Dude, what’s the name of that one taco shop we used to eat at on Convoy?
One game out of first with 13 remaining? I’d say that’s a good place to be. Just bullet points today:
- Congrats to Jack Cassel on picking up his first big-league victory on Monday night. He scared the heck out of me on several occasions (only when he was pitching), but he got the job done.
- Khalil Greene hit his 23rd homer of the season and just missed his 24th. Greene crushed a ball to dead center in the fifth that probably would have left any other ballpark.
- The Pirates batted a kid named Nyjer Morgan in the leadoff spot. It looks like he patterns his game after the Dodgers’ Juan Pierre, just slapping everything the other way and hoping the money will follow. Twice he was forced at second on the front end of a double play. Both times he got right on top of Geoff Blum, who easily brushed him aside and completed the turn. Not that Morgan needed to go Carlos Ruiz on us or anything, but all the speed in the world can’t help if you’re not going to put a body in the way.
- Heath Bell is a freakin’ horse. I’d assumed that after working three straight days, Bell would be unavailable. He promptly threw eight pitches — all strikes — for a perfect eighth inning. Silly me.
- Twenty team shutouts in a single season? So basically one in four Padres victories involves the opposition scoring zero runs? Wow.
by Peter Friberg
You will not see the PPR.
This is my last installment of the PPR at Ducksnorts. Geoff Young and I talked and, as for baseball writing, we need to go our separate ways. We are still friends and I will continue to contribute to his site in the “comments” section. Will I resume writing on my blog? I don’t know. I have several irons in the fire and saving the hour-plus I spent nightly on the PPR will help towards those other ends.
I will finish putting together my Top 25 Padres Prospects but after that I will use the off-season to determine if I will write regularly during the 2008 season. I do know I will always keep up-to-date with Padres and baseball management, but this trip has concluded.
Geoff, you are the best in the business and your quality readership, of which I am one, is because of you. Keep up the great work. It was an honor to be associated with you and your site.
AA
Texas League Champions!
High-A
San Jose 7, Lake Elsinore 1 (San Jose wins Cal League Championship, 3-2)
Josh Alley: 4 AB, 1 R, 2 H, 1 RBI; HR, SO – had LE’s only hits
Commentary:
Think about this: Lake Elsinore had enough talent that they handed Matt Antonelli, Chad Huffman, Manny Ayala, and Wade LeBlanc to San Antonio — and those four helped lead the Missions to their league championship and guys who were left behind still came within one game of their league championship.
Congrats to the San Antonio Missions and Lake Elsinore Storm on great seasons.
Thanks, Peter. I agree that the Missions and Storm both can be proud of their achievements in ’07. Here’s hoping the big club will reap the rewards of their talent before long.
Thanks also for the terrific contributions you’ve made to Ducksnorts throughout the year. The honor and pleasure have been mine. I look forward to reading more of your insights here in the comments and wherever else they may surface.
Now I’m getting verklempt. Talk amongst yourselves…
Thanks for all the great work, Peter.
If you ever start up the PPR again, make sure to have Geoff tell all his readers where it will be (hopefully it will be with Ducksnorts again!).
All of your hard work was really appreciated – literally all of my knowledge of the padres prospects came from your report. Job well done, sir!
20 shutouts is VERY nice, and hopefully not the final total. I was interested in whether or not the Petco effect is pronounced here and while it is, our road pitching has been right at the best in the league too.
Most shutouts so far: SD(20); BOS(13); SEA (11); AZ (10)
Home SO for those teams: SD (14); BOS (5); SEA (5); AZ (4)
Road SO for those teams: SD (6); BOS (8); SEA (6); AZ (6)
So, what I take from that is yes, Petco is a factor as our H/R split is out of whack vs other league leaders. But, 6 Road Shutouts is basically as good as it gets if your name isn’t Theo Epstein and you have $100MM or so to spend on pitching. Fenway probably hurts that staff’s ability to shut teams out at home, while Petco helps our staff.
But you definitely can’t make the Keith Law-esque argument that it’s all about Petco. 6 Road SO’s so far makes this staff one of the best in the league, irregardless of how many home SO’s
(unless you want to go psychological and say Petco boosts pitcher’s confidence which can be packed up and taken with you on the road)
What’s also amazing that I think I heard the NL record is 28 SO’s by the ’98 Braves…can’t find where I read that so not sure if I’m just remembering that wrong. But I can’t imagine that many SO’s when you play your home games at the stadium (Fulton County stdm) widely known as the “Launching Pad” before Coors came along.
Peter … well done … it’s been a good year to follow the Padre Prospects … I really appreciate the effort you put in … and the comments you’ve shared … both in PPR and in DS … THANKS!
GY … dishin’ out a “word of the day” … http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/verklempt … yo!
Peter, thanks for all the PPR work you’ve done on Ducksnorts. We truly appreciate it.
The Padres are coming on strong. Did anybody catch the UT article where Clay Hensley is having exploratory surgery? Seems to me that this explains his lack of success this year.
Thank you Gigiantes, thank you almost to the Cards. Can we win 5 in a row. Have we won 5 in a row yet this year? Yes, once in June. Philly fan must be cursing Sf and Pitt. heh, heh, he. Hopefully, we are seeing AZ finally cool off. Go Giants, Go Cards. Go Padres!
Re 4: I’ve been opining for awhile that Hensley HAD to be hurt. He’s too good of a pitcher to have lost it this badly…
And thank you all for the kind words.
2: The old Fulton County park was the Launching Pad. Turner Field opened in 97 and has overall been neutral, usually within a few points of the neutral 100 park factor.
When Fulton got the reputation of the launching pad, Atlanta was the highest park and there was (IIRC) a heavier slant towards pitcher-friendly or neutral parks. San Diego was armored against home runs like a medieval castle. The Astrodome’s fences were in another zip code from home plate, and when Houston turned the fans on high the ball had to fight an incoming jet stream. No Coors Field, no Juice Box. So while Atlanta was one of the easier places to hit a ball out back in the day, it wouldn’t have been that easy compared to a lot of current parks.
That 98 Braves starting rotation was sick. Look at Maddux’s ERA+:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/ATL/1998.shtml
And he finished 4th in the Cy Young. Crazy.
Re 2: the park is obviously a factor (but so is Fenway the other direction; 8-5 split for them), but how many times have the Padres been shut out (home/road)? If the park were soley to credit, the Padres would have been shut out as many times at home as they have shut teams out at home…
Great job this year Peter!
I hope the Pads give Clay another shot at the rotation next year and dont try and trade him in the offseason.
4 , 6: He could be hurt, or he could be regressing to the mean. Or both. His success in 2005 was largely due to a very low BABIP offsetting some command problems (half as many walks as strikeouts).
He did seem to have some BLaw in him this year, just flinging it up there and hoping it would move across the plate. That’s what BLaw was doing his last season here, when his shoulder was damaged. Can’t count on him next year, shoulder surgery can be rough.
TW nice observance!
Maddux: 201 H, 62 ER, 13 HR, 45 BB, 204 SO
Glavine: 202 H, 63 ER, 13 HR, 74 BB, 157 SO
Oh yeah… Glavine threw 229 innings and Maddux tossed 251… I know people think Hoffman got hosed in ’98, but I always thought it should have been a Kevin Brown/Greg Maddux race.
Brown: 225 H, 68 ER, 8 HR, 49 BB, 257 SO, 257 IP
(Full disclosure: Maddux ERA+: 190, Glavine: 171, Brown: 160)
9 – excellent question, so I looked it up. We’ve been SO 8 times, 6 of them at home. So we’ve got a 14-6 edge at home, and a 6-2 edge on the road. We’ve been involved in 28 shutouts, been on the positive side of 71% of the outcomes, and had 71% of the shutouts happen in Petco.
Re 11: check his minor league numbers, his 2006 second half was more in line with what he did as a minor leaguer than his 1st half… If a guy suddenly performs outside of anything he’s ever done (Brady Anderson’s 50+ HR, Baldwin doing a Maddux impersonation back in ’01 – or was it ’02?, etc.) then you’re right, but Hensley has performed at that level.
Nice research Clayton. So obviously the park is a factor, but since we’re positive on both home & road splits, we can conclude that our pitching/defense is superior to the rest of the league.
re 10: his value at its lowest now, giving him another shot would make sense…
10: It” be disappointing if they pencil Clay into the rotation. No point to trading him when his value has disappeared, with the surgery draining whatever dregs were left, but we need to have 5 starters besides him when the season opens. If he gets back to 2006 form, gravy.
14: I did look it up. He’d never allowed less than 7.4 hits per 9 in the minors before 2005, and even that was when he was a 23 year old in the Sally League. In High A he was well over 10. In Mobile in 2004 it was 9.45. His 6.23 mark in the majors in 2005 was his lowest ever.
There’s a strong chance that, even with a completely successful surgery, we’ve seen the best of Hensley. 1.5 seasons of really valuable pitching, even if the peripherals weren’t that strong. Nothing to be ashamed of, but somebody you’d want a backup plan for.
#13: I love that the team is finally figuring out how to use Petco Park to its advantage. That number I gave yesterday of 59.5% of all homers in Padres games being hit by the Padres is even better (62.6%) at home. Compare with 44.9% last year.
Many thanks, Peter! Best wishes!
While we’re looking at home/road splits,
Padres avg runs scored/game at home: 4.01
Padres avg runs allowed/game at home: 3.39
Difference: +0.62
Padres avg runs scored/game on road: 4.89
Padres avg runs allowed/game on road: 4.59
Difference: +0.30
#21: Yep, we are on pace to outscore the opposition at home for the first time this century.
Great work Peter. I always looked forward to the read. It was nice to be able to go to one place a see how the whole organization is doing. Thanks for your effort.
Ok, I posted this in another thread because obviously paying attention today isn’t my strong suit.
Over at The Hardball Times, Steve Treder runs down the great platoons from 1979-1989, The Padres make the list with the Tim Flannery/Jerry Royster 2B platoon.
Just thought I’d pass it on. Here’s the link: http://tinyurl.com/39pmzh
We now know that Clay was injured this season (we do not how seriously he was hurt)…
Stats:
Accumulative MiLB (2006 and prior):
29-22 w/ 3.61 ERA in 472 IP with 447 H, 33 HR, 138/419 BB/SO ratio
Rate stats: 8.53 H/9, 2.63 BB/9, 8.00 SO/9, 0.63 HR/9
2007 MiLB Stats:
2-7 w/ 6.72 ERA in 71.0 IP with 102 H, 10 HR, 34/50 BB/SO ratio
Rate stats: 12.93 H/9, 4.31 BB/9, 6.34 SO/9, 1.27 HR/9
http://thebaseballcube.com/players/H/Clay-Hensley.shtml
MLB Stats
2005: 1-1 w/ 1.70 ERA in 47.2 IP with 33 H, 0 HR, 17/29 B/SO ratio
2006: 11-12 w/ 3.71 ERA in 187 IP with 174 H, 15 HR, 76/122 BB/SO
2007: 2-3 w/ 6.84 ERA in 50 IP with 62 H, 5 HR, 32/30 BB/SO
His 2007 numbers are the most out-of-line with his other stats… If he returns to good health, I think he can regain his 2005-6 form.
24: Thanks, RD; I’ve actually got a post on this scheduled for later today at Knuckle Curve. Good stuff…
26: No problemo GY.
Up to my eyeballs researching the ’73 draft. Winfield was a great pick at #4 overall, but we took the wrong pitcher in the 13th round. Joe McIntosh had a decent ’75 season for the Pads, but two picks later, SF nabbed a kid named Jack Clark and turned him into an outfielder…
25: Yes, his 2007 stats are the most out-of-whack….but the 2005-2006 Hensley was also substantially out of line with the 2002-2004 model. Before 2005 he’d given up more than a hit per inning in the minors, even when he had an awesome home park in AA. His H/9 went down by almost 33% in 2005. As his hits and IP climbed in 2006, so did his ERA.
I could see Hensley being much better than he was this year, but never again being what he was in 2005-06. Settling in around a 4.25 ERA for a couple more seasons, helped a lot when the Padres have a good defensive infield. ERA+ floating between 95 and 105. Not a bad player to have while he’s cheap, but not ever as valuable as he was.
The surgery worries me. It’s exploratory, which means they’re not sure what, if any, damage was there. He reported a total cessation of pain after the cortisone shot. He may very well have been hurt, but his numbers were likely to regress anyway.
Thanks for the PPR, Peter. We’ll miss it here.
Hope it’ll turn up again soon. Good job.
28: I friggin’ hate Jack Clark. We’d have picked up some wins, but he turns my stomach.
Peter – I loved the PPR. So sorry to see you go! Glad to know that you’ll still be posting comments.
Seems I’m full of links today…
For those that care Hawaii Winter Baseball rosters have been announced over at BA.
http://tinyurl.com/2mf7vh
31.
Why the Jack Clark hate?
I really can’t remember him very well. I do remember one of the first games I went to as a kid my grandpa got us tickets in the first row right behind 1st base. He came over and autographed my glove and I remember the real reason I liked him was because he was wearing the number 00 and being like 5 or 6 or however old I was I thought that was the coolest thing ever.
28 … it’s dangerous to even joke that there is such a thing as a “wrong” pick in the 13th round of a baseball draft … even the 1st round is a 50/50 crap shoot … and each round thereafter the odds of getting a productive player go down and down and down and down … if *anybody* thought Jack Clark would be a major-league All-Star hitter on draft day 1973, he’d not have been around for the 13th round …
But just to show you how hard it is to evaluate / project baseball players, JJ Hardy was the 299th player picked in the Ducksnorts draft back in March … even Hanley Ramirez didn’t get picked until #35 … my point being that until things are obvious, it’s amazing how unclear they are …
#35: Of course, you are correct. The unstated assumption there is “hindsight being 20/20.” Just having some fun…
34: He was one of the ringleaders of the anti-Tony movement in 89-90. A very good hitter, but a jerk. At least he had a leg to stand on, Mike Pagliarulo was in on it too and he wasn’t half the player Tony was.
I’ll love Jack Clark forever thanks to the HR he hit off Tom Niedenfuer to knock the Dodgers out of the ’85 playoffs. Why they didn’t walk him (with first base open and Andy Van Slyke, who was about 1 for 62 in the series, on deck), I’ll never know.
I was driving through Diamond Bar listening to the Dodgers’ broadcast when he hit it. Ah, the memories.
No Padres in the HWL:
http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/prospects/news/264868.html
Dodgers drop game 1 in Denver, 3-1.
37 & 38 create quite a dichotomy … I’m going to hold on to the on-the-field half and be pro-JackClark … Tony survived the off-the-field garbage, so that helps me to keep my head-in-the-sand position that I prefer for all all-the-field garbage …
My favorite Jack Clark story is that a Giants announcer once said that he ran the bases like he was invisible
40 … hey, now there’s a nice gift!
41: I guess I just love Tony more than you
But to each his own.
I just noticed in UT that Brocail was mentioned as the first option to start the 7th inning. Why? I can see that if he’s in a low leverage situation. In high leverage situation, there’s no reason to put him in first. Is there no other pitcher that can do the job better?
Case in point, the Jake Peavy short rest game against the Snakes. Brocail came in to relieve Peavy with the bases loaded no out. What did he do? Struck out the first batter and then served up a double to clear the bases before getting the next 5 batters out. Looks great on the stat sheet, 2 IP 1 H 6 outs 0 R for Brocail. Not so great for the team as 3 more runs scored due to his 1 hit.
Is there a better option for the Padres? Where to find the stat for inherited runners?
38: “Andy Van Slyke”
Now there’s a name from the way-back machine!
38: Andy Van Slyke: now there’s a name from the wa-back machine!
way-back
43 … must … not … take … bait …
Is there no other pitcher that can do the job better?
Actually, no. Brocail has done a fine job this year. I often read many disparaging blog entries of dislike for Brocail and frankly, this year, I am perplexed as to why. Thank the lord for Brocail’s performance this year.
Cla Meredith has been wholly ineffective. K.Cameron has struggled recently. Who’s left for the 7th ? Hampson ? Clearly , he is not the guy for this role either.
48: He still is not the guy for the job. I’d take Thatcher over Brocail