It’s pretty easy to sit outside the clubhouse, hovering at 30,000 feet, armed with a pad and pen and accept with a shrug the idea San Diego will be home to baseball’s worst team in 2017.

It almost certainly will. We’re all correct about that.

But before we relish that, let’s show some respect for the fact these guys will be trying to win.


“I think there is an understanding externally where the expectations reside,” Padres manager Andy Green said Wednesday. “I’m fine with external expectations being that way. But inside the clubhouse, within the group of guys who are out there stretching on the field right now and getting ready for a season, there should be a culture of expectation that you’re going to rise up and surpass everyone else’s expectations.

“I’ve never walked on a field or a basketball court or any place in my life where I expect to lose. You expect to win every game you play. You do everything humanly possible to put your players in a position to be successful in the long run. There are no two ways about it.”

Taking Green in context, he meant is there is only one way he knows how to play and will accept his team playing. But there are actually two ways about this.

We can expect the worst while wanting to see the best this group has. We can cheer the good and relish the bad.


And that’s the beauty of this Padres spring training, of this Padres season. It’s freeing to know they have no chance – and that there is a reason for it.

This isn’t what it has been year after year for so long.

The Padres would sign a player or two who had at one time done a thing or two. They would bring back a handful of players for another season that was going to be the season because they’d had a portion of a good season the year before. We would choose to believe – because that’s what the baseball spring engenders – that if six or seven or 12 things went right the Padres could contend for a playoff spot.

None of that applies now.


Padres pitchers and catchers on Wednesday participated in their first official spring training workout of 2017. Some position players were at the Peoria Sports Complex as well. Introductions will continue to be necessary for some time.

There are two position players (Yangervis Solarte and Ryan Schimpf) on the Padres 40-man roster who were born before 1990. The Dodgers have 10 position players who were born before ‘90, the Giants 10, the Rockies seven and the Diamondbacks seven.

Starting pitcher Clayton Richard, who is 33-years-old, is the oldest Padres player by almost four years.

Richard spent the 2009 to 2012 seasons in San Diego. Not one of his current teammates was a teammate in his previous tenure.


“I was driving in and in the drive by it was like I never left,” Richard said Tuesday. “Then I got here and it’s everyone else left.”

Among the other longtime fixtures in the clubhouse here, Austin Hedges is probably the most recognizable. The 24-year-old catcher with 178 plate appearances in the majors has been in major-league camp each of the past five springs.

He will now be part of a young core that the Padres hope learn how to be big-leaguers while they are big-leaguers.

A component of that matriculation will be preparation.


“My expectation is to learn as an organization, as a team, as a club to shed external expectations,” Green said. “Because once you get past that, when everybody expects you to be great, you’re going to have to do the same thing. If you haven’t committed yourself to that habit of not caring what people on the outside world are thinking it’s always going to shackle you down to the weight of that expectation. If you’re expected to win the division, you’re going to feel that every single year. The reality is the more you can get that out of your head and be in the moment and show up to compete to win a baseball game and get better, that’s how you do it.”

It’s easy to buy into what Green is saying. He’s right, for one thing. He’s earnest, for another.

That said, the Padres are going to be awful.

Like manure. Stink with a purpose. Something is hopefully growing, but those interested solely in results won’t want to hang around to watch the grass grow.


This team could lose 110 games. If they do it with dirty uniforms and a burgeoning understanding of what it takes to be better big leaguers, so be it. In fact, that’s what we should expect.

Awesome.

And bring on the No.1 pick in the 2017 draft, tank you very much.

Yes, that word carries a horrible connotation. Tank. It’s insulting to the players and coaches. No one taking the field in a uniform in ’17 will be thinking about ’18 or ’19 or ’20.


But whether or not we verbalize the word “tank,” it is an apt philosophy.

It’s how the National League West will one day be won.

The Cubs made the playoffs in 2015 and won the World Series in ’16 – after averaging 68 wins the previous four seasons and picking in the top-5 in the draft three times. The Royals made consecutive World Series in 2014 and won it in ’15 – after nearly a decade straight of top-5 picks. The Astros went to the playoffs in 2015 and won 84 games last year – after averaging 59 wins between ’12 and ’14 and picking first in the draft three straight years.

“I think teams have looked at some teams like the Cubs and Astros that have had high picks and have come out of that process in decent spots … and looking at, ‘Is that the way to build a championship team?’ ” Padres general manager A.J. Preller said. “We’re not setting a goal here saying, ‘Hey, the next two years we want to pick first. It’s legitimately, let’s go out and try to put a good product on the field. The other stuff, that’s going to come with it.”


Yes it will. Both can happen.

You can root for your team to win every night but not lament its losses.

That will make this awful season so good.

kevin.acee@sduniontribune.com