robbie Erlin, Trey Wingenter and Adam Warren stuck around and all are sporting ERAs over 5.00 at the moment.
The offense was better, but still almost as challenging to manage. Green was supposed to figure out how to dole out playing time to five similarly talented outfielders in Wil Myers, Hunter Renfroe, Franmil Reyes, Manuel Margot and Frenchy Cordero. That Cordero almost immediately got hurt cleared things up some, but it robbed the team of the one lefty in the bunch and one of the two decent center field options.


Green also had to try to work the catching situation with Austin Hedges, an outstanding defensive catcher and subpar hitter, and Francisco Mejia, the hot shot prospect with defensive issues.
It’s not a stretch to say Green opened this season with the most challenging on-field assignment of any manager in the league. Sure, he wasn’t under the same pressure to justify his every move as a manager in New York and Boston - and I imagine that helps a lot - but as far as walking the tightrope between what was best for his team’s future and actually needing to win some games with a talented-but-shoddily-assembled roster, there were tough calls to be made every day.
I don’t agree with everything Green did, particularly in his handling of Renfroe. And, obviously, Preller deserves credit for assembling one of the game’s best collections of young talent over the last five years. Preller, though, still has a lot to prove when it comes to constructing a major league roster. He hasn’t come under any pressure yet, but that should change if he can’t put a team on the field capable of making a run at a wild card spot next year.

American League notes

- When Royals manager Ned Yost made his surprise retirement announcement Monday, he said he thought the worst of the team’s rebuild was now in the past. That’s probably true after a second straight 100-loss season. On the other hand:

• The team’s best player is about to turn 31 and might not be a second baseman for much longer.
• The team’s two breakthrough hitters this year are both big defensive liabilities.
• The team’s promising young shortstop has a career .282 OBP and struggles to stay healthy.
• The team’s catcher is coming off Tommy John surgery.
• The rotation foundation of Brad Keller and Jakob Junis have four major league pitches between them.

And those are the Royals’ strong points. I still think the club would have been better off cashing in on Whit Merrifield’s team-friendly contract at the trade deadline. He’s leading the American League in hits, but everything there is a little worse than last year, something that’s obscured by the fact that offense is up across the league. It’s great what Hunter Dozier and Jorge Soler have done this year, but Dozier needs to be looked at as a first baseman going forward and Soler has to be a full-time DH. Also, Soler is sure to opt out of his contract and lock in a big raise in arbitration after his 45-homer season.
The Royals farm system is significantly improved now, though it’s not as far along as it would have been had Dayton Moore been more aggressive in rebuilding after the World Series team broke up. That the team should have better reinforcements on the pitching staff next year will help in avoiding another 100-loss season in 2020. I think Yost is right that the worst is over for the Royals. However, I’d be rather surprised if this current group ever sees the postseason.
- Felix Hernandez makes his final start of the year Thursday. The Mariners are clearly looking at it as a send-off outing, and there’s at least some chance it’ll go down as the final start of his stellar career. Hernandez has a 6.51 ERA this year after coming in at 5.55 last season. He’s still just 33, but he’s shown surprisingly little ability to adapt to his diminished velocity in recent years. A big problem is that the changeup that was once an outstanding offering while being delivered in the 88-90 mph range hasn’t retained its usefulness at 83-86 mph. Maybe the right pitching coach could coax some better results out of him, but he’ll almost certainly have to take a minor league deal this winter and one wonders if he’ll decide it’s worth it.

National League notes

- I’ll be really interested to see how aggressive the Diamondbacks are with their offense this winter. They’re pretty well set at the tough spots with Ketel Marte, Carson Kelly, Eduardo Escobar and Nick Ahmed returning at a combined cost of about $19 million. The decisions come down to whether to settle for their current options at the other spots. David Peralta was great in 2018, but it was his only particularly good season in the last four years and he just turned 32. It’ll take $8 million-$10 million to keep him in his final year of arbitration. It’s probably worth holding on to him at that price, especially with the outfield crop looking weak, but it really is too bad the team didn’t trade him after moving Paul Goldschmidt last winter.


At first base, the Diamondbacks can stick with Christian Walker for the minimum. Walker, though, is sitting on a 108 OPS+ in his age-28 season; it would be nice to have more upside in that spot. A Jake Lamb-Walker platoon might be productive, but Lamb is due about $5 million next season and seems likely to be non-tendered. Walker has yet to show any platoon split anyway.
The Diamondbacks have Steven Souza for right field, but Souza was a disaster when healthy in 2018 and is coming off a major injury that cost him the entire season. He’s also due $4 million in arbitration, and though he probably still has some upside left, there’d seem to be better ways to spend that money. Besides, they might be able to re-sign him for half that after he’s non-tendered.
The team also has a $6 million option on Wilmer Flores, who has impressed with a .311/.358/.470 line in 271 plate appearances but who continues to lack a position. He really needs to head to the AL.
It’s unlikely that the Diamondbacks are going to try to upgrade at every spot (they also need a center fielder or a second baseman, depending on where they’d prefer to pencil in Marte), especially since they’re still paying $17 million to Yasmany Tomas to pummel Triple-A pitching. However, since the rotation is already seven deep (Robbie Ray, Luke Weaver, Zac Gallen, Mike Leake, Merrill Kelly, Taijuan Walker and Alex Young), they should have a fair amount of flexibility.

Jose Urena

 The Jose Urena closing experiment would rate as a disaster if the Marlins were playing for anything; after another blown save Tuesday, he’s given up multiple runs in four of his last eight appearances. When they brought Urena back as a reliever, the Marlins made it clear that they still planned to have Urena start next year. However, with his career 4.56 ERA (87 ERA+) in 571 innings, Urena appears obsolete as a starter at this point. He still has the stuff to be average, but his upside has always seemed overstated. If he had impressed as a closer, it would be easier to see a fit for him in the Marlins’ long-term plans. As is, though, it would really make sense to trade him this winter; some team would probably give up a modest prospect for him and the Marlins could find other ways to spend the approximately $5 million that he’s due.