For one sparkling all-star season, Fernando Rodney pitched lights out baseball for the Padres. In 28 games, he compiled 17 saves and a minuscule 0.31 earned run average. James Shields, too, had some success in San Diego, going 15-14 with a 4.00 ERA in just over one season. He struck out 273 batters in 269 innings pitched.
But this is not about what those two players did for the San Diego Padres. Rather, it's a story (more like a fairy tale) of what the Padres did with them. Gather 'round kids, and listen to us spin a yarn about what perhaps will go down as the greatest month in the history of this franchise.
Go back with us now in the time machine to June of 2016, roughly three years ago. As the Padres were floundering through yet another lost season, General Manager A.J. Preller thought he'd offer to do something nice for his friends with the Chicago White Sox. They needed a front-line starting pitcher and the Padres had Shields, a former all-star, who at that particular time, was of little use to them.
In exchange, all the Padres asked for in return was a guy named Erik Johnson (the pitcher, not the guitar player) and some 17-year-old kid infielder who was playing a little ball, running around in the Dominican Leagues. Johnson pitched so badly for San Diego, maybe they should have gone for the guitar player -- he was 0-4 with a 9.15 ERA in four starts. The kid, on the other hand, has been cleaned up, dusted off and turned into one of the shiniest jewels in all of a baseball, a number-one ranked prospect named Fernando Tatis, Jr. You may now be quite familiar with the name considering he is starting at shortstop for the Pads and could be on his way to making a run for the National League's Rookie of the Year Award.
Unless that is, Chris Paddack beats him to it.
Which brings us to three weeks later in that same fateful month of June 2016, when the Miami Marlins were in the market for an all-star closer. Again, the Padres happened to have one, and again, Preller was in a giving mood. So he sent Rodney to South Florida in exchange for a tall, gangly 20-year-old Texan, who a month later would be on his way to getting a procedure done on his right arm called Tommy John surgery.
Some kind of deal that was. No, really. Some kind of deal. Because while Rodney finishes out his career, getting bombed most days while pitching currently with the Oakland Athletics, Paddack is quickly turning into one of the best young pitchers in baseball. If his first five starts are any indication, Paddack will be just that: he has a 1.67 ERA and has yet to allow more than three hits in any of his appearances. Just earlier this week, he retired 19-straight Seattle Mariners while pitching one-hit ball over seven spectacular innings.
So, to recap: the Padres gave up James Shields and Fernando Rodney. They received Fernando Tatis, Jr. and Chris Paddack. This is how you go about turning a moribund franchise into a winning one. Preller fleeced two organizations in a three-week span. And the Padres figure to be reaping the rewards for years to come. You can almost picture the day that Tatis Jr. and Paddack are spraying some champagne around a celebratory clubhouse.
If (when) that happens, somebody better go find Preller and dump a little of the bubbly stuff on him. And ask him to tell you a little story about the month of June 2016. The month where he fleeced two teams so badly, he ought to currently be in handcuffs.
The month, that perhaps, will go down as the greatest in Padres' history.
