Should the Padres Trade Adrian Gonzalez?

Prior to the 2006 baseball season, the Padres made one of the most lopsided trades in recent baseball history by sending veteran starting pitcher Adam Eaton and relief pitcher Akinori Otsuka to the Texas Rangers for pitcher Chris Young, a young OF named Termel Sledge, and a young first baseman named Adrian Gonzalez, who was viewed by some as an underachiever after being a #1 overall draft pick by the Florida Marlins a few years before.

A native of San Diego, "AGone" quickly established himself as a young star on the team, and has made steady improvement since. The local kid made good is a player local fans can easily identify with. He is not only the statistical leader of the team, but the focus of fan interest in the team during tough economic times, which have forced the team to dump most of it's star veterans. Playing in the toughest park for hitters in all of baseball, Gonzalez has steadily increased his HR total from 24 in 2006 to 30 in 2007 to 36 in 2008 to 40 in 2009, all from a hitter who's rap before the trade was that he would never hit for enough power to be an impact first baseman.

At this point, the Padres are clearly in a rebuilding mode. They are under new ownership who may have more capital than the previous owner, but is working hard to dump any large contracts for veteran players. The only thing seemingly keeping AGone around is that he is signed to a very inexpensive contract for two more seasons. So why have the Adrian Gonzalez trade rumors been flying this offseason? The most specific one had Gonzalez going to Boston for Clay Buchholz, Jacoby Ellsbury and a prospect or two. Many baseball commentators have opined that the Pads should trade Gonzalez either this winter or at the trade deadline next season.

The rationale for trading Adrian Gonzalez is as follows:

1. The Padres will not be a good team until after Gonzalez becomes a free agent in two years.
2. Gonzalez' value in free agency will be far more than the Padres will be willing or able to spend.
3. Gonzalez will have more value to another team now than closer to free agency, because the team that trades for him will get two inexpensive years of service from him.
4. It is better to leverage Gonzalez' value into multiple talented players who will be affordable for longer thus speeding up the day when the Padres will be competitive again.

Models for this type of move would include the haul Texas got for Mark Teixeira a couple of years ago. The additions of Jarrod Saltalamachia, Elvis Andrus and Neftali Feliz to an already strong farm system put Texas into a position where many analysts think they will be a powerhouse in 2-3 years. In Oakland, Billy Beane has made a whole series of trades to try to get as many young, affordable stars on the team at the same time for a critical mass that he hopes will win a championship or two. Not many teams who try to build through their farm system have won championships in the last decade or two. The last team to make an extended run like that was the Yankees of the late 1990's, and they were generously supplemented via the free agent market. The closest a team has come to building a team exclusively from the farm system is the Tampa Bay Rays in 2008 who fell just short in the World Series.

A big part of the problem for teams that want to win by developing prospects, is that players remain inexpensive for only a short period of time. By the time the last pieces are in place, the first wave of prospects is ready to hit free agency and goes off to sign with a big market team. Tampa Bay is finding this out. They slipped back a bit in 2009. Now Carl Crawford and BJ Upton are nearing free agency. Do they try to sign those guys long term and risk losing the ability to sign and keep other players, or do they try to leverage Crawford and Upton into an even bigger wave that crests a couple of years later? What if some of the young players don't work out, and the wave never crests?

The problem with trading Adrian Gonzalez is the stupendous enormity of his production. It is highly unlikely that, no matter how many highly ranked prospects the Padres get in return, their combined production will match, let alone exceed, AGone's. You see, Petco Park is the most fearsome ballpark for hitters in all of baseball, and it's really not very close. Even Barry Bonds couldn't hit there with any consistency! Last year, Adrian Gonzalez hit 40 HR's while playing half of his games in Petco, and another 9 games in Dodger Stadium, no shrinking violet of a pitcher's park itself. How much of a factor is Petco? Well, if 1000 HR's were hit in a average baseball stadium, only 721 would be hit in Petco, while approximately 1261 would be hit in Yankee Stadium. Last year, AGone hit 12 HR's in Petco Park and 28 on the road, pretty much in line with those park factors. Had he played in an average ballpark, he likely would have hit at least 50 HR's! Playing for the Yankees, who knows?

If the Padres are ever going to have a winning team, at some point they are going to have to increase their payroll. If they can't do that, then they need to find a richer owner to sell the team to. Assuming that the new Padre ownership can and will eventually increase payroll, then Adrian Gonzalez is a player well worth investing a large percentage of the payroll in, a true Franchise Player. It will be costly, most likely upwards of 6 years at $20 M/year, but worth it in terms of production and fan identification with the player and team.

In summary, rather than trading Adrian Gonzalez, the Padres should make every effort to sign him to a long term contract extension and then build the team around him. If at some point, they become convinced that they cannot sign him long term, and are destined to lose him to free agency, then of course they must try to trade him to a team that can give multiple top talent young players in return, but don't expect that those players will ever make up for the loss of Gonzalez' production. The sooner the Padres make this decision the better off they will be. They can likely get a better contract from Gonzalez if they extend the current deal than if they wait until free agency is looming. Likewise, a team looking to acquire him in trade will likely give up more if they can get in on the last two years of his team friendly contract. The Padres should make every effort to keep him!