Padres find good value in Shields
— -- In most offseasons, the winter of the San Diego Padres has more in common with a bleak, snow-filled New England winter than the winters of their home city's Southern California climate. The hot stove league for Padres fans typically has consisted of wondering what prospects the team will land for one of its terrific players who is scheduled to be a free agent.
Not this winter, with new general manager A.J. Preller ripping out the back pages of this story, giving San Diego its most exciting offseason since 1997-98. The topper hit this weekend, with the team agreeing with free-agent starter James Shields on a four-year deal worth $75 million guaranteed.
Shields took a secondary role in this year's free-agent hoopla, expressing a desire for a five-year deal in the nine-figure range, and only became a source of real interest once Max Scherzer and Jon Lester were off the market. Even then, Shields' price had to come below $100 million before he became a real hot commodity.
At $75 million and truncating that fifth year, Shields becomes a good value, two words you don't see said very often about a best player currently available in free agency.
Shields is 33, but people shouldn't consider pitcher age the same way they do with a hitter. While hitters tend to have a definable aging curve, pitcher aging generally looks like long, fairly consistent slope down from when they first have success in the majors, peppered with the possible cliffs due to the higher injury rate. Until a pitcher starts pushing 40, a good pitcher on the wrong side of 30 isn't inherently any riskier than a good pitcher on the right side.
The ZiPS projection system, which factors in this inherent risk, values Shields at $84 million in San Diego over the next four seasons, with his projected WAR only barely dipping below three in his final guaranteed season. Even in the possible fifth -- the team reportedly has a club option -- Shields still projects as a safely above-average starter who can fit in as a No. 2 or 3 in the rotation, something that has significant value.
ZiPS Projection For James Shields
In addition to the $75 million given for Shields, the Padres lose the No. 13 pick in the draft, a high enough draft slot that the lost value of the pick can't completely be ignored. However, the Padres are in win-now mode, making short-term wins more valuable than long-term wins. And just as important, while the Padres did shed some prospects in the trades, they still retain most of their top guys, with Austin Hedges, Matt Wisler and Hunter Renfroe remaining. When you haven't gutted your farm, the loss of a draft pick, while not ideal, is easier to absorb if the payoff is worth it.
The organization started its grand gamble this offseason with the acquisition of Matt Kemp from the Los Angeles Dodgers as part of a five-player trade that saw incumbent catcher Yasmani Grandal go the other way up Interstate 5. After a flurry of trades that would put a weekend swap meet to shame and about 135 trades involving catchers, the 2015 Padres will now only look like the 2014 Padres when they drag out those awful camouflage uniforms this summer.
While I'm not a fan of all these moves -- I still think that the Kemp trade was just about the team's least effective move this offseason -- the Padres front office seems keenly aware of the nature of a gamble. They've made a grand roll of the dice on the team improving significantly, but they knew enough to push in all of their chips. You can't throw caution to the wind and then meekly hedge your bets.
This is in stark contrast to teams like the Detroit Tigers, that spend heavily but become penny-pinchers when filling holes that pop up, or the Seattle Mariners, who followed up the Robinson Cano signing with a program of lukewarm DH acquisitions.
By signing Shields, who replaces some very ugly innings at the bottom of the rotation, they've now positioned themselves to be able to take advantage if they get lucky here and there. With a full Jedd Gyorko rebound and Yonder Alonso at least being somewhere near league average, it's now a team that's a serious wild-card contender. If Kemp can hit 30 homers playing his home games in Petco and actually play outfield defense like a legit major leaguer, it's a team that can at least worry the Dodgers in the right situation.
When I ran preliminary season simulations with ZiPS two weeks ago, the Padres averaged 81 wins, third in the NL West behind the Dodgers and the Giants. This morning, that number improved to 84 wins on average. Three wins doesn't sound like a lot, but when dealing with so much uncertainty -- as there is in a season yet to be played -- adding wins in the 80s can have a dramatic effect on playoff odds. Just going from an 81 to an 84-win average was enough to boost the simulated playoff odds for San Diego from 30 percent to 49 percent, almost a fifth of a playoff spot. And that wasn't only improving the wild-card odds; the divisional odds, the most important ones given MLB's current playoff structure, improved from 10 percent to 21 percent.
The payoff of San Diego's restructuring is by no means certain. The team's infield is still on the weak side for a serious contender and the outfield defense will occasionally resemble an old-timey vaudeville routine. But sometimes you have to gamble, especially when the other option is watching your team go 77-85 for the rest of eternity.