Places to Go, Things to Read
Thu, Jun 2, 2005
by Geoff Young
Unfortunately, the long weekend kind of threw my schedule so our next installment in the “Prospects from 1996, Revisited” series will have to wait. In the interim, here are some items of potential interest. Enjoy!
- Some Graphs About the Padres (Hardball Times). The first one will look familiar to readers of Future Friars. Studes also notes the Pads’ hitting numbers with RISP and the excellent relief work. BTW, I am now calling the Padres relief corps, “The Bullpen of the Apocalypse.” Because, you know, that’s what they are.
- Full house may be key to Blum’s success (NC Times). Geoff Blum talks about his triplets and the influence of Dave Magadan on his early-season hitting prowess. Also, a Woody Williams update. He’s scheduled to make a rehab start at Elsinore this weekend.
- Month of winning dissolves into June gloom (NC Times). I have to agree, booing Brian Lawrence was pretty bush. Folks have a right to voice their opinion, of course, but I was a little embarrassed to be a part of that crowd. Lawrence has contributed a lot to this team over the years, and he deserved better.
- Nady isn’t forgotten; his chance will come (U-T). The interesting thing here is that apparently Xavier Nady got a chance to “phase out his front leg kick” while batting in a simulated game against Woody Williams.
- Roberts becoming an RBI machine (U-T). We’re not even a third of the way through the season, but to this point Dave Roberts has been a terrific acquisition for the Pads. I remain skeptical that a 33-year-old career .269/.335/.344 can hit .293/.370/.464 for an entire season; there’s absolutely nothing in his track record to indicate that he can sustain this. OTOH, Mark Loretta went from good to great relatively late in his career. And even if Roberts does cool off and return to career norms, it’s hard not to enjoy what he’s done for the Padres so far.
- Most Petco gripes now by visitors (U-T). Anyone remember how much the Padres struggled in their new ballpark last year? Yeah, me neither. (Actually, I do, but that’s a post for another day.)
- Big League Manager - Desktop Version (Dan Agonistes). This looks like an interesting (and fun) little tool. Has anyone used it? Is it interesting and fun?
- MadFriars Q & A: Tom Krasovic (Scout.com)
- It’s a four-horse race in wild West (MLB.com)
- Padres commanding respect (MLB.com)
Cubs are in town. Tim Stauffer and Glendon Rusch hook up tonight at 7:05 p.m., PT. I’ll get the In-Game Discussion up sometime before then.
Picking up where last year's version left off, the Ducksnorts 2008 Baseball Annual provides in-depth analysis of and commentary on the San Diego Padres. Get your copy today.
June 2, 2005 at 9:59 am
Farm Report … courtesy of BA’s Daily Dish …
With a double and a homer last night, Padres outfielder Ben Johnson now has five homers in his last ten games and eight on the season. Johnson hit seven of the eight in May and is now hitting .266/.354/.459 at Triple-A Portland.
June 2, 2005 at 11:18 am
BP’s STAT OF THE DAY
Top 5 NL Starters, by Support-Neutral Lineup-adjusted Value Added over Replacement
Player, Team, SNLVAR
Roger Clemens, HOU, 3.8
Dontrelle Willis, FLO, 3.0
Brett Myers, PHI, 2.9
Jake Peavy, SDN, 2.8
Mike Hampton, ATL, 2.6
June 2, 2005 at 11:27 am
Lets not forget Jon Knott over there at Portland. After struggling early in the year, he has come back to post team leading totals in runs(38), , doubles(21), homers(11), walks(26), total bases(108) and rbi(32). He is now hitting .280/.372/.560 for a nice .932ops.
June 2, 2005 at 11:45 am
Ugly game last night, but the silver lining is that the Padres could be so thoroughly mismatched and still come within a few feet of winning the game. If Blum had pulled that 15 feet towards the line it reaches that weird abuttment and is a walk-off grand slam.
The not so silver lining is that Lawrence is struggling. Not many ground balls for sinker ball pitcher. We need him to be his solid self to keep up the winning. I did like the way Bochy kept him in to chew up some innings and to hopefully regain some confidence because he did get a bit better (at least the outcomes were better) later in the game.
I really wish Nevin did not have a no-trade. I don’t see him providing that much incremental value over a Nady/Sweeney platoon.
Oh well.
June 2, 2005 at 12:06 pm
Blaw’s struggles were accentuated by the fact we were facing Davis who was coming off of back to back shut outs of Minn and Houston. Unlike the way that the offense bailed out Jake Peavy the night before, we couldnt get anything going off of Davis. Lawrence just pitched a complete game victory over the Giants and last night was obviously without his best stuff or command. He gutted it out for 5.2innings and saved the bully for this upcoming series with the cubbies.
As for Nevin being traded, I think that we can forget that. We all know, or at least we should know by now, how he can carry a team. Its really an amazing thing when everyone, including Nevin, knows that you are struggling despite hitting .299 for the last month. We have come to expect so much more from Nevin that he seems to have no value now. Should we trade him and miss the playoffs, the repercussions would be deafening. I, for one, am not the least bit worried about Nevin but I sure as heck hope we arent thinking of trading him.
June 2, 2005 at 1:02 pm
Hey Hank, good to see you over here!
Guys, that was an ugly game yesterday but in addition to the silver lining that Jay mentions, I’ll throw out another: everyone else in the NL West lost yesterday, so we gave no ground in the standings.
June 2, 2005 at 5:30 pm
Thanks for the farm info, LM. Here’s another link that y’all might like:
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/ne.....type=story