What the Padres Get

Many baseball fans are gnashing their teeth that the powerful Boston Red Sox snatched away the Padres best young player. While we can debate whether the Padres should have kept him for another season to see if they could again compete, let's for now at least concentrate on what they received. According to reports, they get: Casey Kelly, Anthony Rizzo, Reymond Fuentes and a player to be named later. Here is a run down of these new Padres:

Casey Kelly: Boston's first round draft pick in the 2008 draft, Kelly is the best prospect in the Red Sox system, rated a five start prospect. Kelly is a shortstop who is also a pitcher, more likely the other way around. In his first year in the Red Sox system, he hit more homers than he gave up as a pitcher. He has three pitches that he can throw for strikes with a fastball currently at 89-93. His future appears to be as a pitcher. He pitched at Double A, Portland this past year and he gave up a lot of hits, but his strikeout and walk rates looked good and he was fairly stingy with homers allowed. The hits are a bit of a concern. With the Padres history of developing pitchers, Kelly should be a good major league pitcher. Kelly is 21 and at 6'3" he is a little slighty at 195 pounds.

Anthony Rizzo: Rizzo was not drafted until the 7th Round in 2007, but he is only 21 and has already been named one of the Red Sox best prospects. He bats left and throws left and he's a big kid at six foot, three and 220 pounds. Rizzo has slugged nearly .500 his last two years in the minors with 25 homers and 100 RBI in both seasons. He strikes out a lot and could be a bit more patient at the plate. He bats left and throws left and as a first baseman, he's not going to remind a lot of people of Gonzalez with the glove. Baseball Prospectus rates him as a three star prospect but says he could develop into a top notch power hitter in the majors.

Reymond Fuentes: Fuentes was the best player in Puerto Rico in 2008 and was the Red Sox Number 1 draft pick in 2009. According to BP: "Multiple scouts use the word "explosive" when describing Fuentes. He has fantastic bat speed with a lot of plate coverage, and consistently centers balls on the bat while using all fields. Scouts think he'll develop gap power with double-digit home-run production once his skinny frame fills out. He's a 70 runner on the 20-to-80 scouting scale, which helps him wreak havoc both in center field and on the basepaths." He is raw though and it will take some time to develop into a major league player. In Class A in 2010, Fuentes put up the following slash line: .270/.328/.377. Not overly exciting numbers, but he did steal 42 bases. His strikeouts weren't too bad, but he wasn't very patient at the plate. But he's only 19 years old and has his future in front of him.

The old player to be named later: You know how that goes...

Again, we could spend this time debating if the Padres should have or should not have traded Adrian Gonzalez. Personally, this Fan thinks it's a sad development. But the Padres got what are considered three of the top six prospects in the Red Sox system including two former Number 1 picks. It would have been nicer if the Padres could have gotten talent they could use right now. Prospects are always a fighting against the odds proposition. But if all develop the way the scouts and the experts predict, the Padres got a haul. It's just too bad they had to lose such a class act and local hero.