Trade Deadline for the Shadow Padres

With the trade deadline looming, it seems like a good time to see if the Padres would be buyers or sellers. There have to be a million ways to figure this out, but for purposes of this exercise, I'm going to keep it simple.

I'm going to look at the WAR my team would have accumulated, and the WAR that the real Padres have accumulated. If I have more wins than they do, I'll add to their win total. If they have more, I'll subject.

That seems like a simply way to determine how many wins my team would have.

Players on both rosters				Players on my roster				Players on their roster
Player	War			Player	War			Player	War
Yonder Alonso	0.7			Yasmani Grandal	1.8			Clint Barmes	0.9
Jed Gyroko	0.0			Jung Ho Kang	2.5			Matt Kemp	0.5
Will Venable	0.4			Jed Lowrie	0.8			Craig Kimbrel	0.0
Ian Kennedy	0.1			Nori Aoki	1.7			Will Middlebrooks	-1
Cory Luebke	-0.1			Jace Peterson	0.5			Will Myers	0.5
Tyson Ross	0.2			Everth Cabrera	-0.8			Derek Norris	1.7
Andrew Cashner	-0.2			Cameron Maybin	0.7			James Shields	0.1
Odrasmer Despagne	-0.1			Jake Fox	0.0			Justin Upton	3.1
Joaquin Benoit	0.0			Jake Elmore	-0.7			Melvin Upton	0.1
Dale Thayer	0.0			Seth Smith	1.6			Brett Wallace	0.2
Shawn Kelley	0.0								0.2
Austin Hedges	0.1			Sum	8.1			Sum	6.1
Brandon Morrow	-0.1
Josh Johnson	0.0
Robbie Erlin	-0.5
Casey Kelly	0.0
Cory Spangenberg	0.9

In short, I'm 2 wins better than the real life Padres, which means instead of 47 and 52, I'm 49 and 50; 5.5 games out of the wild card, but still with 4 teams in front of me. Basically, I'm not terrible enough to blow it up entirely, but it's also safe to say this won't be a playoff season for me.

If it were me, I'd open up negotiations with Ian Kennedy right now. If we can strike a deal that keeps him here for a few years, I'm 100% in favor. if not, I'm looking REALLY hard at whether or not he is worth a first round tender at the end of the season. At $16.5 million, he'd be my highest paid player, BY FAR, and I'm not sure I'm OK with that.

I'm also putting Will Venable, Shawn Kelley and Joaquin Benoit on the block. Venable will probably be traded in real life, and since h's a FA at the end of the season, I'm wishing him well (note: I really love Will Venable... for years, he's just seemed like a guy who knows how to play). I suspect Kelley won't bring back a ton. For Benoit, If someone wants a "proven closer," even one who's signed for another year, well, there's probably a deal to be made.