Apologies to Mssrs. Flansburgh and Linnell for the title, but I recently picked up a copy of Baseball Prospectus 2004 and although I haven’t had a chance to read a lot of it, I did get through the Padre section. Frankly, I’m a little disappointed.

There are some terrific writers on the Prospectus team, so expectations are always high. And they do make some good obervations about the Padres. The comparisons of Sean Burroughs to Jeff Cirillo, and Khalil Greene to John Valentin and Rich Aurilia are spot on, as is the characterization of Ryan Klesko as a "better left fielder–and worse first baseman–than people think." They also correctly note that Xavier Nady needs more time at Triple-A and that Eaton could be a "great sleeper pick in your fantasy league this year." No gripes with any of that.

There are some minor annoyances:

• Dedicating two pages to the discussion of how other teams have fared on moving into new ballparks seems a bit excessive, especially when only the final four paragraphs address how this might affect the Padres and there is no mention whatsoever of the 2003 season. But the Prospectus folks aren’t as keen on rehashing the past as, say Bill James was, in his old Abstracts. So although I would’ve liked to see at least some talk of what happened last year, I can understand why it isn’t there.
• Calling Mark Loretta a "good utility infielder and a mediocre regular" despite the fact that Loretta performed much better as a regular in 2003 than as a part-timer the previous two season isn’t quite right. Given Loretta’s age and unexpected performance spike, it strikes me as reasonable to question where his true level of ability lies. And Prospectus is hardly the only publication expecting his performance to drop considerably in 2004. But referring to Loretta as a mediocre regular is exaggerating matters a bit.
• Neglecting to mention Xavier Nady’s premature return from an elbow injury in 2002, subsequent learning of a new defensive position while skipping a level, and then being pushed ahead of schedule to the big leagues thanks to Phil Nevin’s injury keeps an important part of his story from being told. Not disastrous, but it might help to mention that Nady has confronted more than his share of obstacles to this point in his career. That’s useful information that could make a difference in his future development and in our expectations of his potential ceiling.
• Projecting Brian Buchanan (.262/.340/.458) to outhit Nevin (.268/.339/.447) doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Such is the nature of projection systems, which view players as amalgamations of their statistical records and generally fail to consider other influences. A 10% decrease in homers from year 2 to year 3 can be easily calculated and integrated into a series of equations that produce a projected statistical line for year 4. More difficult to program is the role, say, an injury in year 3 may have had in that 10% decrease. So the system works with effects and ignores or at least downplays causes. This isn’t a fault with Prospectus, this is just the nature of projection algorithms that rely primarily on numerical input. But when a system generates weird results (e.g., Buchanan outhitting Nevin), it would be helpful for a human to step in say, "I realize what the system says, but in this case it’s wrong." Again, a relatively minor quibble, but something like that would’ve been a nice touch for folks who might not know better.
• Citing "strong won-loss records" as a primary factor in Justin Germano’s ascent seems overly dismissive. I don’t believe Germano is a top-flight prospect, but I do believe it’s hard to talk about him without so much as mentioning the freakish control he’s exhibited throughout his minor-league career to this point. I might even go so far as to say that if anything has defined Germano as a pro, it’s his ability to throw strikes and not his ability to win games.
• Nodding toward Jay Witasick’s spring training injury as a possible factor in his reduced effectiveness last year vs 2002 might have been useful. Sure, his park and defense could also be factors in his decline, but not mentioning his injury is a pretty glaring omission in this reader’s opinion.

But again, these are minor nuisances. Where I really start to have trouble is in the discussion of Josh Barfield, of whom it is said that:

The jump in power is what got people’s attention, however, so know this: the Padres have had a bunch of guys go through Lake Elsinore and do much the same.

The reason this jumped out at me is that I’ve been going to Elsinore games for several years and I know a couple of things about that team and its park:

1. Elsinore has been affiliated with the Padres only since 2001: a total of three seasons.
2. The Diamond is not a bandbox, especially as compared to some of the other parks in the Cal League, which are among the most extreme hitters’ environments in pro ball. That’s anectodal evidence. Prospectus gives Elsinore’s park factor as 955, 964, 964 for the seasons 2001, 2002, 2003. I can also tell you that the Storm rank fifth (out of 10 teams) with 317 homers over that same three-year period, accounting for 9.9% of jacks hit in the Cal League during that time.

So I did a little checking to see who we might point to as a cautionary tale for Barfield’s increased power at Elsinore. I looked for any player who had posted 300+ plate appearances and 180+ ISO (both arbitrary values) at Elsinore during the Padre years, and here is what I found:

              Yr Age  ISO XB/H
Josh Barfield 03  20 .193 .368
Tagg Bozied   02  22 .248 .464
J.J Furmaniak 03  23 .210 .402
Shawn Garrett 01  22 .192 .360
Joe Gerber    03  24 .194 .405
Xavier Nady   01  22 .225 .411
Jon Knott     02  23 .199 .392
Greg Sain     03  23 .197 .422
Troy Schader  01  24 .185 .398

That’s a total of nine players. Next question: Which of these players experienced a jump in power on moving up to Elsinore? Bozied and Nady effectively made their pro debuts at Elsinore (technically speaking, Bozied had spent time in the Northern League and Nady singled as a Padre in September 2000), so that removes them. Furmaniak was repeating the level when his power spiked and Gerber was with a previous organization the previous season, so we can throw them out as well. That leaves us with five players. Let’s take a look at how they fared on moving from Ft. Wayne to Elsinore:

                Ft. Wayne      Elsinore
              Age  ISO XB/H  Age  ISO XB/H
Josh Barfield  19 .097 .201   20 .193 .368
Shawn Garrett  21 .146 .345   22 .192 .360
Jon Knott*     23 .215 .429   23 .199 .392
Greg Sain      22 .176 .442   23 .197 .422
Troy Schader   23 .236 .447   24 .185 .398

*Knott’s promotion came in-season, the others moved up one year at a time.

Of these players, Knott and Schader actually suffered a drop in power output on moving up a level to Elsinore. Sain basically maintained. Garrett’s power increased, though not to the degree Barfield’s did. So we’re pretty much down to Garrett in terms of the data set "experienced a jump in power on arriving at Elsinore." I’d tell you what he did at Double-A the following year except that he didn’t play in the Padre organization and I was too lazy to look for his stats on some other team. It doesn’t really matter, though.

The point is, there has been exactly one player to come up through the Padre system who saw his power jump on arriving at Elsinore: Shawn Garrett. No disrespect intended, but I don’t think Garrett is a real good comp for Barfield. He was two years older and didn’t have Barfield’s pedigree.

Shifting our focus slightly, we note that there are three players in our original list who have played above A-ball in the Padre organization. Why don’t we see how they fared in the season following their big year at Elsinore:

                Elsinore       higher level
              Age  ISO XB/H  Age Lvl  ISO XB/H
Tagg Bozied    22 .248 .464   23 AAA .158 .333
Jon Knott      23 .199 .392   24  AA .262 .541
Xavier Nady    22 .225 .411   23 AAA .139 .258

Knott displayed even more power on moving to Double-A. Bozied, after an in-season promotion to Mobile in 2002 (where he struggled mightily), jumped to Triple-A and saw his power drop. As for Nady, his power took a serious hit on promotion to Triple-A. However, it is worth mentioning that he skipped a level and was learning to play a new defensive position.

So from the original statement, if we take guys who showed either a power spike on arriving at Elsinore or a power outage on leaving, we are left with three names: Bozied, Garrett, Nady. I’m being generous here, because Garrett wasn’t as highly regarded a prospect as the others and there were mitigating factors with Nady. But even if we grant three data points, that is not what I think of when I read "a bunch of guys." What I have in my head when I read the original statement is that prospects routinely arrive at Elsinore, show a power surge, then disappear. And that is not correct.

Don’t get me wrong, there are legitimate concerns with regard to Barfield as a prospect. Can he stay healthy? Will his plate discipline improve? What defensive position will he end up playing? But the possibility that he will flame out at Double-A because this sort of thing often happens with Padre hitting prospects ain’t one of them.

Believe it.