I’ll be doing the Pads’ preview for BTF once again this year. Thought I’d check to see if anyone has ideas on stuff we need to address. Here are a few key points I’m thinking about:
- Who/what was responsible for the big turnaround in 2004, and will the club build on momentum in 2005?
- How Petco Park played in its first season and will it continue to play that way in the future?
- Khalil Greene and Jake Peavy were the young players to emerge last year; who will it be this year?
- Dave Freakin’ Roberts.
- Does Ryan Klesko have anything left in the tank?
- Are Scott Linebrink and Akinori Otsuka for real?
- What happened to Josh Barfield?
- Never mind Barfield, is everyone convinced about Mark Loretta?
- Who are the prospects most likely to help in 2005 and beyond?
If you think of anything else we should talk about, leave a comment. The article won’t run till March, so we’ve got some time. If you need a refresher, here are the last two I did:
Odds and Ends
- Probabilistic Model of Range, Centerfielders (Baseball Musings). David Pinto continues his look at defense. Center fielders who ranked higher than Jay Payton in 2004: Wily Mo Pena, Corey Patterson, Andruw Jones. Those who ranked lower than Payton: everybody else.
- Probabilistic Runs? (Chronicles of the Lads). Angels blogger attempts to convert David’s values into something more tangible, i.e., runs. Khalil Greene saved the Padres about 2 1/2 runs in 2004 over what an average shortstop would have allowed.
- Sutcliffe leaves Channel 4 (NC Times). Too busy working with minor-league pitchers and ESPN. “…Mark Grant and Tony Gwynn will pick up the bulk of Sutcliffe’s workload with new radio voice Tim Flannery available for duty.” Sutcliffe for Gwynn? Works for me.
- All About Arbitration (Hardball Times). An informative look at arbitration (that thing the Padres don’t do) and the results it has yielded over the years.
That’s all for now. Don’t forget to leave your suggestions for this year’s Padre preview in the comments.
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