Progress Report: Kemp/Grandal Trade

[Villain]

These custom tables actually have 4 players in them, two from each team. Unfortunately, one of them compiled all of zero plate appearances in the bigs this year - Tim Federowicz.





For your convenience, the corresponding reaction threads:

MLB Forum: Matt Kemp traded | SportsHoopla Sports Forums

Dodgers Forum: Matt Kemp TRADED to the Padres | SportsHoopla Sports Forums

Padres Forum: San Diego Padres Making Moves! | SportsHoopla Sports Forums

My favorite post:

The Kemp deal is complete & I like it. The Pads send Grandal coming off an injury & suspension for Peds, LHP Joe Wieland who's coming off Tommy John surgery & a good prospect in Pitcher Zach Efflin a former 1st round pick. The only player the Pads give up that might come back to bite thm is Efflin & he had a 3.80 ERA at Lake Elsinore (High A ball) last season.

The Padres also get catcher Fedorowicsz in the deal. Plus the Dodgers are adding 30 to 32 million. San Diego will have Kemp for 5 years at 15M per season. They didn't have to give up Tyson Ross or top pitching prospect Matt Wisler in the deal either.

A good move by A.J. Preller.

 

[Bolts]

I didn't totally hate the trade at first because I thought Kemp still had some strong years left despite his defense being....not good, and Grandal had dealt with injuries and suspensions. I'm not gonna even say that if this trade didn't go down that Grandal would be having an AS quality season for SD, I didn't trust he would breakout even though it was possible. Now obviously it looks worse with what Grandal has done along with the money the Padres have to pay for Kemp's salary. I'm happy the GM wanted to make the team competitive, but the team he put together had way too many flaws and the farm system got destroyed in the process. To make matters worse he kept all the FA's at the trade deadline because he might have thought the team still had a chance to get into the postseason . The Padres are even further from contending now than they were when they had a historically bad offense in 2014, but I guess as a fan for so long I shouldn't be surprised.

 

[Villain]

At the very worst, at the time of the trade I thought that it might have growing pains in the first year. At least in terms of being sold to the casual Dodger fan as a good move. With the chance that Pederson could be an all-glove/iffy-bat rookie in CF, Grandal being better offensively than AJ Ellis but maybe not apples-to-apples better than Kemp, and Wieland not working out. I figured Kemp could parlay off the strong end to last season, be another offseason removed from injury, and therefore still have one upper-echelon season left in his bat. That obviously isn't what happened.

Kemp has looked better recently, but over the course of the season his numbers - even offensively - don't compare to favorably to either player. Even taking my rosiest possible slants with regards to Grandal's breakout potential and Pederson's hitting abilities, I didn't except both of them to each have a superior wOBA than a healthy Kemp.

Kemp looks only to be on track for further decline while Grandal still looks like he can get even better - and that's just in terms of his hitting ability. Grandal has been everything he was positively advertised to be behind the plate (great pitch-framing, solid defense) and nothing he was negatively advertised to be (poor game-caller and a guy that the Padres pitchers didn't want to throw to).

I mean, seriously, how can it be that the Padres staff couldn't stand pitching to Grandal, but Zack Greinke (of all people) raves about pitching to him. What's up with that?

 

[Bolts]

The one thing I was worried about with Kemp was him getting hurt and missing time, yet he's played in 138 games. He's been really good-great 4 months and horrible 2 months(May and June). His OPS in May was .437 and .726 in June, which compared to May is f---ing fantastic. Every other month it's been over .830 and since the ASB it's .945. I knew he was more of a 2nd half player but didn't expect him to be that bad for 2 months.

The Dodgers had to move an OF or 2 to give Joc time and it was obvious he had power and was a great defender. Looked great his first half and has fallen off big time since, kinda the opposite of what Kemp has done but with elite defense.

 

[Villain]

Grandal just went oppo for his first right-handed home run as a Dodger.

#DodgersWonTheTrade

 

[tducey]

Yeah, Kemp's had a good year but like the whole Padres team it's been a disappointing season.