Earlier this season, Padres chairman Ron Fowler made headlines by calling his team "miserable failures" following their 20-33 start to the season. He also had some harsh words for James Shields, who was traded to the White Sox a few days later.
Wednesday night, Fowler was at it again during a "town hall" at Petco Park for the team's season ticket holders. Fowler ripped the recently traded Matt Kemp and other veterans. Bryce Miller of the San Diego Union-Tribune has the details:
"I'll be damned if we're going to pay high-priced talent to sit on their butts and not perform," Fowler said.
...
"We made a conscious decision to ship them out because we want people that are prepared to improve," Fowler said. "If you're making a lot of money and you think you're already there, you're not going to get better.
"... They had a bad attitude. You saw Kemp's letter. Talk about a bunch of b.s."
The letter Fowler refers to is an article Kemp posted at The Players' Tribune, in which he thanked Padres fans for the last two years and said he was excited to join the Braves, the team he grew up rooting for.
Neither the Kemp trade nor the Shields signing worked out the way the Padres hoped. That's generally how it goes with veteran players on the wrong side of 30. But criticizing their work ethic by implying they're not "prepared to improve?" Yikes. The odds of Fowler being in the clubhouse every day and watching the work his players put in is mighty small.
The Padres went for it last season and I commend them for that. Too many teams are happy to sit around and wait for the future nowadays. The Padres went for it and it didn't work out. So it goes. Fowler clearly places the blame on the players and not the team's ill-advised plan to build a mismatching roster. A little time looking in the mirror wouldn't hurt.
