Once again, there isn’t a lot of quit in this team and I like that. After spotting the Giants a 6-0 lead, the Padres darned near came back and won on Tuesday night (recap | box score). If not for a bizarre second inning that saw Marcus Giles muff a grounder, Mike Cameron lose a “double” in the lights, and Clay Hensley forget how many outs there were…
Then again, if the Mariners had just kept 12 of Boston’s runs off the board last night, they would’ve won their game.
Thanks to Adrian Gonzalez‘ second homer, a two-run blast off Armando Benitez in the ninth, the Padres now have played in five straight one-run games. And that bullpen scoreless streak? It’s up to 25 1/3 innings. If the game is close late, the Padres have to feel like they’re going to win it.
Seriously, I love the comeback, but it burns me that the Padres fell short. And I love that their falling short burns me. Like, I have a right to expect victory after spotting the Giants a six-run lead. Hello, when did we start expecting that out of our club?
I dunno. Maybe it’s the back-to-back division titles?
This team is always in the game. And for anyone who hasn’t been watching his first two starts and is judging him solely on the numbers, Hensley has pitched well for the most part. I hate to play the luck card, but in his first start, Hensley ran into a home plate umpire who couldn’t find the strike zone; last night he fell victim to a defense that momentarily forgot its purpose.
Bizarre.
Big Picture? Big Pitcher?
The other news on Tuesday was the Chris Young signing. According to the North County Times, the deal is worth $14.5 million over 4 years, with an $8.5 million club option for 2011. Yesterday I mentioned being thrilled at this news; now I’ll tell you why.
Let’s take a quick look at all the pitchers who signed multi-year contracts this past off-season. Statistics are those accrued from the time Young made his big-league debut on August 24, 2004, through the end of the 2006 season.
| Name | Age | Yr | $M | GS | IP | ERA | H/9 | HR/9 | BB/9 | SO/9 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Miguel Batista | 37 | 3 | 25 | 38 | 314.1 | 4.70 | 10.19 | 0.94 | 3.81 | 5.07 |
| Adam Eaton | 29 | 3 | 24.5 | 43 | 243.2 | 4.36 | 9.86 | 1.07 | 3.03 | 6.80 |
| Orlando Hernandez | 37 | 2 | 12 | 58 | 330.0 | 4.75 | 8.86 | 1.23 | 3.49 | 7.80 |
| Ted Lilly | 31 | 4 | 40 | 63 | 345.2 | 4.92 | 9.11 | 1.51 | 4.06 | 7.45 |
| Jason Marquis | 28 | 3 | 21 | 73 | 451.1 | 4.89 | 9.47 | 1.40 | 3.33 | 4.61 |
| Gil Meche | 28 | 5 | 55 | 66 | 380.2 | 4.68 | 9.10 | 1.23 | 4.04 | 6.38 |
| Mark Mulder | 29 | 2 | 13 | 57 | 339.0 | 5.07 | 10.46 | 1.19 | 3.37 | 4.83 |
| Mike Mussina | 38 | 2 | 23 | 69 | 425.1 | 3.81 | 8.91 | 1.08 | 1.99 | 7.68 |
| Vicente Padilla | 29 | 3 | 33.75 | 67 | 385.2 | 4.64 | 9.17 | 1.17 | 3.57 | 6.56 |
| Jason Schmidt | 34 | 3 | 47 | 69 | 435.2 | 4.13 | 8.18 | 0.87 | 3.76 | 8.33 |
| Jeff Suppan | 32 | 4 | 42 | 71 | 424.0 | 3.97 | 9.81 | 1.08 | 3.18 | 5.12 |
| Woody Williams | 40 | 2 | 12.5 | 59 | 346.0 | 4.37 | 9.73 | 1.30 | 2.45 | 5.38 |
| Barry Zito | 29 | 7 | 126 | 77 | 499.1 | 3.91 | 7.91 | 1.05 | 3.69 | 6.54 |
| Chris Young | 28 | 4 | 14.5 | 69 | 380.1 | 3.93 | 7.86 | 1.28 | 2.93 | 7.76 |
| Stats courtesy of ESPN and Baseball Musings Day by Day Database. | ||||||||||
The numbers speak for themselves. Needless to say, in the current market, this is tremendous value for the Padres. Or perhaps you would rather see them blow $11 million a year on the likes of Meche and Padilla?
by Peter Friberg
Ed note: I am very pleased to announce that long-time Padres minor-league observer Peter Friberg will be providing periodic updates on prospects in the farm system. I haven’t been keeping up as well as I’d have liked and so Peter will be giving us the dirt on who’s doing what down on the farm. Welcome, Peter!
You will not see all the notable performances from the night before, but you will see the notable performances from those who are actually prospects.
AAA
Tim Stauffer: 1.0 IP, 2 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 2 BB, 2 SO, 1 HR – yuck!
AA
Chase Headley: 5 AB, 1 R, 2 H, 3 RBI; 2B, HR, BB, & SO
Nick Hundley: 5 AB, 1 R, 1 H, 1 RBI; HR, SO
High-A
Chad Huffman: 3 AB, 1 R, 2 H, 0 RBI
Matt Bush: 3 AB, 0 R, 1 H, 2 RBI; BB
Manny Ayala: 4.1 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 3 SO, 1 HR
Low-A
Aaron Breit: 3.0 IP, 4 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 0 SO, 0 HR
Commentary:
Tim Stauffer is not a “prospect.” Heck, he’s not a rookie. But I can’t report the good and ignore the bad. Stauffer is not working out as a reliever — 31.50 ERA.
Last year in a hitters’ league (the California League) Headley hit .328/.416/.510 on the road. At home in a pitchers’ park, he hit .261/.368/.365. This year Headley again calls a pitchers’ park home, but plays in the hitting-friendly Texas League. Tuesday night’s explosion came on the road. We’ll continue to monitor his splits this year.
Parting Thoughts
As a reminder, I’m pimping the book over at Big League Baseball Report. Joe is giving me grief about your lack of participation in the contest, so be sure to listen to the podcast and give him a call for a chance to win a free copy of the Ducksnorts 2007 Baseball Annual.
Please. Do it for the children…
Happened to catch a little of the tape delay broadcast of last night’s game while I was stretching at the gym this afternoon. I don’t think Hensley forgot the number of outs, but rather the number of baserunners.
He definitely checked to see if he had a play at second before going to first, but he never even realized Durham was still out there.
Now why Bard wasn’t screaming, waving and jumping up and down I don’t know, but if Giles and Cameron can blow a play, I guess Clay can, too.
Not sure if Bard was screaming from the bench or not, but it might have been helpful for Bowen to say something from 40 feet away
GY / PF … *love* the PPR … THANKS!
What’s the deal with Armando Benitez? Not only does he make Brad Lidge look like Jonathan Papelbon, he walks off the mound after every pitch to rub up the baseball and perform a major cup adjustment, bending both knees while he moves everything around. After every pitch. Dude, there are ladies present, show some class.
I have not read the IGD, but Mike Cameron is getting on my nerves.
Bad: losing Durham’s fly; bad but I guess that happens sometimes.
Bad: he seems intent on pulling the ball, no matter what. In his AB in 9th (had he reached, tie game on AG’s blast), on his fly he squared like he thought it was gone, but it was a lazy fly to middle left. Swing to get on base, not trying to get the 2 run blast when you need 3.
Horrid, and I am having a hard time letting go of this: I forget the inning, but BGiles is on second, Cameron at first, two outs, and the ball squirts away from the catcher, and Giles alertly takes third. Cameron is still parked at first. What the ????? He has to be focused and if he sees Giles break he has to break too. So when AGon singles, we score 1 instead of 2. That turns out to be the difference in the ballgame.
I don’t know what is behind this systemic failure (poor baserunning, losing a fly, trying to pull everything), but I sure hope he gets straight soon. OK, not systemic, because it sure is pretty watching him catch line drive after line drive, but he needs better focus or something.
#5: what about that double by Bengie off Hoffman the other night? I thought Cameron was going to get it and he slowed down, looking like he lost the ball in the light or something.
Is the light at Petco changing?
#4: It’s his lucky scratch.
And Geoff, is Peter no longer doing his Padres RunDown? It hasn’t been updated in forever. It’s good to see the minors update here, though.
#4: see Finley, Steve.
Nothing more fun than betting over-unders on Finley cup checks during an at bat.
Does anyone know what the rules on are about salary and younger players? So we locked up CY and AGon, but some of those years we controlled them and could have paid them much less, presumably. So I like “locking them up” and cannot imagine the Pads spending money they don’t need to, but I am confused about this. Is it that we only would control them for part of the time period, and then would lose them to FA in the later part, therefore we are “averaging” out, “overpaying” them in the years where we control them, and then “underpaying” in the years when we would not control them?
With AGon, I remember it saying that the last year would be his first year FA eligible year. So, could we have paid him $300-500K/year until then and then watched him walk? Bad blood, perhaps, but trying to understand the economics better.
5: I completely agree. Cameron blew the first ball hit to him on Sunday, which I thought was pretty ironic since he picked up his Gold Glove trophy about 25 minutes before that.
He’s hitting just around .100 (I know, I know, it’s only been a week) but he needs to turn it on.
On a somewhat related note, any estimates on when Cedric Hunter would be ready to man CF in Petco? Do you think that his potential is weighing heavily on the contract negotiations with Cameron?
#8: I think the Padres are buying out their (Young’s and Gonzales’) arbitration years. Somebody corrects me if I’m wrong with this notion.
Usually, a club has control over the first six years of a player’s ML career. The first 3 years are minimum salary and then the proceeding 3 years are arbitration years. So, if a player is very good, he’ll be making the fair market value in his arbitration years.
The Padres think that both players will be very good over the length of the contracts that they are willing to pay more now to avoid the possible high salary to be decided by arbitrations. Not to mention the hard feelings that can come up, e.g. Todd Walker, Cabrera with the Marlins.
10: thanks, makes sense. So they are not FA but they are arb eligible and arb is risky and can create bad blood.
Good move, Pads. Peavy, Young, AGon: picking their lock ups very well indeed.
11: That’s how I understand it too. The Pads are giving more money the first couple of years but less over the life of the contract. Look at Peavy, who would have been in arbitration this year. He’s making $4.75 when he would fetch $10+ in arbitration.
*Generally* works out for both parties, the club ends up paying less money and the player gets the stability of a guaranteed contract.
Didi, not Geoff, but yes… Padres RunDown was fun, and while I was unemployed I made multiple updates per day… My new job requires a lot more hours and makes the process of maintaining a website nearly impossible. Geoff was nice enough to extend a welcome hand for my reports.
#10 So the Padres have tied up both players for one more year, the first free agency year, with the last year club option. Correct? Also, I guess there is is a club buy out option if they want to release either player. Anyone know for sure?
I know it’s early, but we’ve had at least the tying run up to the plate in the 9th in each of our losses this year. If I remember right, this is a trend we had during the last half of last year, mostly having the tying or winning run coming to the plate in the 9th. I was thinking that Bochy was responsible for some of that attitude last year, but given that he’s gone, I’m thinking that the compliment really needs to go to the core players (Giles, Gonzales, Greene (The Killer “G’s”) Bard/Bowen, Cameron and the bench guys from last year and this year.)
Hey Geoff, what about the interference non-call that let a run score? Or have you gone back and watched that and determined it wasn’t interference?
Still annoyed by the Klesko tackle last night. I can understand and appreciate going in hard to break up the DP, but Klesko went WAY beyond that. The replays clearly show him grabbing NOG with his arms and bearing him down, preventing the throw to 1st.
re: 5 – me too. Last time this year Cammy was out w/ the oblique, so maybe he just isn’t his normal self in April and we didn’t see it last year. The misplays on routine fly balls have got to stop. We can get Manny Ramirez to do that and hit several hundred OPS points higher
Nice to see Peter doing the minor league updates, now I can stop seeing if there’s a new entry at padres rundown
9: Hunter should have no bearing on the Cameron decision, and I really doubt the Padres are thinking that way. Not only is he still in A-, it’s yet to be seen if he can play center well enough to handle Petco.
It would be very optimistic to think Hunter could be in the majors by 2009.
Albert Pujols is hitting .167. Hitters struggle at times. Cameron was our best player last year (adjusting for position and accounting for defense), so let’s just give him some time to warm up. He has drawn 5 walks, so he is contributing to the team a little.
The comparison between Young’s salary and the other pitchers’ salary is a little unfair. Young was signing an extension buying out arbitration years while under exclusive club control, while the other guys were free agents free to negotiate with any team they wanted.
On that note, I think you guys are overestimating arbitration salaries relative to free agent salaries. Miguel Cabrera went to arbitration this year with the Marlins and is still “only” making $7.4 million this year. On the open market he signs a deal for probably $20 million/year. Even Zambrano, in his final year of arbitration (when he is allowed to compare his salary to that of free agents), is making $12.4 million this year, when he would be worth $16+ million as a free agent. (Salaries according to ESPN.com)
Still with all that, buying out arbitration years like the Padres have is likely to save money long term, with the slight risk that Young or Gonzalez or Peavy pulls an Angel Berroa.
I agree Ben, on the hitting piece. It’s the fielding that is really raising my eyebrows. Hopefully these have just been a few fluke plays…but really there have been 3 misjudges already. Wonder if he’s having issues w/ his surgically repaired eyes?
#16: Richard, I’ve watched that play a few times and I think it’s too close to call. Klesko clearly got his arm in the way of NOG, but I’m not prepared to assign intent based on what I saw. One man’s opinion.
#20: Ben, great point about the free agent pitchers. I was trying to present a rough idea of what a guy like CY might command if he were on the market. The situations, as you correctly note, are different in real life.
Re 16: I just re-watched it. Questionable. I live in SF, and the announcers were split. One was saying that if you touch the bag, “anything goes”. I doubt that. Could have Klesko touch the bag and punched him in the face? He clearly used his upper body to help block the throw, but not on initial contact. The initial contact looked pretty clean. He was right on the bag when the throw came, so I really doubt Giles had a chance to get the throw off. The toss from Greene did not beat Klesko by much.
The other announcer thought he could have ripped apart Giles knee, and clearly did not like it.
Just a sloppy game on our part: Giles drop of Bonds grounder, Cameron’s misplay of Durham’s fly, Hensley’s failure to check Durham on the ground out: 2 runs.
Cameron’s not advancing when Giles did, 1 run.
We execute on those things, this is a non-issue.
21: his eyes were repaired after the Beltran crash? Odd that they would be OK (arguably great) last year, but deteriorate this year. I sure hope not, but will be looking for information on it.
Unrelated note. Online chat with Kouz at 3 p.m. PT:
http://sandiego.padres.mlb.com/mlb/fan_forum/chat/index.jsp
19: Thanks for the information regarding Hunter. I wasn’t sure how far along he was, just that everybody seems to be real high on him so far.
My mom and I were discussing Cammy’s eyesight today. It would make sense if he was having some issues eye-wise, especially post-collision.
Geoff,
Any way to get a “dumbest thing you’ve heard an announcer say” section/contest? I get most of my games via Extra Innings and get a lot of FOX dolts.
My current winner was in the Colorado series, Maddux hit Taveras (with 73 mph curve) on a 1-2 or 0-2 count.
One of the Announcers: “For a guy reknowned for his control, it sure is interesting that he hit Taveras. Some food for thought.”
Just read:
Eight of the 10 highest-paid players are American Leaguers, including the three highest-paid–Yankees 3B Alex Rodriguez, DH Jason Giambi and SS Derek Jeter. They will make $72.7 million combined this season–more than the entire roster of eight N.L. clubs.
Not the ‘dumbest’ thing I’ve ever heard, but probably the funniest:
After watching Greg slowly leg out a triple, a Braves’ announcer once said, “A Greg Maddux triple has replaced the Kentucky Derby as the most exciting 2 minutes in sports.”
Ah, Zito and the Giants.
http://www.thebrushback.com/zito_full.htm
re: 23
Initial contact does not matter. If you interfere at all, you interfere and the runner going to first is called out.