Kuzul

Last season, Frank McCourt thought that he had a deal in place with Fox Sports that was going to save the Dodger’s franchise from bankruptcy and provide liquidity to the organization’s coffers.

However, (partially) due to Bud Selig’s icy relationship with McCourt, MLB prevented the TV deal from occurring. The Dodgers leadership had not provided MLB with the requested explanation of how this money was not going to just end up in McCourt’s back pocket and be used for his personal expenses (i.e. how he got into the mess to begin with).

Without the $3 billion deal, McCourt was forced to put up the Dodgers up for sale.

This season, another NL West club, the San Diego Padres, was facing a similar situation. Their owner, John Moores, had been engaged in a lengthy battle to change the majority ownership—effectively to sell the club.

The Padres were bought in 2009 by a group led by former super-agent, Jeff Moorad. The plans were to make Moorad the majority owner by 2013, pending approval by at least 21 of the other 29 MLB owners, as per MLB rules.

However, Moorad dropped his bid to become majority owner due to the intractable conflict between himself and the rest of the owners, allowing Moores to sell the team to new bidders. A group led by former Dodgers owner, Peter O’Malley, along with professional golfer/San Diego native, Phil Mickelson, was recently awarded the winning bid for the organization.

The commonality between these two sales involves events that took place prior to Moorad’s dropping out of the Padres ownership group.

This spring, Fox Sports was negotiating with the Padres for broadcasting rights, and the two parties ended up agreeing on a $1.4 billion, 20-year deal. The deal included $200 million upfront for Moores, even though MLB was fully aware that he was in the process of selling the team.

This begs the question: why did Selig allow Moores to pocket a couple hundred million, but not Frank McCourt? Granted that the Dodgers had been running a loose ship for a while, but one would think that the Dodger’s example would have made MLB even less likely to allow owners to obtain cash from TV deals going forward.

I believe that this is another example in Bud Selig’s long history of playing favorites, running MLB like it is his own personal childhood clubhouse, providing benefits to his friends and shunning those who are not in his good graces.

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San Diego Padres stud pitching prospect Casey Kelly should be called up in July, provided he is healthy (he’s currently on the seven-day disabled list in the minors).

The Padres risk stalling his development and not capitalizing on a sure-fire crowd attractor. As a prime candidate to be a September call-up when rosters expand, Kelly would provide an extra two months of financial boosting to a team riddled with economic uncertainty. It is in the best interest of the organization to bring up Kelly sooner than later.  

Kelly is pitching in the notorious hitter’s league, the Pacific Coast League for the Tucson Padres. In 12 innings pitched for the baby Padres, Kelly has a 2.25 ERA with 14 strikeouts and zero walks.

Coming into the 2012 season, he was the No. 76 overall prospect in the minors, according to Baseball America, so it is not overly aggressive to assume that Kelly has the ability to keep firing off elite performances in Triple-A.

The issue is that if Kelly is going to be the future of the San Diego Padres, then he has to be considered for a promotion soon so that his development does not stall.

The knock on Kelly has always been his consistency despite having an excellent arsenal of pitches, and it appears as though he is finally reining in his talents to produce as expected. Even Baseball America had his estimated time of arrival to be 2013, so an accelerated call-up is definitely feasible.

The Padres rank No. 22 in MLB attendance this year. Fans are calling for MLB-ready talent. The city wants to have a team that it can passionately follow, but fan support is waning.

After trading away beloved fan favorite Adrian Gonzalez, it is time for the organization to show some fruits from the trade and call up the key piece from that deal. General buzz around a basement-dwelling team can be had by the long-awaited arrival of a top pitching prospect, such as Stephen Strasburg.

The Padres can expect to have a similar type of interest (though clearly Strasburg and Kelly are on two different levels) from the city by showcasing its young talent and giving it regular playing time during the season.

Calling up Kelly in September will all but guarantee little playing time for him. Starting his service time two months earlier with a July call-up will be outweighed by an increased development for him and a boost of financial prosperity for the team. 

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