San Diego Padres

When Trevor Hoffman announced his retirement yesterday, immediate talk about his Hall of Fame candidacy, his 601 saves, and his reputation as a great Padre surfaced. I do consider him worthy of the hall of fame as he, along with Mariano Rivera and Billy Wagner, were the most effective closers who did it for the longest time. But it seems as if they’re a dying breed.

As Trevor Hoffman joins Billy Wagner in riding off into the sunset, the MLB is arguably down to just one great, longtime closer.

When you play for the Bronx Bombers, or the Cubbies, or even the Christmas Sox, you get treated a certain way: You're a baseball god.

When you play for a team like the San Diego Padres, well, you're a nice complement to the palm trees and blue skies surrounding the baseball diamond. (When they win a World Series, I'll change that mentality, I promise.)

If in 2006, you told the New York Mets that they held two of the future's top closers in their grasp in Heath Bell and Billy Wagner, they would have questioned your sanity.

Brad Hawpe has found a new home in San Diego, though it isn’t to man the outfield. 

Hawpe has been tabbed by the Padres to help fill the gaping hole left by the trade that sent Adrian Gonzalez to Boston. At the major league level, he’s appeared in just nine games at the position, though he did log 215 games there while in the minors.

His glove will be a question, at least early on, but the bigger issue for fantasy owners will be his bat. 

Don’t fret about the loss of Adrian Gonzalez, San Diego Padres fans, you now have Brad Hawpe to replace him and play first base.

That was my poor attempt at humor and an unfair shot at Padre fans, but they really do have Hawpe to replace Gonzalez at first in 2011.

While it may have seemed that the Padres playoff chances in 2011 dissipated into shambles following the departure of superstar slugger Adrian Gonzalez to Boston, the Padres brass has responded in the best way possible: making extremely cost effective moves to bring in quality players.

I will say, if nothing else, the San Diego Padres have had one interesting offseason.

I really believed that after surprising baseball by winning 90 games, finishing just two games behind the San Francisco Giants and seeing a close to 200,000 attendance increase, the Padres would capitalize on their 2010 by adding to their team for 2011. Instead, well, I have really have no idea what they are doing.

Even though the Winter Meetings are coming to a close we can still stoke the fantasy hot stove with more prospect talk. This series on prospects will cover a wide range of players as well as positions. We’ll cover sleepers as well as some of the more obvious stars of the future.

After several of years of rumor and speculation, Adrian Gonzalez has finally been traded from the San Diego Padres to the Boston Red Sox. It almost goes without saying, but leaving the cavernous Petco Park and anemic Padres lineup will do wonders for Gonzo’s fantasy production. The real impact of the trade is how it affects those left behind in (or sent to) San Diego.

Adrian Gonzalez can now be called a "former San Diego Padre."

Late last night, rumors were on fire that the San Diego Padres and Boston Red Sox were close to a deal that would send Gonzalez to the Northeast. I wanted to see if this was more than talk, seeing as we went through this same kind of thing this time last year.