Can someone start talking about the Pink Elephant in the room please?  The Padres Organization is being devalued for the divorce.

 

The Padres Organization is the largest asset in the Moores family.  John Moores bought the Padres for $94M in 1995.  Forbes magazine valued the club at $367M in April, 2007 and at $385M in 2008.  It also indicated that we have 0 financial problems and that the front office is basically blowing smoke up our buts in regards to being able to sign legit players with real salaries.  The only reason our value has gone up this year is because of our investments in the Dominican Republic(Good Thing BTW).

 

 

In order to balance this planned increase in value, it is our opinion that the Padres intentionally put together a sub-par team with an extremely low payroll for this year.  Most of our key pieces are signed to long term deals, but the organization was unwilling to take on on players that would add value to the organization, hence the Edmonds, McAnulty, Hairston, Gerut, Huber experiment.  It is the only plausible explanation for the perceived hubris and lack of knowledge that The Padres Organization has displayed over the course of 2008.  Talking to the Dodgers about dealing Maddux and getting rid of Randy Wolf before he started making his bonus money are pretty decent indicators that offloading financial obligations is very important to The Padres Organization right now.

 

 

There are two plausible explanations…

 

1.    Two Harvard guys(Alderson & DePodesta) who are considered to be some of the best baseball minds around… completely and totally misjudged player talents and abilities so badly that it took a competitive team over the past 4 years to a team capable of losing more than 100 games in 2008.

 

2.     Two Harvard Guys(Same Two) and Moores(An Extremely Intelligent Businessman) planned to put a sub-par team on the field so it could be broken down, devalued, and sold for scrap in order to devalue it for the divorce proceedings.

 

Either explanation should lead to the firing of these guys and the ousting of John Moores.

 

What’s worse…

 

Harvard accountants running our team in to the ground because they obviously don’t know baseball?

 

or

 

Harvard accountants conspiring with the owner to devalue the team?

 

Do you really think they didn’t know how badly our team would do this year?  LOL

 

Forbes Ranks Friars 19th In ’08 Value

 

Forbes Magazine’s 2008 edition of SportsMoney Baseball has ranked John Moores’ Padres as the 19th most valuable club in Major League Baseball at $385M (out of 30). This represents an 11% increase over last year’s valuation and has the Friars increasing in value 22% more than average club during that period. That puts Moores ahead nearly threefold on paper in real dollars, as he paid $94M for the club in 1994 ($131.5M in 2008 dollars). The magazine supports the frequent Friar explanation that stadium debt service is handcuffing the team while also noting an increase in money for signing draftees and building the new complex in the Dominican Republic. The Padres reportedly posted $23.6M in operating profit (before taxes, interest, depreciation, and amortization) against $167M in revenue. Positively, Forbes has slotted the Padres in a respectable 7th place in their “Payroll vs. Performance” ranking. Other NL West teams scored as follows (team: value, payroll v. performance):

 

* Arizona: 20th, 9th

 

 

* Colorado: 21st, 2nd

 

 

* Los Angeles: 4th, 28th

 

 

* San Fransisco: 8th, 27th

 

We’ll likely hear this debt service argument come up again this season as the trade deadline approaches (or if one of the club’s aging outfielders goes down). In an interesting note, Forbes didn’t mention the club’s TV revenues as a problem, though this has been sited in the past by the front office. It’s a good thing that Kevin Tower’s status as a “sludge merchant” has been upheld by the magazine’s ranking of the Padres as the 7th best at payroll vs. performance.

 

The Padres are mired in the worst season in recent history and are currently on pace to lose 100 games or more.  The Padres have no direction, no ability to recognize or sign talent, and have been progressively getting worse since John Moores appointed Sandy Alderson to President of Baseball operations 3 years ago.

 

With any luck, Becky will get The Padres in the divorce and hire us as CEO’s of Baseball Operations.