The Padres Franchise Deep Four

We're now at the 1969 expansion wave, and the first one I thought I'd do was the San Diego Padres. Let's see what this one ended up as.

	P	C	1B	2B	3B	SS	LF	CF	RF
1st	Jake Peavy	Gene Tenace	Adrian Gonzalez	Roberto Alomar	Ken Caminiti	Ozzie Smith	Gene Richards	Kevin McReynolds	Tony Gwynn
2nd	Andy Ashby	Terry Kennedy	Nate Colbert	Mark Loretta	Phil Nevin	Khalil Greene	Carmelo Martinez	Darrin Jackson	Dave Winfield
3rd	Andy Benes	Benito Santiago	Ryan Klesko	Tim Flannery	Chase Headley	Garry Templeton	Greg Vaughn	Mark Kotsay	Brian Giles
4th	Ed Whitson	Nick Hundley	Fred McGriff	Quilvio Veras	Sean Burroughs	Everth Cabrera	Carlos Quentin	Cameron Maybin	Ollie Brown

Interesting results. The middle infield of their 1st Team has two guys that were associated with other franchises. Alomar and Smith were good enough in short periods of time to earn the top spots.

Some of these required a lot of debate over longevity vs. peak. The Padres are a decidedly non-storied franchise, so many of these guys didn't have long tenures in San Diego. Ed Whitson got the nod over franchise icon Randy Jones just because of his two great years at the end of his career, which topped Jones' short peak. But I might've given it to Jones on a different day. At the keystone, Mark Loretta had an argument for the top spot, but Alomar had three years of star-level play, which bettered Loretta's two, despite Loretta's good years being better than Alomar's. It's all subjective.

In left field, it's safe to say these guys ain't the Red Sox. Gene Richards was an easy choice for the top spot, despite being rather obscure today. At the other side of the outfield though, the Padres have probably their deepest position: Their all-time greatest player, followed by a Hall of Famer, followed by a guy who had an extremely underrated career, followed by an early star.

I predicted Steve Finley would take the top spot in center field, but he ended up not making the list at all, since WAR didn't think very highly of his defense. I never even thought about the possibility of Darrin Jackson making the 2nd Team, but WAR loved his defense that much.

The hot corner has been a pretty good position for the Friars. Their top four players all manned the position from the 1990s onward. Graig Nettles came close, but Burroughs barely beat him out. If only the Padres had someone good there now...

First base and catcher were also surprisingly strong positions. Hats off to the Padres. They're an oft-overlooked team, but their talent acquisition has been pretty good over the years.