The Padres' "Fiendish Plan"

My friend Marcus has apparently been spying on Padres GM Kevin Towers. Not that Kevin Towers is the GM of the Padres. I think he's the GM of the Diamondbacks now. But if I don't know the name of a GM, I just assume it's Kevin Towers.

Anyway, Marcus has been spying on him when he's not in law school (Marcus, not Kevin Towers. Kevin Towers is not in law school. He's the GM of a major league team, maybe two). This morning, Marcus filed the following report:

The Padres have discovered that the less intimidating their lineup is, the more it messes with the Giants' heads. They came pretty close last year. They had an awful lineup and they dominated us, but they didn't dominate us completely. This lack of complete domination was of course due to the presence of Gonzales and to a lesser extent Tejada (yeah he was one of the more intimidating figures in their lineup). Now with these two guys gone, the Giants should expect to get swept every time they meet the Pads next season. Well, maybe the Giants win one game, but only because the Pads will have Ludwick batting cleanup.

Yeah, my initial reaction to the Adrian Gonzalez to the Red Sox for prospects trade is that the Padres will be a force to be reckoned with in 2016. But maybe not 2011. You know what's weird? I almost wrote 2012 instead of 2016 thinking of 2012 as some futuristic year. 2012 is like 5 days from now. I feel so old.

So does this mean our biggest competitor is a non-factor next year? I'm going to go out on a big limb here: Probably. Maybe yeah. I think so, sure.

No, actually I think yes, this means that the Padres are going to be a non-factor. Throw in the inevitable Heath Bell for prospects trade and the inevitable Mike Adams being tractor-beamed back to his home planet transaction, and you've got a shell of the team that still didn't win the NL West last year.

The Diamondbacks aren't going to contend either. Wait, did they replace their entire bullpen, half their lineup and did they clean that pool in right field? Did Brandon Webb buy a new arm on EBAY? No? Ok, then I stand by what I said. That pool is dirty.

So it's a 3 team race. The Rockies, who resigned Jorge De La Rosa for way too much money and Troy Tulowitzki until the crazy futuristic year of 2020 (which is when fascism will rule England...or was that 1984?) and the Fodgers will be our competition.

This is a positive development. Last year, watching the Dodgers fall apart only to see the Padres do what they did was downright demoralizing. I don't want to deal with that again. I don't want to deal with anything difficult, in fact. Now that we've won a championship the hard way, I want to win one the easy way. One championship in 28 years of life and I'm now spoiled. Anything less than a 10 game lead by the All-Star Break and I'm throwing things at the TV and calling for Bochy to be fired and replaced by a proven winner like Ken Macha or Kevin Towers.