Kevin Towers made a series of small moves over the last few days, each of which made small but noticeable gains to the Padres. Sounds like he read up on this blog….

The Padres should be commended for their dealings over the last few days. In a close NL West race, they made a series of small moves, each of which noticeably improved the team, and each of which essentially cost nothing. This is a perfect example of executing a “fait accompli” strategy. So the only conclusion is that he is reading my blog. Kevin if you need more help, I am available…

To go back to reality, lets take a look at the key moves:

1. Acquiring Rob Mackowiak for non-roster pitcher Jon Link–Mackowiak is a multi-positional utility guy, someone who is an excellent commodity to have in the late innings in tight games, especially in the playoffs. He has a decent eye, walking in 9% of his plate appearances, and will hit for a decent average. A useful guy to have around, especially with the struggles of the Giles twins. For this chip, they essentially gave up nothing. A guy like Mackowiak shows the difference between the smart teams and the bad ones. The smart teams see his value and use it; the bad teams only see what he can’t do. Just because a guy isn’t great doesn’t mean he isn’t useful.

2. Acquiring Morgan Ensberg–At first glance this move makes little sense. However, Ensberg still has good skills, with a 12% walk rate and a 78% contact rate. He has been very unlucky, with only a 26% hit rate that should normalize. So, he can be a valuable player off the bench, and if he does regress to the mean, even if it is next year, he can be a trade commodity; it was not that long ago that he was a legitimate MVP candidate. Maybe they can catch lightning in a bottle, if he can normalize that hit rate in the short term. Again, since they gave up nothing, this is a good risk.

3. Acquiring Wil Ledezma and Will Startup for Royce Ring–Ring was in the minors at the time, and the Braves soured on Ledezma. Startup is a LOOGY type, and was rated as a grade C by John Sickels, who notes that he has a “funky” delivery. As a throw in he is OK. Ledezma has great stuff and can get the K when needed. But he doesn’t seem at this point to be that much different than Ring. Both walk the whole ballpark, at least this year, and both strikeout a lot of guys. The difference?? Ring is what he is; Ledezma can still get better; he is only 26 and hasn’t yet been pigeonholed as a reliever, unlike Ring who is the same age. Is this a great trade?? No, but it reflects the strategic principle of the dominant strategy; another principle we have discussed here.

I like this deal for the Braves also, by the way. Sometimes a deal really can help both teams.

4. The Linebrink trade–Is there anyone out there who doesn’t think this is a steal?? Well, aside from Trevor Hoffman. I read a few Padres’ blogs, and they all let us know that Trevor was none too pleased at the deal. Oh well, I am sure he will feel better about it when they win the division. We all know about Linebrink’s struggles, don’t we??

Well, they are much worse than people realize. Linebrink has a 24% hit rate and an 80% strand rate, both of which are very fortunate; the norms are 30% and 70%. So, one would expect his ERA to rise; and even if it is next year that these numbers normalize, Linebrink isn’t great right now. His expected ERA is 4.60, a full run worse than his actual ERA. There are probably one hundred guys floating around for free that can do this. He is lucky to only be struggling like he has; it should be much worse.

The package Towers got back was simply too good to pass up. Padres’ fans, aside from Trevor, should be glad that he didn’t pass it up.

Overall Towers again showed that he is a smart and savvy GM, who thinks about strategy and can execute his plan. Since he didn’t have the ability to make a huge deal, he pursued a few smaller, incremental deals, all of which help the team, provide greater flexibility and more importantly cost virtually nothing. The “fait accompli” strategy is a powerful weapon in the hands of a formidable strategist, as Towers has shown.
articleId=’13204′;