The UT ran an article about Khalil Greene the other day. Tom Krasovic’s piece talked a little about Greene’s defense, his freak hand injuries, the strange fixation on his personality, and his severe home-road splits.
Today I’m not interested in his glove, his broken bones, or his even demeanor. Today I’m looking at how he has performed at and away from Petco Park.
| PA | BA | OBP | SLG | ISO | XB/H | PA/HR | BB/PA | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Home | 745 | .236 | .306 | .361 | .125 | .303 | 49.7 | .090 |
| Away | 745 | .277 | .340 | .507 | .230 | .497 | 24.8 | .067 |
| Stats courtesy of ESPN. | ||||||||
Weird that Greene has the exact same number of plate appearances home and away since the Padres moved downtown. Anyway, I didn’t realize just how much power he’s been flashing away from Petco Park — some players that had roughly the same ISO in 2006 are Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira, Nick Johnson, Miguel Cabrera, and Garrett Atkins.
To his credit, Greene seems to realize that he hits for more power on the road and has adopted a much more aggressive approach there. Let’s look at the yearly breakdowns:
| PA | BA | OBP | SLG | ISO | XB/H | PA/HR | BB/PA | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Home | 276 | .241 | .345 | .338 | .097 | .236 | 92.0 | .134 |
| Away | 278 | .301 | .353 | .543 | .242 | .481 | 23.2 | .075 |
| Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference. | ||||||||
Greene showed zero power at home in Petco Park’s first year of existence. Check out the walks, too. That rate at home is about what Kevin Youkilis did last year, while the road numbers are in line with Jose Reyes’ 2006.
| PA | BA | OBP | SLG | ISO | XB/H | PA/HR | BB/PA | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Home | 242 | .256 | .285 | .399 | .143 | .333 | 40.3 | .045 |
| Away | 234 | .244 | .308 | .465 | .221 | .538 | 26.0 | .060 |
| Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference. | ||||||||
Greene continued to show good power on the road. The patient approach at Petco Park disappeared, although he made some gains in the power department. Still, his overall numbers remained a bit shaky.
| PA | BA | OBP | SLG | ISO | XB/H | PA/HR | BB/PA | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Home | 227 | .210 | .282 | .346 | .136 | .349 | 37.8 | .086 |
| Away | 233 | .280 | .356 | .507 | .227 | .483 | 25.9 | .086 |
| Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference. | ||||||||
So, the power away from Petco Park appears to be legit. Greene’s road ISO is consistently above .220 and his XB/H is consistently above .480. In fact, his road ISO generally is among the best in the NL. In 2004, he was between Sammy Sosa and Jeff Kent, in 2006 the names were Adam Dunn and Lance Berkman, and last year they were Mike Piazza and Dan Uggla.
None of this should be taken as an apology for Greene or for Petco Park. He plays half his games there; he needs to learn how to use it to his advantage. Until he does, Greene’s overall numbers will continue to keep him in the company of Pedro Feliz and Miguel Olivo rather than the elite power hitters of the game.
Not to hijack my own thread, but I’m also playing with this del.icio.us thing:
http://del.icio.us/ducksnorts
FYI…
Hey, Jon Knott hit a HR off Matsuzaka yesterday.
Geoff, how does Greene’s number on the road minus the Colorado Launching pad? I recall that he slugs up there. Just a thought. Then again, he does have to play at Dodgers Stadium and Whatever-Phone-Co Park.
Great question, Didi. He has done a ton of damage at Coors Field. Career line is .358/.440/.789. His XB/H there is .615, and his PA/HR is 11.4. He’s also hit real well at BOB/Chase and PhoneCo.
Do you think we could show the Rockies those numbers and get them to take Greene for Tulowitski? Hey, it’s spring, a guy can dream.
Tulowitski is “is nursing a bruiswed wrist” … quite a comp for Greene …
Update on Marcus Giles …
The Padres had targeted Marcus Giles’ return for yesterday or today, but Black said Giles might not play until Friday. The clubs wants the second baseman to be fully recovered from a right quadriceps strain, which first sidelined Giles on Saturday. Giles, who is 6-for-15, took batting practice yesterday.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20070313/news_1s13padnotes.html
2 more OF assists for McAnulty yesterday … he “threw out Joe Crede at home and Rob Mackowiak at third after taking over in left field.”
Here’s some good/interesting news …
Coming off two erratic outings, reliever Andrew Brown overcame a single and a wild pitch to throw a scoreless inning.
Brown hit 99 mph on the radar gun.
Khalil most likely received so many base on balls at home during the 2004 season because he he hit in the 8 hole for half of the season. He was more aggressive on the road, but he also spent a lot of time in the 7 hole too, so maybe Bochy flipped him from 7 to 8 hole depending on which park we were playing in.
Nevermind my theory on switching between 7 and 8 hole depending on the ballpark. Greene did not hit outside of leadoff or 8 hole until the end of July in ’04. After that, he spent about a month leading off or hitting in the 7 hole until he was injured and lost for the rest of the season. So yeah, I say his high walk rate was due to his approach of leading off or hitting in front of the pitcher.
In today’s USA TODAY there is a large article about Mark Sweeney. In the article, he gives his all time team of the people he’s played with. It includes several Padres:
C: Tom Pagnozzi
1B: Wally Joyner
2B: Mike Gallego
SS: Ozzie Smith
3B: Ken Caminiti
LF: Greg Vaughn
CF: Willie McGee
RF: Larry Walker
Closer: Trevor Hoffman
Starting Pitchers: Andy Ashby, Todd Stotlemyre
walker over gwynn seems odd but then again I have an extreem bias
Out of respect for the Padres, Geoff, and all Ducksnorters, I should remove myself from any discussion of KG today. This is not to say that I will not participate in the discussion in the future, but today would be a day that I get in trouble with a few KG lovers and possibly banned from posting for a while…
Steve C, I have heard a lot of people LOVED playing with Larry Walker. And we know at least one that hated *Fat* Tony (retains the name despite his relative lack of girth at the time). Please let it be known that I have a Tony Gwynn shrine in my office, my first daughter will carry the middle name “Gwynn”, and I am flying to Cooperstown to be there for his induction…
#2: I love the quote.
Jon Knott led off the third with a homer to right-center, and Jason DuBois hit a two-run shot to left-center in the fourth. After each batter swung, Matsuzaka turned around and stayed expressionless as he watched the ball fly over the fence.
“Judging from what I experienced, throwing high fastballs and high sliders can tend to be a little bit dangerous,” he said with a grin.
#14: KG is way better than Jeter.