To say things have not gone well for the San Diego Padres since 2015 would be an understatement, a feat not going unnoticed by the team’s executive chairman, Ron Fowler.
Following San Diego’s 16-4 defeat by the Seattle Mariners on Tuesday at Safeco Field, Fowler spoke candidly to Mighty 1090 AM on Wednesday about the Padres’ 20-33 start by calling them “miserable failures” (via Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports):
It’s been embarrassing. I don’t know how else to put it. Our performance on the road trip, 1-7, was pathetic.
I’m a very competitive individual. I think I’ve won a lot more than lost in my life. This baseball experience has been very frustrating, very embarrassing.
The performance by our team (Tuesday), I can understand how (former owner Ray) Kroc would have grabbed the microphone. It’s that frustrating.
Fowler then shifted focus of his criticism to call out starting pitcher James Shields—who allowed 10 runs on eight hits and four walks in 2.2 innings against the Mariners—saying the performance was “an embarrassment to the team, an embarrassment to him.”
The chairman also made a not-so-subtle dig about Major League Baseball players having guaranteed contracts, noting that if a person in a regular job was as bad at their job as the Padres have been over the last three years, “you’d probably be unemployed.”
General manager A.J. Preller also seemed to be a target of scorn during Fowler’s interview: “It’s on the player, but the organization has to accept responsibility for probably having the wrong players. … Part of it is on the players. But our job is to get the right players who can be motivated and determined at game time.”
However, Fowler did say Preller “has done a spectacular job of building the player-development area” and acknowledged that some of the trades and signings over the last two years “didn’t come together as well as we wanted.”
San Diego surprised the baseball world last year by signing Shields to a four-year, $75 million deal and trading for Matt Kemp, Wil Myers, Justin Upton, Melvin Upton and Craig Kimbrel, bumping its payroll up to a franchise-record $108 million, per Cot’s Baseball Contracts.
Things did not work out for the Padres in 2015, as they struggled to a 74-88 record, but they didn’t make any trades at the July deadline with the hopes of making a run in the second half. They wound up losing Justin Upton as a free agent, though they did receive a compensation pick for next week’s draft starting June 9.
Preller was able to get help for the farm system by trading Kimbrel to the Boston Red Sox in exchange for four prospects, highlighted by outfielder Manuel Margot and shortstop Javier Guerra.
But there are still major problems the Padres don’t seem to have an easy way out of. Shields is rumored to be on the trade block, with Dennis Lin of the San Diego Union-Tribune reporting on May 28 the Chicago White Sox were in discussions with the team about acquiring the veteran right-hander.
Kemp is still owed over $65 million from 2017-19 and will be difficult to move. Melvin Upton is signed through next season, making just over $17 million.
Despite those exorbitant salaries, things could open up for the Padres this winter. Per Cot’s Baseball Contracts, they will have $41 million coming off their payroll after this season.
If things continue down the path they seem to be going, Fowler may not have the patience to let Preller go through another period of adding talent, considering how badly things have gone since the start of 2015.
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