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The San Diego Padres‘ dreams faded rather quickly this summer.

The offseason was an incredibly aggressive one for first-year general manager A.J. Preller, who brought in no fewer than seven new players to upgrade a team that had not finished higher than third place in the previous four seasons.

With those moves came gargantuan expectations within a division that already housed a club with three World Series titles in the past five years (the San Francisco Giants) and another with a record-breaking payroll (the Los Angeles Dodgers).

For a short time, the Padres lived up to the hype, winning 10 of their first 15 games. Then came a reality check in the form of seven losses in their next eight contests. They never realistically sniffed the top of the National League West again. 

With that kind of letdown comes consequences, including a fired manager (Bud Black) and the expectation to sell at the trade deadlines, both in July and August. But even though the Padres were virtually silent in July and most of the subsequent month, they still have a valuable trade chip in starter James Shields.

He has already cleared waivers, meaning he can be traded to any team until the August 31 deadline. And the Padres would probably like to get rid of his contract before it gets too heavy for their payroll.

Shields cleared waivers because his four-year, $75 million contract turns huge next season.

The Padres are paying him $10 million this year, of which less than $2 million is left, and his salary dramatically jumps to $21 million in each of the next three campaigns with a $16 million team option for a fifth or a $2 million buyout in 2019. Shields can opt out after next season, but given the way the entirety of this year has gone, he’s unlikely to do so.

Understandably, no team was going to take a chance at claiming the 33-year-old right-hander and risk being stuck with him and that contract.

Despite the money, Shields has a certain appeal to teams pushing for playoff spots with dreams of World Series appearances floating in their heads.

Since July 1, Shields has taken the ball 10 times and produced a 2.95 ERA in 61 innings. Despite that, the Padres are 3-7 in those starts and currently sit 6.5 games out of first place in their division and 11.5 out of the second wild-card spot with four teams ahead of them.

All of this gives the Padres incentive to move the postseason-tested Shields, and it gives a contender something to think about heading into the final days of the August trade deadline.

The Padres are under no mandate to cut their franchise-record $108 million payroll, nor to trade Shields, but one option could be a swapping of hugely disappointing contracts. For example, the Padres could pursue a trade for Pablo Sandoval, whom they sought in free agency last offseason, from the Boston Red Sox along with another player or cash in exchange for Shields, a trade suggested by the Boston Globe‘s Nick Cafardo.

The Padres are unlikely to eat too much of Shields’ deal, so this kind of option might be their best bet to put him on his fourth team in four seasons.

“It makes too much sense, so it won’t happen,” a scout told Cafardo of the possibility earlier this month.

Some of the reasons Shields did not sign with the Padres until February undoubtedly included that he was at an advanced age and the mileage on his arm was already great, which kept teams away. Leading into this season, he had thrown over 200 innings in eight of the past nine years, and the only one in which he failed to do so was his rookie season, when he made only 21 starts for the Tampa Bay Rays.

Decline seemed inevitable, and no club wanted to flirt with the disastrous possibility that Shields would completely fall off a cliff without warning. And over his first 16 starts that certainly seemed to be the case as he compiled a 4.24 ERA and allowed 16 home runs despite making his new home in cavernous Petco Park, a stadium that in 2014 allowed among the fewest long balls in the majors.

However, he’s at 158.2 innings pitched with a 3.74 ERA—right in line with his career averages. He’s also at 9.9 strikeouts per nine innings (though his walk rate is dramatically up from 1.7 last year to 3.2), his highest mark yet.

A day before last month’s non-waiver deadline, Jeff Sanders of the San Diego Union-Tribune detailed Shields’ decline, ending his piece with this: “None of this is to say that Shields can’t be a productive pitcher moving forward. He clearly can, but the Padres might be out of luck if they were hoping to get someone else to pay him to be a $21 million pitcher over the next three years.”

That may still be true, and the Padres, if they want to move him, might have to eat some of that money. But things have changed since that examination of Shields’ fall. He’s gotten much better over the last two months.

And in a time of need, that might be enough for some contender to take the bait.

All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired firsthand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.

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San Diego Padres shortstop Alexi Amarista sparked a double play Wednesday that will make you do a double take. But be careful—you might experience some mild whiplash.

Down one run in the sixth inning at Petco Park, Atlanta Braves outfielder Adonis Garcia hit a sharp ground ball—but not sharp enough to escape the Padres shortstop.

Amarista chased the ball down and then spun around to flip it directly from his glove to second baseman Jedd Gyorko. Nick Markakis was out at second before Gyorko turned the double play to get Garcia at first.

The Padres preserved their one-run lead, eventually winning 3-2 to finish the three-game sweep.

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San Diego Padres right fielder Matt Kemp became the first player in franchise history to hit for the cycle Friday night. 

In the Padres’ 9-5 win over the Colorado Rockies, Kemp bashed a triple to deep right-center field in the top of the ninth inning to cap off his monumental night. 

“I’ve come close plenty of times, I’ve just never gotten that one hit I definitely needed,” Kemp said, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune‘s Dennis Lin. “That triple is the hardest one to get.”

Kemp got things started with a two-run home run in the top of the first inning, and he followed that up with a single in the third before doubling to deep center in the seventh.

All told, Kemp went 4-for-5 with four RBI and two runs scored.

While the achievement was the first of its kind since for the Padres since their inception in 1969, Tony Gwynn came awfully close to hitting for the cycle during his Hall of Fame career, according to Baseball Photos on Twitter: 

ESPN Stats & Info passed along another staggering tidbit regarding the Padres’ inability to churn out cycles:

Kemp entered the evening batting .267 in August—five points up on his season-long average of .262. However, despite his recent surge, Kemp’s double and triple were his first of the month. 

After batting a putrid .186 in May and struggling to the tune of a .243 average in June, Kemp has worked his way into a more comfortable groove at the plate. 

And although the Padres are on the outskirts of the National League playoff picture, Kemp’s late-season improvement has given them something to take solace in as the 2015 campaign begins to wind down. 

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First, let’s get this out of the way: The San Diego Padres aren’t sunk.

Yes, they enter the second half of the season at 41-49, 10 games back in the National League West and 7.5 games off the wild-card pace.

But if this parity-filled 2015 campaign has taught us anything, it’s that every club is a decent hot streak away from contention.

Still, this isn’t how the script was supposed to play out in San Diego.

Led by bold, new general manager A.J. Preller, the Friars had one of the most active offseasons in franchise history. They remade the outfield with trades for Justin Upton, Wil Myers and Matt Kemp. They acquired catcher Derek Norris from the Oakland A’s and third baseman Will Middlebrooks from the Boston Red Sox.

They signed James Shields, one of the premier starting pitchers on the market. And, on the eve of their regular season, they engineered a swap with the Atlanta Braves that netted closer Craig Kimbrel.

After the Kimbrel trade, ESPN.com’s David Schoenfield dubbed Preller “a guy who wants to win” and praised his willingness to jettison tomorrow’s potential talent for a shot at postseason glory today:

Prospects? Who needs prospects? Preller has now dealt away [Matt] Wisler, Trea Turner, Joe Ross, Max Fried, Zach Eflin, Jace Peterson and R.J. Alvarez, seven of the team’s top 11 prospects entering the offseason, according to Baseball America. … The question is whether Preller has built a baseball team or a collection of talent. 

The answer, so far, seems to be the latter. And, in some cases, “talent” is a generous term.

Yes, Upton—the Padres’ lone All-Star—is having a nice all-around season with 14 home runs, 48 RBI and 17 stolen bases.

Shields leads the team with 131 strikeouts and 116.2 innings pitched, and Kimbrel has converted 23 of 24 save opportunities while punching out 48 in 33.1 innings.

Others, however, have fallen far short of expectations. Middlebrooks, who came to San Diego seeking a career resurrection, owns an anemic .215/.242/.367 slash line. And Kemp has defined punchless with a scant eight big flies and a pedestrian .674 OPS.

The glass-half-full perspective is that some of the underachievers may yet achieve.

Kemp has been a late-surging player over the course of his career, posting a higher batting average, slugging percentage and OPS after the break. A mini-power binge during which he hit two home runs in the Pads’ most recent four games offers a glimmer of hope.

Realistically, though, Preller’s grand experiment reeks of failure. He shot for the moon, and the bullet landed on his loafer.

What to do? One option is to stand pat, to keep the club intact and see how the summer unfolds. Another is to double down, to cash in what chips remain in San Diego’s system for a marquee trade target or two and angle for a miracle finish.

The smartest course, though—and the one most likely to set up the Padres for future success—is to shift into sell mode and start dangling pieces.

It’ll mean Preller swallowing his pride and admitting his grand offseason push sent the franchise careening into a ditch, sure.

But it’s the prudent course. And there’s evidence Preller and the Pads are considering it.

On July 11, Peter Gammons reported that San Diego has “asked other teams about possible interest in Shields.”

Upton has also been the subject of persistent trade rumors. But as he told ESPN.com’s Jerry Crasnick during the All-Star festivities in Cincinnati, he still has faith in his current club.

“At this point, I haven’t given up on the team,” Upton said. “I really like the guys, and I like the clubhouse. We still have some time to change the minds of the front office. In a perfect world, we play well over the next two or three weeks and A.J. pumps the brakes on dismantling the team.”

That’s exactly what you’d hope to hear from your star player, and maybe Preller is listening.

He’d be better served listening to the members of the Pads organization who, according to ESPN.com’s Buster Olney, think “it is time to reload and restructure for next season, and the best way to do that is to add players who can help in the future and create more financial flexibility.”

Now, a cynic might argue, for the Padres to trade their way out of this, they’ll have to rely on the same guy who traded them into it. That’s a fair point.

But Preller deserves credit, at least, for thinking big. And he should have the opportunity to clean up his own mess. 

If he fails at that, too? Well, then it might be time to go shopping for a new GM.

All statistics current as of July 15 and courtesy of MLB.com unless otherwise noted.

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The hype machine is out of service.

Disappointment has surpassed hope as the overwhelming emotion. 

A scapegoat has already been unfairly blamed because it was the easiest, most predictable target.

As the three-month mark of the season and the All-Star break creeps near, the San Diego Padres are running out of excuses, remedies and time. The offseason makeover that made the Padres a popular pick for the postseason and led star acquisition Matt Kemp to call general manager A.J. Preller “a GM rock star” just seems empty now, a rebuild lacking enough substance to take the club into the realm of sincere contender.

The franchise that had finished third or worse in each of the previous four seasons currently sits in fourth in the National League West, 6.5 games out of first place and six games out of a wild-card spot. Kemp, Justin Upton, James Shields, Wil Myers, Derek Norris and Craig Kimbrel were legitimate reasons for the hype, but through 75 games the Padres are five games below .500.

And a little more than a week ago, manager Bud Black paid the price for the underwhelming first half as Preller fired the longtime, respected skipper. Since then, the Padres are 3-7.

I’m a big Bud Black fan. He’s a really good guy and a quality manager. The Padres not living up to offseason hype isn’t his fault. Too bad.

— Grant Paulsen (@granthpaulsen) June 15, 2015

The offense, which was supposed to be dramatically better than it was last season, had a .241/.296/.371 slash line entering Thursday. Those numbers were all below league averages, as was its wOBA (.292) and wRC+ (88), although all these numbers were slightly better than in 2014.

Kemp has been the biggest letdown. After being about the best offensive player in the majors in the second half last season, he is having a brutal 2015 for his new team and was recently moved to the leadoff spot for the first time since 2010 in hopes of igniting his bat.

“Still have a lot of at-bats to go and a lot of things to do,” Kemp told Tyler Kepner of the New York Times this week. “I’m not worried, I’m not panicking.”

The pitching staff, which was supposed to be bolstered in the rotation by Shields and in the bullpen by Kimbrel, has also failed to live up to its billing. The rotation’s ERA, FIP and home run rates are all worse than league average, according to Fangraphs. And the bullpen suffers from all the same afflictions.

The overall defense is about the worst in the majors, and, as expected, the outfield defense is as well, Fangraphs numbers say.

Of the team’s next 15 games, 10 of them come on the road against the St. Louis Cardinals, Pittsburgh Pirates and Texas Rangers. 

“The Padres a little over a week ago dismissed Bud Black as manager. Last 10 games: 3-7. The managerial change so far has not worked,” analyst Dan Plesac said on MLB Network on Thursday. “This is a team in transition right now, and I think they, along with the [Chicago] White Sox and [Seattle] Mariners, need to get something going prior to the All-Star break, because I think the All-Star break is when you find out if you’re for real or if you’re on the outside looking in.”

Time is still an ally for now. There are still 87 games to play, and the rest of the NL West has failed to drown the Padres in their wake. Injuries to the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants have prevented them from fully stepping on the gas, so the Padres are still breathing with more than half the season remaining.

Fan interest also remains. The Padres have drawn nearly 1.1 million fans this season, which is still in the bottom half of the league. But for the franchise, its attendance is up by more than 15 percent from last year, when it drew just over 27,000 fans a game. This season that total is more than 31,000 a game.

Talent-wise, few teams can boast what the Padres can. That is why the offseason was filled with promise. That is why fans are showing up. It is why the team’s record is such a source of news.

“We haven’t gone out there every day with high expectations since 2010, when we had a really good team and you just knew you were going to win every time you went to the ballpark,” Will Venable, the longest-tenured Padre, told Kepner. “We expect that with this group, too. We have some guys with some serious track records and a lot of success in this game.”

The hope is Kemp’s second half this year resembles his second half last year. It is that Andrew Cashner finds a way to start stranding more runners and giving up fewer homers. The hope is that Myers stays healthy enough to be a dynamic offensive player, and that Shields starts striking out hitters again and keeps the ball in the ballpark.

Their shortcomings have cost the Padres a manager. They have made San Diego one of the game’s biggest disappointments, and they have it looking up at three teams in a division in which it was expected to contend.

Time still holds hope for the flawed Padres to rebound. But the grasp is weakening by the day and by the loss.

All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired first-hand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.

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The San Diego Padres, losers of six of their last eight games, begin a three-game series against the San Francisco Giants at AT&T Park in the worst possible way—by facing reigning World Series MVP Madison Bumgarner.

The game is tied 0-0 through three innings, and Bumgarner has been dominant so far.

At the start of the day, the Giants trail the Dodgers for first place in the NL West by one game, while the Padres currently sit in fourth place and are 5.5 games back. The Dodger lost to the Cubs 1-0 earlier Tuesday evening.

After a busy offseason that brought in the likes of Matt Kemp and Justin Upton, the Padres are 12th in the majors in runs scored but lead the league in managers used with three. 

The Padres are 2-5 since firing former manager Bud Black. After Dave Roberts served as the interim manager for one game, Pat Murphy, who was the manager for the Padres’ AAA affiliate El Paso Chihuahuas, was chosen to finish out the season as the Padres’ manager.

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The San Diego Padres wasted little time replacing Bud Black after firing him Monday, naming Pat Murphy as the interim manager for the remainder of the season, according to a release posted on the team’s Twitter account.   

Murphy spoke of his new position after the club made the news official:

General manager A.J. Preller also spoke of the decision:

Murphy served previously as the manager for the organization’s Triple-A team in El Paso, Texas. Jon Heyman of CBS Sports offered more information on his background as a skipper:

Despite loading up on talent this offseason with the likes of Justin Upton, Matt Kemp and Wil Myers, the Padres have stumbled out of the gate, starting the year 32-34 and falling to fourth in the competitive NL West.

Murphy will now have the tricky task of getting this team to play up to its ability.

Clearly, Black’s message was no longer resonating with the players. The hope in San Diego will be that Murphy—who certainly has a lengthy managerial career behind him—will be able to jolt this underachieving club to life.

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San Diego Padres outfielder and occasional first baseman Wil Myers is returning to the disabled list with a nagging left wrist injury just days after returning to the lineup.

Continue for updates.    

Myers Placed on DL with Left Wrist Tendinitis

Monday, June 15

Dennis Lin of the San Diego Union-Tribune passed along the latest discouraging news about Myers:

Myers spoke about the probability of undergoing surgery in the offseason to address his left wrist bone spur as recently as this last Friday.

“It’s a high possibility, but not during the year,” said Myers, per AJ Cassavell of MLB.com. “It’s a simple fix, but I can’t do it now because of the rehab during the season. I want to be out there.”

ESPN’s Diane Firstman weighed in on Myers’ situation using that as context:

After playing in three recent games in his first action since May 10, Myers sat out Sunday’s 4-2 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Wrist problems have plagued Myers during his young MLB career, though this latest setback isn’t related to the right wrist fracture that kept him out last year as a member of the Tampa Bay Rays.

The Padres announced Monday that they’ve relieved manager Bud Black of his duties. Interim skipper Dave Roberts will already have adversity to face and an outfield rotation to shuffle around now that Myers is out of action.

For a San Diego team seeking stability and eventual improvement amid a 32-33 start, injuries are the last thing it needs right now. Myers’ latest stint on the DL is as untimely as it is unfortunate amid a power shift in the Padres dugout.

Veteran Will Venable figures to fill in for Myers until the latter is healthy enough to return. Now that he’s returned to the disabled list, though, perhaps he has indeed changed his mindset about surgery during the 2015 campaign.

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Derek Norris probably had his head down for most of the game against the Pittsburgh Pirates on Friday night. The San Diego Padres catcher struck out four times leading up to the bottom of the ninth inning. 

Norris stepped up to the plate with the score tied 2-2, bases loaded and two outs. What happened next was truly unexpected.

Norris smashed a home run, giving his team a 6-2 victory. 

So just to look back: Norris struck out four times during the game, came up to bat with two outs and the score knotted at two apiece and then smacked a walk-off grand slam to win the game. He also made history. 

Oh yeah, and of course he got the victory shower.

[Twitter, MLB]

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This past offseason saw the San Diego Padres take all their chips and put them on offense. That’s where they rolled the dice for 2015, and certainly where they needed to be better than they were in 2014.

Here’s guessing that Padres general manager A.J. Preller is out there somewhere pumping his fist in triumph. It’s early yet, but his gamble really couldn’t be going any better.

The Padres earned their ninth win of the young season Monday night against the Colorado Rockies at Coors Field, and it was a romp. They collected 17 hits and 14 runs, easily outpacing Colorado’s measly total of three runs. In the wake of this romp, guess who’s currently leading the National League in runs scored?

Yup. None other than the Padres with 73. 

As early as it is, it’s hard to ignore the complete 180-degree turn happening before our very eyes. With an average of 5.21 runs per game, the Padres are doing darn near two runs per game better than last year’s average of 3.30. That, as you’ll recall, was easily the lowest average in MLB.

Of course, that number is what prompted Preller to go to work. He was a man on a mission to completely rebuild a lineup over the winter, and the early returns on his effort say he hit all the right notes.

The three big additions Preller made were to his outfield. He traded for veteran sluggers Matt Kemp and Justin Upton to play the corners, and for 2013 American League Rookie of the Year Wil Myers to man center field.

None of the three has been a disappointment. Though Kemp and Myers have only two home runs combined to Upton’s three, FanGraphs can vouch that all three rate as above-average hitters in adjusted offense (meaning wRC+, a stat where anything over 100 denotes above-average hitting):

San Diego’s new-look outfield owns a wRC+ of 143, which is millions of miles better than the 92 wRC+ managed by Padres outfielders in 2014. They’ve also combined for 1.4 wins above replacement, which is currently tied for second-highest for any outfield in the majors.

So that remark Kemp made in February about the Padres having the best outfield in the game? There’s a lot of season left, but so far he and his mates are living up to that claim.

Not that it’s all about the guys in the outfield, mind you.

New third baseman Will Middlebrooks is raking to the tune of a 120 wRC+ in the early going, which is a huge improvement over the 84 wRC+ the Padres got out of the hot corner in 2014. New catcher Derek Norris, meanwhile, is actually improving on the good production the Padres got out of their catchers last year. They combined for a 109 wRC+, and he’s at 120 so far.

There’s also a bright spot in San Diego’s lineup that’s not a new addition. That would be first baseman Yonder Alonso, who’s hitting .364 with a .930 OPS. That’s increased his wRc+ from a measly 93 to a staggering 167.

Ask him, and he’ll tell you the new additions are part of the reason why.

“These guys make you get better,” Alonso told Owen Perkins of MLB.com, referring specifically to Kemp and Upton. “They kind of they take it every day and know how you have to work on a daily basis. These guys are the reasons that other guys are doing well. Not only myself, but other guys.

“Those guys are the rock of this offense, the rock of this team, and that’s the big reason why the whole team is doing well.”

In times like these, with everything going so well, your mind tends to notice the question written on the elephant in the room:

All right, what’s the catch?

Well, there is one. As you’ve probably suspected all along, this Padres offense isn’t perfect.

In fact, there are a couple of areas where it’s really no better than last year’s offense. With a walk rate that’s dropped from 7.9 to 6.1 percent, this year’s Padres hitters are drawing fewer free passes. And with a strikeout rate that’s only fallen from 21.9 percent to 21.1 percent, they aren’t putting significantly more balls in play.

Put another way, this offense is in even less of a position to waste balls in play than last year’s offense. It’s obviously been doing a good job of this so far, but it’ll be a tough act to keep up.

But doable? You bet.

Batting average on balls in play (BABIP) and slugging are two areas where this year’s Padres offense is drastically outperforming last year’s Padres offense. The club’s BABIP has risen from .277 to .326, and the club’s slugging percentage has risen from .342 to .419.

This speaks to a lot more hard contact being made, and that’s not a total mirage.

According to Mark Simon of ESPN Stats and Information, no team made hard contact less frequently than the Padres in 2014. But as of the start of play Monday, Simon had the Padres in the top five in the National League in hard-hit rate:

Will hard hits alone be enough to allow the Padres to last as the elite run-scoring team in the National League? Probably not, as even hard-hit balls are only good for so much when you’re striking out your fair share and not drawing walks.

But if nothing else, this hard-hit rate should allow the Padres to continue their dramatic improvement at finding the holes in the defense and picking up extra-base hits. That, certainly, is not a bad way to keep the runs coming.

So, by all means, don’t be afraid to tune in to watch the Padres swing the bats.

Thanks to Preller’s offseason hyper-activity, we’ve known for a while now that they were going to look the part of an elite offense on paper. And with the way they’re swinging it early on, they could look like that on the field all season long.

Note: Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

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