The San Diego Padres either care very deeply about the psyche of prospect Chase Headley, or they’re a pack of close-fisted misers who care more about saving money than winning games – John Canzano, in a recent article on the Chase Headley situation (h/t: Geoff Young).

Or, maybe, just maybe, it’s not quite that simple. Anyway, one thing I neglected to mention the last time I wrote about this situation is when Chase Headley is set to become a free agent. If I understand it correctly, a player gets a year of service time after spending 172 days on the active roster. Since Headley only logged 19 days last year, I believe the Padres could call him up now and this would not be an issue (i.e., he will be under club control through 2014, whether he is called up now or in a month). So, we are back to the “Super Two” issue, the issue that the article linked above centers around. The author says:

But shouldn’t the aim of the Padres be to win as many games as possible this season?

Should it be? I don’t think that should necessarily be the Padres goal. I think the goal should be to win division titles, pennants, and world championships. Leaving Headley down for a few more weeks, in my estimation, gives the Padres a (slightly) better chance of doing those things down the road. Since I believe there is virtually no chance that, in the next couple of weeks, Chase Headley can produce enough to have any significant impact on the Pads’ chances of winning much of anything this year, outside of maybe an extra game or two, then I am all for the current Padres stance on Headley and his extended stay in the minors (not that I know this is actually their stance).

Now, if the Padres were doing this while in a division race (and could vastly improve by adding a guy like Headley), then I’d probably have a different take. But, at this point, they’re not in any race and adding him to the roster just isn’t going to make enough of a difference. Is the few million bucks down the road that big of a deal, either? Well, not really, I guess, but why throw that money away if you don’t have to? I’d rather it be spent on the draft or in some free agent deal in 2010 or something.

And, after all that, we have not even mentioned the fact that Headley could still be in the minors partly to … play baseball (i.e., the finances are likely not the only reason he’s down there). He isn’t exactly Jay Bruce and he is learning a new position.

Nothin’ really new here, as this is pretty much what I discussed last time (and I’ll try not to make a continued habit of it), but I figured I’d point you to the article anyway.

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Here’s Grady Fuson on the upcoming draft. Pretty interesting stuff, but I can’t really get a feel for who they’ll be targeting (not that he’d want to give that away).

Geoff Young took Andrew Cashner in the Future Redbirds mock draft I linked to the other day. I’m not sure I love taking a reliever with the first pick, but if he fell to #23 (iirc, I’ve seen him going pretty high in some mock drafts), I can’t say I’d hate the pick. Apparently, he throws in the mid-to-upper 90’s, but his control may be a bit of an issue. He k’ed 80 and walked 27 in 54.3 innings of work this year at TCU.

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Mark Prior is apparently done for the year. A decent million dollar gamble that didn’t work out … Hope he can get his career back on track at some point.