State of the Padres w/Darren Smith

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's talk Padres right now, and we'll talk Giants too, since they're matching up with them at the moment. Darren Smith is joining us. You can hear them all over the scene in San Diego and of course part of Friar territory along with Marty Caswell. Darren, great to have you on, man, appreciate the time, and let's just start with a nice and simple state of the Padres.

00:00:25
Speaker 2: After about a week of baseball, your thoughts not great?

00:00:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, not exactly out of the gates firing here like people had hoped. With a new manager and an emphasis on wanting to change the dynamic of how you approached hitting the baseball, it's not been good at all.

00:00:44
Speaker 2: It's one and four.

00:00:46
Speaker 3: You lose a couple of games where you expect Nick Pavetta and Michael King. Right, if you're gonna have a rotation where you have Walker Bueller and Harman Marquees, you probably want to feel pretty good about the games where you're pitching the front of the road. That didn't quite work out against the Detroit Tigers. So one and four, the team has only hit two home runs. They are for what this is worth through five games, thirtieth and slugging, which is kind of reminiscent of twenty twenty five.

00:01:13
Speaker 2: So it's not good.

00:01:14
Speaker 3: And they are staring down the barrel of a sweep today this afternoon at Peco Park to the San Francisco Giants who have woken up in San Diego after a miserable start in their home ballpark.

00:01:24
Speaker 2: Other than that, everything's great.

00:01:26
Speaker 4: It sounds like a blast, sounds like sunny San Diego. I mean sounds like you know what, Darren. It sounds like you're in Philadelphia right now. It doesn't sound like you're in Sandy. Everyone's always happy in San Diego. I thought you're clearly in Philadelphia with Crats, not San Diego. My question is, is Vitello's there? He got his first two wins. Craig Salmon is the manager of the Padres, and we had Jim Bowden on yesterday saying how he thinks both of them looked over match. Is that the feeling you're getting from Padres people. I haven't really I'm not gonna lie. I haven't watched a ton of the Padres so far this year because you know, ten pm is way past my bedtime most of the time. Is not the case, because I like Craig and I think he's a good guy and he'll be a good manager. But you know, jump into this with really no experiences.

00:02:07
Speaker 5: Tough.

00:02:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I think everybody likes Craig. I don't know anybody who would ever say anything bad about Craig Stammon. But you know, it's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about him being the manager of a big league club, especially when you've interviewed other high profile names and it's not gone well, and today's you know, it's an interesting day to talk about it. You know, I don't know that there was anything that was really obvious about stamman managing through the first couple of games. Maybe a question about leaving Jeremiah Estrata in a little bit longer. In game number two of the series, he ended up walking three straight batters, and you know, the Tigers, you know, opened up a can in the eighth inning of the second game of the season. But you know, the question is whether or not you use Mason Miller for more than three outs. He said, that's just not something that we're going to do. Early on in the season, we decided that before the game Okay, fine, you can live with that. But you know, as we're talking today and I mentioned the potteris and the Giants are playing a little later on, they had their worst game aesthetically of the season.

00:03:08
Speaker 2: Didn't look good.

00:03:09
Speaker 3: Guys not throwing to the right bases, balls dropping between outfielders. There was some really questionable decision making about how long they left Kyle Hart, a relief pitcher in the game who.

00:03:21
Speaker 2: Ended up getting touched up.

00:03:23
Speaker 3: I thought he was asked about that and he had to answer questions about that in the postgame press conference. His lineup decision, I think is starting to raise an eyebrow or two.

00:03:34
Speaker 2: Again, it's so early. It sounds sort of stupid to say.

00:03:37
Speaker 3: This, But when Ramon Loriano is your hottest hitter and you sit him on the bench for some nebulous statistics so that you can put Castellanos and Andrew Hart in there, and it doesn't work, I think you're gonna have people asking you're under a microscope. You know, you are a guy like Jim Boden said, like you guys have talked about, like we've talked about here, you are under a microscope because you know this was not a conventional decision or somebody who you know had made the rounds interviewing for these managerial gigs, so you know, there should be a little bit of a brighter spotlight for him trying to to prove why he was the choice over some other candidates, you know. And today's one of those days now where you're you're looking again and like Tatisa's back in the leadoff spot and cronin Worth's drop back down, and he's done some things differently again and it's you know, just game six of the season. So I would say he's he's not really done anything that's been incredibly damning, but it's it's certainly not he has not made the case. You know, he has not exactly shown a ton to support the decision that was made to hire him in the first place, which you know, again was like as unconventional as it possibly could be.

00:04:52
Speaker 5: So when you're looking under a microscope, what are they looking for? Are people looking for, oh, he did that wrong? Because if that's the case, you're always going to find something like what has he done right in the sense of how this team is going to succeed over one hundred and sixty two games, Because last I checked he ain't got no slug Craig stan Stamman's slugging in his career was pretty brutal, and I'm pretty sure as a manager he can't do any of it. And unless something like that changes, is this team more than just a five hundred team?

00:05:29
Speaker 3: Hard to make that prediction today, especially when we haven't seen any evidence that Walker Bueller and you know, Harmon Marquez or are you know, definitely going to stick around as the fourth and fifth starters or are they just seat fillers until whenever it is that Joe Musgrove returns and you can get Griffin Channing healthy whenever that might be. Is that what the situation is there? So yeah, I mean I think, you know, the thing that I've been thinking about is you do want to be you know, you don't want to be ridiculous here and talk about you know, how this is anything is definitive, right, This isn't indelible how they've come out of the gates. You know, Fernando Tatis Junior Manum Chelda, they don't have a home run between them, right, So is that going to continue? Obviously it's not. But they were not a good slugging team last year. And that was a big point of emphasis. You know, they were twenty second in slugging in twenty twenty five, and they were twentieth twenty eighth in home runs hit. So as much as you say, okay, wipe the slate clean and start all over again in twenty twenty six, you know, it's not up to us just to say automatically, Okay, we believe that you're going to be a different team. It's up to them to prove that they're going to be a different team. And so they haven't done that. So you know, when you replace a manager, whether people like Mike Schulter or not, the fact of the matter is he did win ninety games last year, and he won ninety three games the previous season, you know, so he had a way of winning even with some of these deficiencies that have shown themselves early on. And you know, I I don't know what it is that we expect to see. Maybe Craig Stammon was brought in here because he's a little less volatile than Mike Schuldt. Well, I think a lot of people would take the volatility of Mike Schildt, which mostly happened behind the scenes, if it meant that you were in the high eighties or in the nineties when it came to wins, and you know, to have one of your worst starts in recent memory here with this new manager and seeing some of the same flaws that people pointed out over the last year or two, I don't know that it is building any confidence whatsoever in the decision making the part Craig Stammon there, so you know, I can't point to anything other than his personality is not as abrasive, you know, as it was when Mike Shuilt was here. And maybe people you know whose names nobody really knows, you know, maybe their lives are a little bit easier because they don't get yelled at behind the scenes. But you know, is the trade off that you're not going to win on the same level, then, you know, again, I don't know that that's really a trade off that people are willing to make, because forty thousand people are filling that ballpark every single night and it's not exactly been a ton of fun here through the first five games of twenty twenty six.

00:08:07
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00:08:34
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00:08:53
Speaker 4: Now, there last thing for me on Craig, is he making the lineup? Because you said questionable lineup decisions and Q and that do we know that? Is that coming from Preller? Is that coming from up above as m Murphy calls on the Ivory Tower or does stand and have full, you know, full power over the lineup to make it how he wants it?

00:09:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think that's that's a good question, and it's probably specific to Craig Stamon. You know what I've been told in this era where so many of the lineup decisions are coming from front offices, I've been told that, you know, Aj Preller doesn't do that sort of stuff. You know that the pottery's front office may have from their research and development department. They may have an optimized lineup that they would present, that they might suggest, but ultimately they're going to leave autonomy to the manager. Now, you're not going to tell Mike Schild how to fill out the lineup card. You're not going to tell Bob Melvin how to fill the lineup card. Then again, those guys only lasted two years here, right, so you know who he really knows what was going on, and whether that was part of the you know, the perceived friction between the coaching staff and the front office.

00:09:57
Speaker 2: I don't know how it is. With Craig Staman.

00:09:58
Speaker 3: It was unusual because he came in the spring training and one of the first things that he said, and one of the first the lick literally the first lineup that we saw from Peoria Arizona, Fernando Tatis Junior, who batted leadoff in one hundred and fifty games in twenty twenty five, who was an All Star, you know, who did some things.

00:10:15
Speaker 2: Maybe not forty home runs like.

00:10:16
Speaker 3: What we saw from twenty nineteen, twenty twenty, twenty twenty one.

00:10:20
Speaker 2: But you know, he did some things.

00:10:21
Speaker 3: He took a lot of pitches, he walked, He had a high end base percentage, so you know, he did a lot of things really well. And he seemed to be a really good leadoff hitter for the pod race. He seemed to be the obvious choice and the first lineup. You know, now we're seeing him batting forth. Everybody's kind of scratching their head, saying, wait, wait, what's that all about?

00:10:37
Speaker 2: Uh, how do you not only remove him from.

00:10:39
Speaker 3: The leadoff spot, but how is it that you have him batting clean up here like you're not you're gonna run the rest that you're not gonna get that guy in a bat in the first inning. That kind of seems bonkers, and Craig Stalmon had to stand up there and explain it.

00:10:50
Speaker 2: Why it was that he thought that that might be good.

00:10:53
Speaker 3: For Fernando, And part of it was that I guess Fernando said he didn't think he did a good job in the leadoff spot.

00:10:58
Speaker 2: Whatever I thought he was good.

00:11:00
Speaker 3: I thought he seemed like the obvious choice, but then he started mixing and matching, and maybe you're going to see cronin Worth in there against righty's, and then you're going to see maybe Sander Bogart's in there against lefties. And then Tatis comes back from the World Baseball Classic where he batted lead off, and then he goes back into the leadoff spot, but he did it for a game, and then he was batting second, and now he's in there today against the rioty So it's just like, wait, what's how are we arriving at these decisions. I don't know if something has changed from from what I came to understand with the Potters that these decisions were not mandated by Aj Preller or anybody in his front office. I don't know if that has changed or not, but it has been a big subject, literally since the first game of Cactus League, when people wondered why it was that Fernando Tatis Junior was batting clean up for the Potters, which just doesn't make any sense to anybody.

00:11:54
Speaker 5: Let's also remind fans out there who don't follow the Padres as much that Craig Stammon was in that front office and these ideas didn't just like poof out of the middle of nowhere. So moving on, that microscope will continue, and it will continue with is exact quote, Craig Stammonds exact quote. I'd like to see us finish the game with no challenges left, or at least challenge a little bit more. Do you agree with him? But it does also shed light on the fact that maybe this conversation wasn't necessarily talked enough about, with the fact that they had a lot of guys gone for the WBC on this roster.

00:12:34
Speaker 3: I think, yeah, I think that that answer is in response to something that happened the other night with Fernando Tatis Junior where he came to bat in the ninth inning and at least, you know, according to the you know, the television k box that you see out there on the screen, it was a pitch that that certainly looked like it should have been challenged, and the potteries had a challenge and Fernando, who who had challenged to pitch the previous day, didn't get it overturned. And we talked a little bit about this yesterday that that maybe he had that in the back of his mind, or maybe because it was at the top of the zone. It seems like there's this idea that that pitches towards the top of the zone are a little bit harder for the hitters to identify.

00:13:12
Speaker 2: I don't know, you know, if that's one hundred percent accurate.

00:13:15
Speaker 3: But just a theory that you see out there, and you know, in a game where where you're you're only you know, you're struggling to score runs to begin with. I mean, the Potteries have only scored twelve times. They haven't scored more than three runs in any game this year, and you're you're kind of you know, it becomes a little bit of a referendum, like, well, what's going on here?

00:13:33
Speaker 2: Are they engaged with this? Do they know what's going on?

00:13:36
Speaker 3: And it's probably unfair to say that Fernando Tatis Junior is just not paying attention, you know, in the ninth inning of a game where you know it's a save situation, especially then because Jackson Merrill goes on to head a two run homer and you're starting to now think in your mind, well, you know, what could this have been? But I think that's you know, they've had six overturns. I don't know how many actual challenges. Forgive me for not having that, but I know they've had six overturns and their catchers have done a pretty good job. Luise Campusano, who you know, was playing here after playing last season in Triple A where he was accustomed to the system, Yeah, he's brought a little bit of knowledge to you know, how it works and how it operated in Triple A last year.

00:14:14
Speaker 2: So that's been a good thing. But but yeah, like it.

00:14:16
Speaker 3: Was just weird because you know, I don't know that it's fair to say, you know that this is a mistake or a mental mistake for Fernando because he was at the World Baseball Classic and maybe he didn't have a ton of experience with it, or maybe he was thinking about the previous challenge that didn't get overturned.

00:14:33
Speaker 2: But yeah, like you don't get to take them.

00:14:35
Speaker 3: With you, you know, like you got kind of use them, especially when the game is on the line. So it felt like it was a missed opportunity, you know, it felt like it was a missed opportunity two nights ago for the potteris in Fernando in particular and Yeah, people were wondering, and so I think that's what Craig Stammond was.

00:14:52
Speaker 2: Responding to, is is them.

00:14:53
Speaker 3: Trying to feel their way through this, especially when they have had players who didn't stick around like Fernando and Many Machado for the WB.

00:15:00
Speaker 5: Same seeing it for the last two games. What do you feel like you're seeing from the Giants from a standpoint of they're in the same division as the Padres. Obviously the record isn't that much better than the Padres, but you know, early on, what is it that you're seeing from that team lineup or rotation wise.

00:15:21
Speaker 3: I'm seeing a team that looks like it's relieved to be through the first series of the year and all the nonsense that came with Netflix and an off day and then the second day and just like hey, sometimes, as you all know, like sometimes just getting changing atmosphere is you know, it's a it's a comfortable place to be for certain guys. Maybe that's what's going to happen to the Pottery's they're on the way to Boston and Pittsburgh here over their next couple of series.

00:15:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't.

00:15:48
Speaker 3: I mean, I think Beata's pretty good. I think Chapman's always really good. A Damas is pretty good.

00:15:53
Speaker 2: You know.

00:15:53
Speaker 3: I think they have a lineup that that you know, you look at. They have an ace you know, and logan web that you you know, you certainly like. Yeah, I mean I think that they have some guys, especially at the front of the rotation, that you look and think, yeah, that could be pretty good. So yeah, I don't you know, I didn't think they were gonna just completely melt down to start the season, but they got a little bit of pop.

00:16:14
Speaker 2: You know. A Rise isn't hitting.

00:16:16
Speaker 3: Maybe that's one of those WB things that we're always WBC things that we're we're referencing here about the guys that played in that tournament. Not quite you know, hitting the ground running, I guess. But it's an interesting team, you know, always it is good. Do I think it's a team that is obviously going to be better positioned in the West to you know, to to finish second behind the Dodgers. I think that's probably premature, but at least for a game when you look at a lineup and you see guys like Bata and Chapman and a Damis and you know, then there's a rise maybe.

00:16:46
Speaker 2: Batting in the middle of it.

00:16:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it looks like it's it's definitely improved from where it was a year ago.

00:16:52
Speaker 2: I just don't know.

00:16:53
Speaker 3: I don't know enough about this manager. You know, I don't know enough about this manager, and you know, some of the stuff that's been said, I know, social media clipse certainly have made him appear to be completely out of his depth. But you know, maybe that's just social media clips. You know, maybe maybe the you know, maybe the reality isn't isn't as dramatic as it would appear to be on social.

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00:18:11
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00:18:14
Speaker 5: This is the microscope series because Tony Vitello is also under microscope, kind of like Craig is under microscope. Last one that's not under microscope, it doesn't even fit under a telescope is the valuation that the possible sale number that came out was three point five billion dollars. Is this just an unbelievable case of a team saying, you know what, I don't care what other people say about this market. We're gonna build this team to be followed and loved in this city. And then the valuation goes through the roof like it's obviously it's a success if that number even gets close to that number for the San Diego Padres. But seeing it, I felt this way, did you think that number would be that high as what we're hearing right now.

00:19:06
Speaker 3: No, I mean I thought I was starting to talk about what it would be like a two and a half billion, Like, Wow, what an amazing success story. This thing was sold in twenty twelve for eight hundred million dollars and now it's going to get sold for two point five billion.

00:19:19
Speaker 2: That's incredible.

00:19:20
Speaker 3: So to add another billion dollars on top of that and make it the high sale price in Major League Baseball history, I would be lying if I said I was prepared for that for the pod Rays, especially for a team that you know, doesn't have a lockdown television deal or one of these teams that's kind of caught in between from the regional sports network collapses and waiting for Major League Baseball to try to get everything under one roof.

00:19:42
Speaker 2: They're least deal.

00:19:43
Speaker 3: You know, Peco Park doesn't come with the team, They don't own the stadium. So yeah, and it's an incredible thing. And you know what I think it is is I just mentioned forty thousand plus every single game thus far to start season, tickets have been capped here in San Diego. People love this team, and you know, for as much as pottery fans hate the Dodgers and will definitely give me some grief for being on the same show as Max Muncy. But you know, the Dodgers inspired the Pottery's to spend money, and I think that the Pottery spending money has proven to this fan base whether they've had the type of results that are commensurate with the amount of money that's been spent. I think, you know that the Pottery is spending money and not just crying about how the Dodgers are just oh my goodness, what are we supposed to do?

00:20:26
Speaker 2: We can't compete. It's brought out a really good version of the Potterys.

00:20:30
Speaker 3: I think it's been a great example for teams all across Major League Baseball that you can do it in a market like San Diego. So, you know, I think from that standpoint, you know, you can't walk across the street in town without seeing somebody wearing some Potrey gear. I mentioned the ticket prices or you know, it's incredible.

00:20:46
Speaker 2: What it is that's happening.

00:20:48
Speaker 3: Forty thousand plus every single night Pecko Park is making money hand over fist. You know, I think it's been a great success story. I think that should be really the moral of the story here is that the Potterys and Peter Siler infested in this team in a way that a lot of people thought was kind of irresponsible and unsustainable and all these words that were used, and that family is going to walk away with an awful lot more money than I think they would have if they had tried one of these more boring and pragmatic approaches that we see in a lot of other markets around baseball.

00:21:19
Speaker 4: Hey, Darren, imagine when how much of pods are going to be worth after they get a salary cut?

00:21:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean probably, you know, but I mean, ain't having a kids, so they better sell now.

00:21:31
Speaker 2: No, I don't think it will either.

00:21:32
Speaker 3: And you know again, I mean you even like you hear guys like Maddy Machado talking about like, hey, like you know, I mean, why did we turn off the spigot here? Like we were spending a lot of money too, Like we should be still in that kind of game. So, you know, they had a strategy, and they had a general manager and a president of baseball operations who could execute the strategy really well, and he worked hand in glove with the previous owner. I mean, that's the next big question here is whether or not the president of baseball operations is going to be compatible with the next owner, whoever it be, and whatever it is that that might happen. But yeah, I mean I kind of laugh at all this because I do. I think that the Dodgers and the way they spent you know, it inspired the Potterys to do something that you know, they've proven that that they can do and they're going to get rewarded for it. Though it's not you know, it's unsatisfying because you know it comes following the death of a beloved owner here in town. But you know, listen, this is a business, right, It's what we're told over and over and over again. And the San Diego Potters are going to sell for over three billion dollars, like you know, seems like a pretty good deal to me.

00:22:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're putting on a damn show every now. Like you mentioned, I mean, that is a fun experience at the ballpark. It's a packed experience at the ballpark. And even if you have forty thousand times one hundred bucks per head, that's four million dollars per night. You do that over eighty games, even that's three hundred I think mid three hundreds mils, so just to give you an idea of how much money you can make just on the ballpark experience alone. And trust me, there're some people spending a lot more than one hundred bucks. So anyway, Darren here the man, thank you so much for joining us. Really good insight always on the padres. Love listening to you and Marty on Friar Territory and everything else you do. Appreciate you, man.

00:23:09
Speaker 2: I appreciate you. Guys. Have a good one.