Noted thin-skinned failure Wayne Partello has made “controlling the message” the hallmark of his career with the Padres. In most cases, he’s drastically overestimated his power in getting local media to fall in line, while at the same time doing everything possible to alienate the local blogger and podcasting community. He has banked on the idea that local radio and media needs the Padres more than the Padres need them, but he didn’t count on his oversight of team marketing coinciding with one of the worst and most disappointing stretches of Padres baseball. His strategy most failed when he attempted to hike the radio rights package, thinking 1090 needed the Padres. 1090, realizing what a money loser the Padres are, walked away, and Partello’s old mentor Mike Dee (let’s not forget when Kevin Acee called Partello a “sycophant” to Mike Dee), noted incompetent blunderer, bought the rights anyways starting a butterfly effect leading to local irrelevance and massive national embarrassment. A fun example of how Partello tries to get radio stations to bend to his wishes came up in the month ahead of Fire Mike Dee in 2016. I was going to buy small amounts of radio advertising leading up to and on Fire Mike Day on 1090, thinking it would be a nice magnifier of what we were doing that 1090 hosts would likely replay during their shows that day. I told some people about it at a Fox Sports San Diego event and someone blabbed to Dee and Partello about it [I know who it was]. Partello wrote a lengthy email to 1090 demanding they not sell me advertising because I was just a disgruntled fan angry about not going to Padres Social events where I could load up on free Miller Lites. This is silly on one hand since I fairly regularly go to the Lexus Dugout Club on my own dime and travel internationally and domestically to watch away games sitting in the best seats, and on the other hand, who really wants to go to Padres Social events? Partello put his futile and desperate attempts to keep controlling the message over potential as revenue for their partners (who he treated as a subordinate). This is a great example of Partello’s belief that he’s a kingmaker wielding incredible power when in fact he’s firing off a peashooter. The Padres are now facing a situation where, yes, they have a complicit lap dog in Kevin Acee doing beat “reporting” for the largely unimportant and irrelevant Union Tribune, but are concurrently being assaulted from all sides by new media and local radio. There have been small victories in the war against “control the message”, [patting own back] Fire Mike Dee Day being a good example. But this week, we saw firebrand Scott Kaplan begin to point his guns at Partello and the Padres, leading a full assault against the Padres apparent regression and overemphasis on selling tickets to the local premium food court instead of offering a quality baseball experience. Kaplan is no savior here, he’s actually got a long track record of being an offensive blowhard. But perhaps no one else in local media has the ability to rile up the natives and actually control the message. Local media and new media have started rehashing points I’ve made for years: that if you are going to rebuild, pricing should reflect the product. Instead, the Padres have used the rebuild period to hike prices and lean on out of town fans and conventioneers for attendance stability. Fowler and Seidler have both given Wayne Partello a public vote of approval in the last year, despite repeated failures and overseeing an endless string of embarrassments. For this team to regain it’s footing in the public and in the media, there is going to need to be concrete change in the way this team tries to message and tries to sell to its fans, because what they’ve done for the entirety of the Partello Reign of Terror just isn’t working.
Days Since Marver Has Actually Written Something: 328 days
I can only assume Marver is too busy to write while being out and about enjoying the fine dining options in suburban Delaware like Ruby Tuesday’s, Chili’s, and Romano’s Macaroni Grill.
Gwynntelligence Posts:
Gwynntelligence Podcast with Billy Lybarger: It was an HONOR to record with Billy on location in Monterrey. I should have the Monterrey recap post up this week as well.
Padres Blogosphere Posts:
Gaslamp Ball: Was Andy Green’s Hook Too Quick: @Zippy_TMS, who is seemingly everywhere these days, wrote a great discussion of the time Andy Green pulled Lucchesi out of an outing after throwing 69 [cough] [choking] [brow begins sweating] [clenching buttocks] NIIIIIIIIIIIIICE.gif OK, I got it out of my system. So after 69 pitches, Green pulled Lucchesi, a pitcher who has no need to be stretched out and has thrown nearly 300 innings in the last two seasons. Roy does a great job of breaking down the possible reasons for and against it. Unfortunately, I think GLB {and the Padres blogging community in general} has gotten away from reaction/analysis pieces like this, so this was very welcome to me.
Fangraphs: Padres Prospect Cal Quantrill On His Repertoire: If there’s one thing you can say about Cal Quantrill, it’s that he appears to be supremely confident in himself. I did find it interesting that Quantrill has scrapped his curveball and is now working a three pitch mix going forward. He looks OK so far in AA, although it will be interesting to see if he can resemble a top 10 draft pick going forward.
The Golden Age Of Padres Podcasts:’
Gwynntelligence Podcast with Billy Lybarger: Like I said, it was a really good podcast. Billy was dynamite on this one.
The Kept Faith – Working The Count and Hells Belles: The running theme of this week’s TWIPT is that Roy and Angela are EVERYWHERE this week. Travis and Nick welcomed on Angela, Roy and Liddy to chat all things Padres. If we have a gun to our head and have to pick one, count me in as the founder of #TeamLiddy.
Working the Count – Episode 5: Angela and Roy break down how awful the pitching has been and how destructive injuries have been. Angela also goes to bat to defend Andy Green’s honor. Disclaimer: this rant is not meant as an attack on her. Andy Green was a hot topic this week in the media and on Padres Twitter. The most common defense (and I’d argue simple defense) is to fall back on “well what do you expect, look at his roster!” And that’s true! But most educated criticisms of Green aren’t “BUT THEY HAVE A LOSING RECORD!” There are a lot more nuanced arguments against what Green has done here: an inability to develop top prospects at the Major League level, inconsistencies on the leash he gives players, terrible lineup constructions, an insistence on hitting goddamned Jose Pirela 3rd or 4th every game, questionable in-game decisions, an inability to stand up for his players, etc. These are all issues that won’t just get better when he has better players. Once the big prospects get up here, there is a narrow window to actually do something with them. And to just say well let’s give him three more years and see how he does then is risking that window. If there are ANY doubts that Green is the guy once Tatis and Urias and Morejon are hitting their strides in 2021 or whenever, better to figure that out and remedy it now than later. Now, I’m not saying fire Green. But for the sake of the rebuild, EVERY fan should be looking at his decision making and ability to get the most out of his young players with a critical eye. They are going to need more than a manager that can talk really fast with really shifty eyes during press conferences. I once put it out on Twitter asking “What is Andy Green actually good at?” and no one could actually think of something. Even his shifts were dead last in runs saved last season, and this season the Padres are dead last in number of shifts used.
Hells Belles – Depression is Alive and Well Folks!: Liddy and Angela sit and listen to Roy’s dog eat while recording. Liddy also discusses her coping process after breaking up with Carlos “Eyebrows” Asuaje. And can we talk about how awful Asuaje is? REALLY AWFUL. I mean, not at Fortnight, he’s really good at that. But hitting a baseball, not so great. Liddy also spits some fire about prospects needing to show something in the Big Leagues before we spew all over ourselves.
5.5 Podcast – Current Problems Future Solutions And Marcus Pond From Madfriars: The team on the field has been abjectly terrible, but the real winner of the 2018 season has been Madfriars who is seemingly everywhere (I mean, not as much as Angela and Roy but still!). Marcus provides a great breakdown of the Padres minor leagues, and Danny goes to bat to blindly defend the honor of Andy Green (this is also a common theme!). Also, lot’s of adult baseball league chat! Buckle up!
Make The Padres Great Again – Finding Positivity In A Turbulent Padres World: John continues his quest to become the #1 cynic of the Padres podcasting community and I LOVE IT. Let me first say that being called a cynic isn’t a bad thing. Questioning processes, questioning results is the best method of obtaining greater success for organizations, this applies to any organization. Anything else leads to groupthink and complicity. Craig acts as a nice foil with his purist “rebuild is everything” philosophy, which is of course inconsistent with his defense of the Galvis for De Los Santos trade on the grounds of short term enjoyment of a “competent” shortstop while ignoring that he’s been worse than Aybar and Barmes [WARNING: don’t look at Enyel De Los Santo’s stats this season! Here’s a link!” Also Craig, use me as the fill-in host for MTPGA [winks].
East Village Times – Patrick and James: James and Patrick did the best job of breaking down the Franmil Reyes surge the past couple of weeks. Franmil has certainly been exciting while crushing balls in the best launching pads of AAA, but let’s not go jacking each other off quite yet. Reyes was left unprotected by the Padres in the Rule V draft his season, and every team in baseball passed on him multiple times even though there was a fair argument for parking him on their DL after hamate surgery. At the same time, Patrick did a great job tearing apart arguments seen from local old media sources that the Padres should try to bring in Adam Jones. Patrick broke down that Jones is not only playing a position that the team has a logjam at, he’s not actually good anymore (James inexplicably decided to defend that Jones could regain his All-Star stature). Signing Jones would be akin to signing Jayson Werth at the end of his questionable Nationals contract. Enough with going after players because they’re from here; it’s bush league and it’s how we wound up having to watch scrubs like Sean O’Sullivan.
Darren Smith – Kevin Acee: Darren had on Acee after the Mexico Series. While I could nitpick about his open prediction that Bryan Mitchell would be released [Narrator: He wasn’t], I was most appalled that Acee chose not to leave the hotel and see the city on a trip designed to create cultural experiences. He also noted that the white players (or as Acee described them, “guys who would profile more like you” chose not to venture far from their rooms at the Quinta Real. Sad!
Tweet Of The Week:
And the Jaggy goes to…
Can we all agree to just kill #HotTalentLava as a phrase? I think it’s run its course.
Terrible Marver Tweet Of The Week:
Marver has a lot of bad takes in general, but his food takes are arguably his worst. Living in a desolate culinary wasteland like Delaware, his taste buds have normalized slop from Ruby Tuesdays, Romano’s Macaroni Grill, and Olive Garden as OK food. Even when he ventures into the BIG CITY of Philadelphia, it’s a city best known for producing sandwiches with Steak-umms with Cheez Whiz on it. What’s abundantly clear is Marver hasn’t eaten good pizza where the crust is a feature, not a bug.
Nick Canepa Is An Irrelevant Out Of Touch Old Timer Or Possibly Doing A Bit:
Irrelevant baseball take grounded in ignorance and closed mindedness? Check! Dated and irrelevant music reference to back up ignorant and closed minded baseball take? CHECK!
Dunking on Acee Of The Week:
We’ve done plenty of coverage of just how awful Acee is. Not only does he have a history of cozying up too much with teams he’s covering by providing free content and appearances to team owned and produced shows on Chargers.com, he’s a really terrible writer, doesn’t proofread his work, and is a gigantic dickhead to anyone that dares to question him, THE REAL JOURNALIST. I’m pleased to unveil a new feature here on This Week On Padres Twitter. Dunking on Acee Of The Week will feature the best tweets from Padres Twitter that took a steamy dump on Acee’s head. Enjoy!
Analysis: Acee Sucks
Gwynntelligence 