One of my favorite things to do at a record store is rummage through the world music section. You can usually find something for under eight bucks. Sometimes it doesn’t work out, but more often than not I’ve ended up with some pretty cool stuff. Right now I’m listening to Maori music. It’s got Western influence, with guitars and what-not, but the harmonies are nice and the chants are great. Go check out some music from other cultures when you have a moment. Broaden your horizons a bit.

Enough of my telling you what to do. How ’bout them Padres? Earned a split with the Dodgers in the just-concluded four-game series. Knocked the boys in blue out of playoff contention and, more importantly, assured themselves that they would avoid 100 losses on the season. Great pitching out of Ben Howard and Brian Lawrence the past two nights.

I was at Wednesday night’s contest, and Howard looked real good. His fastball was running 91-94. He threw 54 of his 78 pitches for strikes and did not allow a walk. Don’t get too excited just yet, but be encouraged. Baby steps. Remember that he’s only 24 years old.

Good to see Xavier Nady and Ramon Vazquez finishing the season strong. Both are making good cases for themselves as utility players next year. Nady homered last night and is hitting .385/.484/.538 since his return from Triple-A. That’ll work. Vazquez, meantime, has been on base via hit or walk nine times over the past two games. Nice.

Also, if you missed it, Phil Nevin made an unbelievable play at first base last night. I mean J.T. Snow unbelievable. Bases loaded, one out. Jeromy Burnitz hits a smash down the line. Nevin dives and smothers it. Then he jumps to his feet and fires a strike home to force a justifiably stunned Paul LoDuca by a step. Nevin was well behind the bag when he made the play. Everybody and their mother assumed he was going to race to first to beat Burnitz and allow the tying run to score. On the replay you can even see Burnitz duck away from the throw at the last second, then turn back and mouth the words, "What just happened?" after he crosses the bag. How Nevin had the presence to come home on that play, I’ll never know. And the throw was a beauty. Words don’t do the play justice. Simply brilliant.

Kevin Towers also chatted briefly with the broadcast team during the game. No huge revelations, other than the fact that with the presence of Khalil Greene, shortstop appears to have worked its way down the priority list for this off-season. Greene has made a good impression on just about everyone, including some hard-to-please vets. The young shortstop draws praise for his demeanor. Very even tempered, doesn’t get overly excited. Plays hard. Plays smart. What’s not to like?

File Under "B" for Brain Fart

I hope that’s not too vulgar for you. Some folks are offended by the word "brain."

Anyway, this came in from long-time reader Eitan Altman:

Great research on the [Josh] Barfield stuff, but I noticed a methodological flaw in your projections. In breaking up Barfield’s stats into components (i.e. AVG, OBP, SLG, BB/K, etc.), you have created some redundancy in the components which has caused you to get flawed final data. I understand the projections are not serious… but it’s impossible to hit .313 with a .545 SLG and also have a .179 ISO! ISO, by definition, is SLG-AVG. You shouldn’t be projecting his ISO as a separate component, but deriving his projected ISO from the difference between projected SLG and AVG.

To which I say: Damn, you’re absolutely right. I can’t believe I missed that. The long version is that sometimes you get so caught up in the details that you forget the bigger picture. The short version is, I blew it. Thanks, Eitan, for pointing out what should have been obvious and setting me straight! Here is the revised table, which uses the more familiar (and correct) formula for ISO:

name              obp  slg   ba  iso bb/k xb/h
Barfield(Yr2Act) .389 .530 .337 .193 .410 .368
Barfield(Yr3Avg) .409 .610 .357 .253 .483 .446
Barfield(Yr3Min) .383 .545 .313 .232 .375 .330
Barfield(Yr3Max) .436 .706 .381 .325 .787 .596

(Modified numbers are in bold.)

I know, it doesn’t change things all that much. But at least now it makes sense. And Barfield still won’t ever see a .325 ISO in his lifetime.

That’s all for now. Rockies are in town for the final three games at the Q. I’ll be at the Sunday contest. Trevor Hoffman is scheduled to work the ninth that day. With any kind of luck, he’ll close out the game, the season, and the stadium on a winning note. We can only hope…