Father Alderson on Mission to Help Padres

I said I’d write more about the Sandy Alderson acquisition later, so…

My friend Paul ingeniously pointed out that Moores has assembled quite a large percentage of Oakland’s former brain-trust in Alderson and Fuson (though Fuson’s acquisition probably had more to do with Towers’ bidding than Moores).

Under Alderson it will be a lot less likely that the Padres will saddle themselves with bad contracts such as the ones Klesko and Nevin have. In the UT article I had previously quoted (and intended to link – sorry) Alderson replied to a question asking about his worst business moves as, "Signing almost any player to a multiyear contract.”

Let’s look at some of Oakland’s recent Signings/Non-signings:

1. After the 2001 season, Billy Beane decided to let Jason Giambi, 2000 AL MVP, move on (Jason played 2001 as a 30 year old)

2. Just like Jason, Miguel Tejada was allowed to leave following the season after he won the AL MVP (“Miggy” won it in 2002 and left after the 2003 season – he played ’03 as a 27 year old)

3. Eric Chavez was re-signed after his solid season in 2003 when he played as a 25 year old

4. Tim Hudson was traded in the off-season (this past off-season) with one season left to play on his contract. He will play out this season as a 29 year old

5. Mark Mulder was also traded this off-season, though unlike Hudson, Mark’s current contract runs through 2006. He’ll play 2006 as a 28 year old.

***

Understand that baseball players peak at 27-28 years old. Not one player who had already reached his peak was re-signed. The one player that was re-signed has a contract that allows the A’s to retain his services through him turning 31 years old. In other words, the A’s didn’t sign any aging veterans to contracts that might wind up hurting the club at the end of the deal.

Now Billy Beane (not Sandy Alderson) did all those deals (or chose to let those players go). But Billy has been quoted as remembering back to the mid-90’s and sitting in a cab with Alderson where the two of them lamented a long-term contract they had just signed to retain one of their own aging vets. If I remember that article correctly, Sandy and Billy decided to re-sign the unnamed player between the ’92 & ’93 seasons. The A’s won 96 games in 1992. The A’s averaged 67 wins over the next 6 seasons before winning 87 in 1999 and 91 in 2000. The A’s haven’t won fewer than 91 since. And they have averaged over 96.5 wins the last 5 years.

And Alderson is the man that trained Billy Beane.

Can you tell I’m excited about the Padres’ future and Alderson’s role therein?

***

Switching gears…

Brian Lawrence’s line from Tuesday night:

8.0 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 0 BB, 2 SO, 0 HR 98 pitches

B-Law’s performance wasn’t nearly what Peavy’s was Monday night. But it was effective. And a win is a win.

If I’m going to nitpick – I’m still worried about B-Law’s declining strike-out rate and his declining ground-ball/fly-ball rate (tonight: 10 ground-ball outs / 12 fly-ball outs).

Not to sound like all I can do is complain, but if Sean Burroughs would just incorporate his legs into his swing…

I just noticed one last thing so we can end this on a positive note. The first four Padre hitters (Roberts, Loretta, Giles, Nevin) combined for one hit (Nevin) and one walk (Roberts) in 15 AB – and we still won! You love getting a victory when your big dogs essentially took the night off.