The only real problem with Ron Fowler’s frustration boiling over this week is that his team isn’t at rock bottom.

At least, he and all Padres fans should hope this isn’t as bad as it can get.

This team, in fact, almost certainly needs to get worse before it gets better.

The best-case scenario for the Padres’ future can probably be found in the past of the Chicago Cubs, Houston Astros and/or Kansas City Royals. Those three teams were for various multi-year periods over the past decade the worst in baseball and are now something to be modeled.


We knew that was the way to go before the sidewalk craps game A.J. Preller played leading into the 2015 season – even as we all, to some degree or another, hooted and hollered along with the “rock star” general manager’s quick-fix tricks.

They didn’t work. The best we can hope for is that outfielder Manuel Margot , acquired in the unloading of Craig Kimbrel, helps us one day consider that attempt as something less than disastrous.

Now it’s time to do it the new old-fashioned way and build from the bottom. The way bottom.

Exactly a decade before they went to the World Series in 2014, the Royals began a streak of three straight seasons with 100 or more losses. Among the everyday starters on the Royals’ 2014 runner-up and ‘15 championship squad were the second overall picks in the ’05 and ’07 drafts and the third pick in ’08. (Additionally, they had a relief pitcher who was the first pick in ’06, and their All-Star catcher, one key reliever and a starting pitcher were signed out of the international market.)


Following that prototype, the Padres should contend around 2024 or so.

There is a quicker way.

But the Padres would have to be willing to really go low. They have to be willing to be the Astros of 2009 to ’13.

In that five-season span, Houston lost an average of 100 games. That included 111, 107 and 106 losses in 2011, ’12 and ’13.


Out of that pathetic run came the core of a team that advanced to the playoffs last season and of late appears to be a challenger again this year (and probably for many to come).

The Astros count among their everyday contributors the No.1 overall pick and 42nd overall pick in 2012 and the 11th pick in ’11. Also included is the 10th overall pick in ’08, which followed an 89-loss season.

It wasn’t just the high picks the Royals and Astros hit on. The Royals hit on Jarrod Dyson in the 50th round in 2006. The Astros drafted Dallas Kuechel in the seventh round in ’09 and signed Jose Altuve out of Venezuela in 2007. Both teams also added some key free agents along the way.

But it was the high draft picks becoming major-league ready that allowed the franchise to invest in other moves and benefit from the bonus ascension of later picks.


There is also the Cubs’ path to contention. However, based on Preller’s first foray into trying to grab free agent pieces to round out a roster, the Cubs’ way is listed last here.

The Chicago team that made the playoffs last season and has the majors’ best record in 2016 was built during a period in which it averaged 93 losses from 2010 through ’14. The big-market Cubs have certainly supplemented their roster with star free agents. But they acquired two positions starters (Anthony Rizzo and Addison Russell) by trading away former draft picks. And their first-round picks from 2011, ’12 and ’13 (Nos. 2, 9 and 14 overall) have played significant roles.

There it is. Reality.

If the rain doesn’t fall, the corn doesn’t grow. The Yoruba Proverb applies to the Padres farm system as well as the Nigerian soil.


As difficult as it is to root for your major-league team to continue to be horrid, you must. Cheer for the Padres to be even worse. Again and again. At least, don’t lament it too heartily. Know that it is the burning that renews.

The late-season rebounds that have given the Padres a sense of being closer than they actually are do no good. They hurt in the long run. And the race to respectability is not a sprint.

Preller was hired in the middle of the 2014 season on the strength of his player procurement resume. He was brought up in the game learning amidst and helping build the developmental system of the Texas Rangers. He has, after gutting the Padres minor-league talent to try to win in ’15, gone about setting a new course for the Padres internationally and in the minors.

Preller will on Thursday exercise his initial first-round picks as a G.M. After not having a first-round pick in ’15, the Padres will have three of them in this draft, selecting at Nos.8, 24 and 25.


They must acquire players that get on a track to San Diego.

But this must be just the beginning of golden first-round hauls. To help make that more assured, to give Preller an even higher first pick, the Padres must be awful this year and next and maybe the one after that.

Fowler and everyone else must understand that.