The San Diego Padres have finally cashed in their most valuable asset, trading Adrian Gonzalez to the Boston Red Sox for three prospects (RHP Casey Kelley, 1B Anthony Rizzo, and OF Reymond Fuentes) and a player to be named later.
The Padres are clearly going to have a tough time competing this season, dealing away by far their best offensive force. However, they’ve just made an already solid farm system that much better, adding three highly regarded prospects into the mix.
We’ll have more analysis as the day unfolds and things become official. For now, feel free to discuss the trade here.
The Padres had to get something more than a couple of draft picks for Gonzalez. Unfortunately, they didn’t get much more than that. Kelly had a terrible season in AA, in 2010. At this stage in his career, he is nothing more than a mediocre batting practice pitcher. Rizzo is a strikeout artist, 100 last season. Unfortunately he is not a pitcher, but a first baseman. His .263 average in AA is not impressive. Fuentes hit only .270 in Class A last season. Big deal! None of these players is going to help the Padres in the near future, maybe never, as they are suspects, not prospects. Couldn’t Jed Hoyer have gotten what they really need, from someone, like a major league ready middle infielder???? Once again the Padres got hosed. Fans get ready for a last place finish in 2011.
My initial reaction is that we got a pretty good deal here. Gonzalez wasn’t going to be here after 2011 anyway and these are some quality prospects.
Rizzo: 136 G, .260 BA, 25 HR, 100 RBI, .334 OBA, .480 SLG. Played AA ball last year. 22 years old next season, 1B.
Kelley: 5.31 ERA at AA ball, 21 years old.
Fuentes: 104 G, .270 BA, 5 HR, 41 RBI, .328 OBA, .377 SLG.
Played A ball. 20 next season.
These are the awesome prospects they got for Gonzalez? Quality prospects? You gotta be kidding. Only Rizzo looks remotely like anything, and the minors are littered with 1Bs who put up his numbers. How about just one player off the Red Sox major league roster?
Fuentes is very young, as you mention.
Kelley is a consensus top shelf pitching prospect.
Rizzo is a solid enough first base prospect. Plus there’s a PTBNL.
Some of their numbers might be underwhelming, but it’s very hard to project minor leaguers simply on raw numbers (especially only a season).
Not to mention, Gonzalez isn’t worth *that* much, only having one year left under contract. I like the haul here well enough, but I’ll have more later when I fully digest things.
I’m not too high on Rizzo, since I’m still very high on Blanks, but I like this move.
If nothing else, I’m glad we finally ripped the band aid off.
Padre fans are very disappointed about losing our number one ballplayer. I believe management had no choice. We surely could not afford him after 2011. Now, Adrian can make the big bucks he deserves. If two of the prospects can soon deliver, it was a good deal.
All things considered, I’m okay with this return. Kelly could be an impact pitcher, Rizzo a nice supporting player, and Fuentes… well, fast. And as Ray notes, it’s good to see the team commit to rebuilding for the future. This promises to be a fascinating winter…
I’m not willing to analyze this trade too much. If Jed Hoyer is as smart as people say, he knows this trade just opened the floodgates to a host of changes. For instance, who is Ludwick going to “protect” now? If Jed has a master plan, there could be so many moves, we’ll need programs to ID the players in Spring Training.
Those prospects plus Lowrie and Ellsbury would make sense. As usual, San Diego gets little in return.
start with 7yrs 161 million 23/yr.It’s more then Texiera makes a year!Don’t worry Theo gets it done.You don’t give up that much and not sign Agon!Sign Crawford and a couple of guys for the bullpen!And we’re ready to roll!Nice job with trade Theo!Anthony Renaudo will help us forget Casey Kelly!