Mo'moneyball

So I've been waiting months to blast San Diego Padres GM Kevin Towers for the acquisition of Jeff Cirillo, a guy who's set to make around $14 million over the next two years to act as a late-inning substitution and occasionally spell Sean Burroughs at 3rd base. I'm sure Cirillo's a nice guy and all that, but that's an awful lot of money for a utility player with diminishing talent; The Seattle Mariners were so desperate to unload the guy that they bundled him with a pretty decent pitching prospect for a pile of rusty parts just to wash their hands of the entire affair. Still, Cirillo's contract isn't a mistake on the order of, say, the ridiculous multi-year deals Chan Ho Park or Darren Dreifort got during that same period of hyper-inflation. And what's weird about the Cirillo deal is that it wasn't a bad deal for the Padres at all. Smart, even, as a bait-cutting tactic -- trade three useless guys for one useless guy and consolidate. Observe:

Padres got:
Jeff Cirillo ($6.6 million '04, $7.1 million '05)
$4,775,000

Mariners got:
Kevin Jarvis ($4.25 million '04) [placed on waivers for purpose of unconditional release 4/27/04]
Wiki Gonzalez ($1.2 million '04, $2.25 million '05)
Dave Hansen ($750,000 '04)

The money works out almost perfectly even here, since Towers managed to prod the Ms to include cash in the deal to make up the difference between Cirillo and Gonzalez's 2005 salaries. I doubt the Padres will be able to unload Cirillo on another team without taking a hit (Towers is crossing his fingers, hoping for an unlikely return to his pre-Mariners form), but even if they can get away with only being responsible for, say, half of his salary, it's a big plus.

Money -- to quote my main man Jay-Z -- is going to be a gift and a curse for the Padres. Between exchanging Mark Kotsay for All-Sar catcher Ramon Hernandez and disgruntled OF Terrence Long, adding some guy named Brian Giles and committing $7 million to free agents Jay Payton and David Wells, the team's payroll has increased by $12 million dollars this year, or around 19% over last year's final numbers. As recently as 1998, the Padres were in the MLB top 10 for dollars spent. Last year, San Diego ranked 25th. This year, they've shot up to 18th. Is the team good enough to take the NL West? At this writing, they've just edged into first place and have the highest runs scored / runs allowed differential in what's shaping up to be a weak division. I just don't like how this team projects beyond 2005, though, and the long-term development of folks like Xavier Nady, Tagg Bozeid, Josh Barfield et al will undoubtedly be stunted. That beautiful new stadium ain't paying for itself, though.