el paso, texasel paso, texas—Cory Spangenberg was angry, hurt. It seems, in fact, as though the decision still rankles him.
The memory makes him stop and stare, his eyes wide and moist. The pain comes back and fills his face.
And that is exactly what the Padres want in a player told he needs to go to the minor leagues.
“It sucks,” Spangenberg said, recalling being informed at the end of last spring training that he was being sent to this West Texas town in the middle of the middle of nowhere. “There’s no other way to put it. You want to be in the big leagues. You never want to go to Triple-A . At the same time, it’s your career, and how you react to it is only going to pay dividends or hurt you.”
In Spangenberg’s exit meeting, manager Andy Green told him he needed more at-bats, some work at third base and maybe some other stuff.
“To be honest, you really don’t hear it,” Spangenberg said. “You work all offseason to play in San Diego and to make the big-league club. When they tell you no, it’s devastating.”
The Padres played in the ballpark of their Triple-A affiliate, the El Paso Chihuahuas, on Monday night, their final exhibition before Thursday’s opening-day game against the Brewers at Petco Park. A handful of the major leaguers who flew to San Diego on the team’s charter flight after the game will in the next few days be sent back to Arizona where the Chihuahuas are wrapping up minor league camp.
For all the excitement over the Padres’ apparent upward talent trajectory, there is a very human fallout.
Good players, the kind that could be on a major league roster, the kind that used to be the Padres’ best players, won’t make this and future Padres teams.
“It’s not like one guy,” outfielder Travis Jankowski said. “It’s a group of guys who have earned the right to be in the majors. … It reflects on the organization and the direction it’s going. We have big league players in Triple-A. That’s a great problem for the team to have.”
This is not entirely new, just increasing. The Chihuahas won the Pacific Coast League title in 2016 and lost in the championship series last year.
“We put good teams there the last couple years, and we expect to put a good team there this year,” Green said. “There’s some guys left off our roster that have probably earned the right to play in the big leagues that will be in El Paso again.”
If the Padres are who they think they are becoming, this is only going to happen more often to more players with whom Padres fans are familiar.
There was a time when the Padres did not have this abundance of talent in the minor leagues. There have also been times they were compelled to rush their best players to the majors for want of something to be excited about.
Now the talent is stacking up. The Chihuahuas are essentially being squeezed from the bottom, with Luis Urias and Fernando Tatis and a host of pitchers ready to rise, and from the top, with the Padres utilizing Southwest Airlines quite a bit to shuttle players back and forth.
“It’s nice to have those guys in spots where some of them are going down to be depth pieces for you,” Green said. “You need that to be a championship club. The message now is ‘It’s not a 25-man roster. It’s a 35- to 40-man roster. Literally. You guys that are not going to make the club are going to make key contributions before the year is out.’ That’s a fact. That’s not blowing smoke to make people feel better. It is hard for players to wrap their minds around that. There is so much emphasis put on March 29. March 29 is just one game.”
The composition of the 25-man roster is almost certain to change within the first week. Probably sooner.
The Padres might start the season with just seven relievers, one less than they think they’ll need not terribly far into a 17-day stretch with no off days. There might be injuries. Franchy Cordero will be difficult to keep down if his groin injury is healed and he hits in Triple-A the way he did last season.
The Padres made their first call-up/send-down four days into last season, with another two days later and another the day after that. On it went.
“It’s a long season,” General Manager A.J. Preller said. “… Opening day is a fun day. It’s an exciting day. But it’s just one day in the season.”
As he discussed the possible makeup of the season-opening roster when it is submitted, likely shortly before the Thursday morning deadline, Preller said “It’s decisions based on long term — for the season, mainly this year but also the next couple years — understanding the roster might change by the second series.”
After 17 games for the Chihuahuas, Spangenberg was called up last April 25.
He’d arrived angry and left with a .348/.403/.470 hitting line. He spent the rest of the season with the Padres.
It is the job of El Paso manager Rod Barajas to reiterate Green’s message when a player arrives after being sent down. A 14-year veteran of the majors, Barajas draws on his own experience having ridden the elevator.
“I know the toll it takes on you emotionally,” he said. “Once you get to the big leagues you want to stay there. The reality of this game is everyone is going to be bouncing up and down at some point in their career.”
The players caught in the crunch try not to think about it. But they know about it.
“Baseball is an evolving game,” said Carlos Asuaje, who was one of the Padres’ top hitters from the time of his June 6 call-up through the end of the season but came into this camp fighting for a roster spot. “That’s the nature of it. … One thing you can see, the best teams, all the players seem to be playing at a higher level. When everyone is competing, everyone is playing at their best, it’s automatically going to get you to kick it up to the next level.”
That’s what happened this spring. The outfield race seemed to shift as frequently as the desert wind. At second base, for Asuaje’s statistical advantage and all-around improvements, it could be considered a coin flip between him and Spangenberg. Six relievers were scheduled to pitch here Monday night for the Padres with their jobs ostensibly in the balance.
The line of the spring came from Hunter Renfroe, the power hitting outfielder who seems to have prevailed in the fight to retain his spot: “It’s going to be interesting who gets a spot and who gets the shaft.”
Whoever gets the shaft will have a choice to make.
Barajas recalled his first visit last April with Spangenberg, who had spent time in the majors each of the previous three seasons.
“I know it was really, really tough on Cory,” Barajas said. “… He was really bummed. My message was clear to him. I said, ‘You think you’re as good as Ryan Schimpf?’ He said, ‘Absolutely I am as good as him.’ I said, ‘Then go out there and prove it. If you’re better than him, just go out and perform.’ He did.
“Cory Spangenberg was awesome for us. He came in every day ready to work. He asked questions. He wanted knowledge. The way he did it is the way I wish every single guy in Triple-A did it.”
kevin.acee@sduniontribune.com
