Should the Padres move Edinson Volquez right now?

[Warner2BruceTD]

Volquez has put up a tidy 3.82 ERA, which is by far his best since his career year 2008. His season thus far has been generally summed up as 'pleasant surprise' to this point.

Dig a little deeper. He now leads the NL in walks, with 54. Throw in six wild pitches and a couple of hit batters, and control still seems to be an issue.

And then there is this:

9.6
8.6
7.6

That's his steadily declining K rate, dropping a full K per 9 over the last three seasons. And he's walking over 5.0 per 9.

The Volquez meltdown could be right around the corner. He turned down the same multi-year deal before last season that Cueto ended up taking (thank god...it wasn't "one or the other", it was offered to both men, but still), so he makes a modest $2.24M this year, and is under team control for one more if a team were to be so inclined.

With wild card contenders rolling the dice on the likes of Jamie Moyer, you would think SD could land a couple of decent prospects, provided they do this before Volquez goes 1.1, 3 BB 7 ER in his next start.

So, who should roll the dice and pawn off a few mid level ceiling A ball 19 year old's for this guy?

 

[NAHSTE]

Absolutely they should move him, whether or not they have many buyers remains to be seen. The rest of the league is catching on to this racket the Padres have going, where they let their park-effects polish off a turd and then they flip it for inflated value.

 

[Rudi]

I didn't think there was any type of market for an Edinson Volquez these days.

 

[Warner2BruceTD]

The Rockies, Orioles, and Blue Jays have all put varying levels of confidence in Jamie Moyer in the past 6 months. The Yankees dusted off Pettitte. Jeff Francis is back in a big league rotation and nearly cracked the roster of the Reds, a solid playoff contender, out of the spring. Miguel Batista is still starting major league games this season.

If i'm a GM, with a second WC in play, I think i'd rather flip a couple of kids for a 28 year old with 'great stuff' than trot out a guy who peaked in 2002.

 

[Goober]

I like to think major league GMs have grown smart enough to look past the ERA and realize that Volquez sucks. Obviously the Padres should try to deal him, he isn't in their long term plans, and they shouldn't be trying to win this year anyways. Take what you can get, it's questionable whether or not the Padres should even offer him arbitration if they don't trade him now. If he keeps the ERA down playing in PETCO, he will be due a big raise, and he's just not worth that.

 

[ThomasTomasz]

Absolutely they should move him, whether or not they have many buyers remains to be seen. The rest of the league is catching on to this racket the Padres have going, where they let their park-effects polish off a turd and then they flip it for inflated value.

There is that, and also the fact that, if someone on a web forum is posting those stats that Warner posted, they probably know the same thing. While I also agree that I'd rather add a guy that had "stuff" like Volquez then trot out a retread like Moyer or Miguel Batista, I also don't want my team making the move for Volquez as he's proven to be extremely unreliable.

 

[Goober]

Follow The Padres ‏@FollowThePadres

Hey, if you're blown away with an offer (like the Latos haul), then, sure. ~ But Volquez, Richard are affordable/durable moving forward.

LOL at even suggesting you might be able to get a similar package.

 

[Mogriffjr]

They should absolutely trade him.

And there's always one organization and one pitching coach who believes they can fix any flaw...he has talent clearly, someone will bite.

 

[Warner2BruceTD]

An interesting look at Volquez's days with SD. He might be the worst starting pitcher the franchise ever had who pitched an appreciable amount of innings.

http://padrespublic.com/son-of-a-duck/edinson-volquezs-place-in-padres-history/

Probably should have moved him for anything when he started off ok for the first two months or so.

I think we all agreed that the Pads got a nice haul for Latos, and that Volquez was really just a throw in. But they've had bad luck with Grandal, and Alonso really needs to start hitting extra base hits. I knew he wouldn't hit a ton of home runs in that park with that line drive swing, but I'm shocked at the lack of doubles they've gotten out of him. I was never high on Boxberger like Rudi was, but I also didn't think he'd yo yo between AAA & the bigs and figured he'd be a good 7th inning guy or maybe even a decent set up man.

Where do you guys stand on Alonso? He's 27 years old, is this it at this point?