I don't write this lightly. For a long time, I have been a vehement defender of the FO. I have been especially committed to Sandy Alderson's approach of trying to build a winning team by assembling under-rated parts with under-appreciated abilities. But as events have unfolded since about August 2008, I have now come to question whether or not Alderson is hurting the San Diego Padres.

From strictly a baseball perspective, I think the guy has a track record that speaks for itself. He came on in 2005 and the Padres instantly won the West two straight seasons and narrowly missed a third. He's had demonstrable success in Oakland and the Padres enjoyed three of their four best seasons under his watch.

Unfortunately, Alderson is no longer just making baseball decisions. Somehow he's become the face of the FO, and it's his interactions with both the public and the players that have forced me to question Alderson's net impact on the team. Follow me below the fold for the rest of my reasoning.

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So the UT today has an extremely long article today that is supposedly about our young hitters but is really a primer for the Padres offseason. KT went through most of the lineup and gave his thoughts.

http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2008/oct/03/padres-1s5padres21488/?padres

Anyone else find some of these nuggests interesting? Obviously I'm interested in the fact that the team's not really sure what to do about Khalil, but the idea of possibly trading Jody Gerut seems completely stupid to me. Thoughts?

I cross-posted this at Ducksnorts this morning, and there's a healthy discussion going on over there. However, I know that our two blog communities think a little differently, and I wanted to get the GLB opinion on this matter.

This is something I’ve been thinking a lot about recently, but how do we make this team better?

Our OF seems to be set. The Headley/Hairston/Gerut/Giles combination seems to be functioning well and all indicators at this juncture point to us keeping Giles next year. Unless someone offers Gerut stupid money, I can’t imagine not keeping that group together for next year.

Our weakest batting positions at this point are SS and C, two spots that are notoriously hard to fill and are notoriously light-hitting. I don’t think anyone would argue that Khalil and Bard aren’t having atrocious seasons, but are these just bad years or are they indicative of their true talent levels (as opposed to their track records as Padres)? But really, outside of these two positions, how do we upgrade the team?

Which brings us to pitching. I really, truly, honestly believe that our bullpen in particular and our pitching staff in general has killed this season for us. I firmly beleive that if our pitching staff were performing more like last year’s iteration that we’d be right in the thick of things.

It’s just interesting how little attention our pitching seems to get from “the experts.” Everyone points to Khalil and our catchers as our problems, but in reality, our pitching has killed us more than anything else.

What do you guys think? How do we fix this team?

So with both the season and current series tied (4-4) and (2-2) respectively, we go for our 7th win on this homestand.

Unlike previously reported, Martin is starting for the Dodgers. That is unfortunate. Some guy that won some award last year is pitching for us after taking a month off.

 And if the powers that be already have one of these up, then I apologize. And yes, this paragraph is designed solely to meet the word limit.

Now I now this is a familiar refrain from me at this point, but Sports Illustrated decided to pile-on and kick the crap  out of the Padres for their lack of drafting success over the past 15 years.

Now, a couple of points:

Today, the Padres are among the worst teams in baseball. There are a myriad of reasons why -- their reluctance to sign high-priced free agents, their dependence on bargain-basement veterans, and their blatant disregard for offense, to name a few.

This is so mind-numbingly stupid that I don't know where to begin. Our record sucks, but we're not among the worst teams in baseball. We missed the playoffs by one strike last year and have posted four winning seasons in a row. I understand that he tries to qualify this ass-hattery by saying "today," but then he proceeds to go through and repeat the same stupid crap that the national press constantly gets wrong about our team. We're not against signing high-priced FAs so long as it's not a stupid move. We extended Jake at a very high price. We don't "depend" on bargain-basement veterans. The only such "bargain-basement" guy was Edmonds and he's been cut. Not really fair to call Giles this, as we've had him for a while. "Blatant disregard for offense" is also stupid, as we play in a ridiculous pitchers park and our offense was really not that bad last year (as GY has pointed out multiple times over the past year).

It is not as though the Padres always pick late in the first round, either. In the past 14 years, they have picked first, second, third and fourth. Each of those bonus babies went bust.

This statement is purposefully confusing, as it makes it seem that we've had these low picks fairly recently. Directly before the quote I pasted, the author comments that we've had four hurt pitchers in a row. Again, this is all done as if to suggest that we've wasted four low picks on hurt pitchers. It's dishonest writing, and it's done on purpose to try to futher the author's point.

Our author then profiles these picks. He tries to mea culpa by saying he's from San Diego and thus he KNOWS his Padres, but here's the kind of stupid crap he writes anyway:

Sean Burroughs, third baseman: Drafted ninth out of Wilson High School (Ca.) in 1998, Burroughs was a former star of the Little League World Series. In five major-league seasons, he was a solid singles hitter, but he managed just 11 home runs.

Burroughs was pretty widely considered a hot propsect and many thought he would develop as a pretty damn good third-basemen. Just because it didn't happen doesn't mean the Padres made some egregious error in drafting him.

Khalil Greene, shortstop: Drafted 13th out of Clemson University in 2002, Greene was the third shortstop taken by the Padres in the first round in six years. Finally, they got the right one. Greene won the National League Rookie of the Year Award in 2004, is among the best defensive infielders in baseball, and belted 27 home runs last season.

I love Khalil more than anyone else here, and even I wouldn't try to pretend that he won the NL ROY in 2004. That was actually Jason Bay, Mr. Jenkins. Greeney won the honor from Baseball America, which sadly, does not mean anything.

Matt Bush, shortstop: Drafted first out of Mission Bay High School (Ca.) in 2004, Bush never advanced beyond Class A. He was converted into a pitcher early last season, but he tore a ligament in his elbow and is still recovering from Tommy John surgery.

Bush was considered a top-ten talent, and although we shouldn't have popped him 1st, it's not like this was drafting a 15th round talent with the overall pick. Yes, Bush was a bad choice for number one. But it wasn't as bad as everyone consistently tries to make it out to be. It's not like we decided to go with a hobo on the street for this pick. Bush was profiled as top-ten.

Matt Antonelli, infielder: Drafted 17th out of Wake Forest in 2006, Antonelli advanced quickly through the Padres' system and nearly made the major-league team this spring. Instead, he was sent to Class AAA and batted .180 through April and May.

I think it's pretty weak to imply that Anotnelli's hitting .180 in AAA this year somehow makes him a terrible pick. He was progressing well and has since stalled. How many other 2006 draft picks are struggling in AAA? We don't know, since Jenkins doesn't tell us, but the implication is that Antonelli was not a great pick.

At the end, Jenkins tries to recover and say that despite all of these "horrible" picks, the Padres have been pretty damn good recently. Which begs the question: Why write this article in the first place?

Was there really nothing better to do with your column space, Mr. Jenkins? How about the phenomenal season Adrian Gonzalez is putting together, despite being mired in a weak lineup and playing half of his games in a place that saps power? Or maybe an article on the weird things that have happened to this team this year?

But no. Mr. Jenkins and Sports Illustrated decide to take the easy route and pile-on with an article ripe with dubious logic and outright factual errors. Go SI!

Unlike most of you, I didn't have the luxury of suffering through another frustrating week of Padres baseball. Mercifully, the only baseball-related information I was able to acquire on my cruise amounted to a quick score (not even a box or a line with it).

So we're 12-20, the worst team in baseball. There's got to be a reason for this, right? Everyone looks at the Front Office and blames them for not building a good team. But let me tell you something.

It is not the Front Office's fault that we have the worst record in baseball.

Read that again.

It is not the Front Office's fault that we have the worst record in baseball.

Here are my reasons:

1. For the most part, we are the same team we were last year. We have effectively only replaced two position players, Cameron and Giles. While Edmonds is an obvious step back, Iguchi should be a step forward. Our rotation only has one change (and Wolf > Wells), while our bullpen has only seen a few new faces. The core group of guys remains the same. There is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY the Front Office could predict that the team would fail to play up to their career averages. Bard has been terrible. Khalil has no power. Giles can't get on-base to save his life. Hairston was apparently nothing more than a fluke. Thatcher appears to be a fluke as well. Hoffman has struggled. K-Cam is getting lit up worse than TTG on Cinco de Mayo.
2. The starting rotation. It's been nails. Germano has been a question mark, but he's our fifth starter. CY seems to finally be getting back in stride and Peavy and Maddux have been more of the same from last year. Wolf has dazzled.
3. Bud Black is an idiot. Some would say that the Front Office should be responsible for this, but Black didn't look quite so ineffective last year. Sure, he made a few questionnable moves, but for the most part, it was a brilliant rookie campaign. This year has been quite different. He's using the wrong people at the wrong times. He's not even using half the people on his roster. Just as they shouldn't be blamed for not predicting the utter collapse of the team, the Front Office cannot be blamed for failing to predict that Black would stop adhering to logic and reason.

There is one thing the Front Office is culpable for. The farm system is currently not in a place where we can recover from a disastrous start. Whereas other teams have players they can patch in when their players struggle, we have nothing. We're about another year out from any meaningful production from our farm guys, and to the team's credit, they've done their best to remedy this. The farm system is better than it's been, but the horrible management of the system from 2000 through 2004 has left us severely crippled right now.

But as we sit here broken hearted, lets make sure we target the right people with our criticism. The Front Office COULD HAVE NEVER predicted that the team would stop playing to it's average production. They cannot be held responsible for the utter failure of the (mostly) same personnel that excelled last year. The players have played like shit Rally Backs, and our manager seems like he's letting the tidal forces of the moon influence the majority of his decisions. This team sucks right now, but it's the team's fault. There are things that Kevin Towers, Sandy Alderson, et. al could have done better, but they don't play the games on the field.

In short, blame Canada.