Decade of Ducksnorts
Thu, Sep 6, 2007
by Geoff Young
Yep, we’ve been here 10 years. That’s, like, 70 in Internet years. I was going to create a snazzy badge to commemorate the event, but what follows will be plenty self-indulgent on its own. Come, follow me…
Old Incarnations
I can’t find any versions earlier than 2000 (I probably have a few on a floppy somewhere, but I don’t have any machines currently in operation that can read a floppy). Anyway, here’s what’s still out there:
- Geocities (2000). This is me teaching myself how to build web pages in the mid- to late-’90s. Love the green background. Before Geocities, we were on AOL.
- geoffreynyoung.com (July 2001). You always remember your first domain. Especially when it’s your name. Unless, of course, you forget your name, which sucks.
- Ducksnorts.com (July 2002). The original tagline — “One fan’s take on the grand ol’ game of baseball” — seems quaint now. Remember that there weren’t really any baseball blogs back then. That’s why there’s an explanation of what a “weblog” is right up front. It’s not because I thought people were idiots or anything.
- Ducksnorts.com (February 2003). I’m especially partial to this version. I did the redesign as part of a class project. That class helped me land a job as a web developer. I didn’t use WordPress or any other automated tools here. I hand coded every line of the site in Crimson Editor (which I still use today for a lot of things) and FTP’d all the pages. If I needed to update a link in the sidebar, I used search and replace routines (hooray for regular expressions!) and re-uploaded the entire site via FTP. Always test your search and replace routines.
- Ducksnorts.com (January 2005). Shiny new masthead. The shot of Petco Park is from my wife’s old office.
- All-Baseball.com (January 2006). This is when I “sold out” and joined a network. All-Baseball.com was absorbed by Most Valuable Network shortly after I joined. I learned a lot about publishing software and the potential power of blogging. With slick new tools, we were able to add a great deal of interactivity. It’s easy to forget now that for years, we didn’t have comments at Ducksnorts. What a difference that made!
Old Entries
These aren’t necessarily the best of what’s appeared here (like I could judge that anyway), but they give us at least some idea of where we’ve been over the years:
- Be Careful What You Wish For (September 1997). The obligatory “first stab” at writing about baseball for an audience. I’m not particuarly proud of this one beyond the fact that it represented the beginning of something that has turned out to be pretty cool.
- Padres Farm Report: Mike Darr/Gary Matthews (May 1998). I compared Matthews to Steve Finley, Quinton McCracken, Devon White, and Brian McRae. I really wish that at least one of those guys had ended up in his top 10 comps at Baseball-Reference. I compared Darr to Todd Hollandsworth, who shows up at #2 on Matthews’ list; do I get any credit for that? Nah, I didn’t think so.
- California/Carolina League All-Star Game (July 1999). Wow, I’d completely forgotten that Marcus Giles played in this game. I also liked Kory DeHaan when he was still in the Pirates organization. Kip Wells? Mike Gonzalez? I feel old.
- Distant Early Warning: Rookie Ball Hitters (February 2000). I used to write for an outfit called Top Prospect Alert. Here I am, getting excited about Rookie Ball hitters. Some of them actually panned out to one degree or another: Josh Hamilton, Wilson Betemit, Carl Crawford, Wily Mo Pena, Hank Blalock, Ben Broussard, Alexis Rios. Ouch, Vince Faison. Did I really compare him to Kenny Lofton? Yes, I’m afraid I did.
- Thoughts on the College World Series (June 2001). This was the inaugural blog entry. I don’t think I called it “blog” back then; pretty sure it was still “weblog.” Again, I wasn’t just covering the Padres. There were, seriously, at most two dozen baseball blogs at the time, and I don’t believe any of them were specific to a single team. Then again, maybe they were; it’s hard to remember.
- Bozied, Barfield, and Other Prospects (April 2002).
Brian Lawrence? Deivi Cruz? Tom Lampkin? Sean Burroughs? Kevin Jarvis? Maybe things were better on the farm: Ben Howard? Bernie Castro? Darren Blakely? Ben Johnson? Eric Cyr? Hey, there’s Xavier Nady and Josh Barfield. Whoa, there’s Justin Germano. - White Stripes, Web Sites, a Little Bit of Baseball (July 2003). I used to play in a band. I used to talk about that here every once in a while, maybe to make it seem like I had a life or whatever. Anyway, there were, like, five people reading my stuff back then so I didn’t mind wasting time so much back then.
- Bittersweet (October 2004). From the entry:
The Friars made a lot of improvements in 2004, but there are a lot of questions going into next season. Will David Wells return and if not, who will replace him in the rotation? Can Adam Eaton and Sean Burroughs take their games to the next level? Which of the sluggers who can’t really play the field will be back, and what do the Padres do with Xavier Nady if the answer is both? What do they do with Nady anyway?
- Fun with Numbers: Jake Peavy (February 2005). Again, quoting myself:
Assuming offensive levels stay about the same, Peavy’s worst case ERA is about 4.00 or so. I’ve seen the reports that suggest Peavy was lucky last year, but I’ll set the over-under for 2005 at 2.70. It’s aggressive, but I don’t think he’ll slip as far as some folks might expect.
For the record, Peavy’s ERA in 2005 was 2.88. I point this out not to make myself sound smarter than I actually am, but because I usually end up looking like a real idiot when I make these sorts of predictions.
- World Baseball Classic Recap: Semifinals (March 2006). This remains one of my favorite moments at Petco Park. Also, I miss Aki. Not enough to give back Adrian Gonzalez and Chris Young, of course, but still…
- Cooperstown Road Trip Photos (August 2007). I will never forget my drive to Cooperstown. Thank you for being a part of it.
And on that note, thanks for being a part of Ducksnorts, period. I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: without you, this thing doesn’t happen.
Rock on…
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.
September 6, 2007 at 7:15 am
Congrats on 10 Years G.Y.
I’ll bet that 10 years ago you would have never thought that you would be a published author who was endorsed by the Padres CEO.
September 6, 2007 at 7:53 am
Congratulations Geoff!
September 6, 2007 at 7:59 am
Congratulations GY!
“What a long strange trip it’s been” - I think would sum it up for ya nice, and man that green? I think my retinas are burnt! (j/k) a vet like you gives us rookies something to look up. You’ve got a good thing going here, and it was a blast to be able to talk some baseball over coffee this summer!
September 6, 2007 at 8:00 am
Congrats Geoff! Here’s to another 10+!
September 6, 2007 at 8:13 am
Nice job Geoff. It makes me pretty bummed that I’ve only known about Ducksnorts for maybe a year and a half. I really do love this site and if anything I feel like you and most of the people around here have made me a better / knowledgeable Padres fan if that makes any sense.
September 6, 2007 at 8:19 am
5: I totally agree with KRS1. I wasted so much time on that damn message board at Padres.com. It’s nice to be able to have substantive, civil discussions here where appreciating the team doesn’t automatically make you a “Front Office plant.”
Here’s to ten more! You should feel very proud of yourself Geoff. Few people have the level of committment necessary to stick with a job for ten years, let alone a hobby (I really hate how empty that sounds, but I didn’t want to go with obsession). Congrats! You truly have made this season much more interesting and entertaining for me.
September 6, 2007 at 8:32 am
Congrats G.Y. on a quality site. I just discovered it a couple months ago from a friend of a friend who knows you or something…….I’m stoked to check it daily and see what’s going on. Later.
September 6, 2007 at 8:36 am
GY … THANKS for Ducksnorts! Your writing is the core … you give us good thoughts … you entertain us … you’ve created a community that builds on your foundation. THANKS!
And I appreciate that you do all this on a “donation” basis … and don’t even push the “reminder” button very often … and I know you freak out when I use this comment to push the “reminder” button
Yo … guys & gals … on the left side of this web page is a “Paypal” button under a header that says “Support” … PUSH THE BUTTON
Do something tangible to celebrate 10 years of Ducksnorts … even if it’s “just” tossing in 10 cents (even that would be 5x your usual 
).
September 6, 2007 at 8:51 am
Congrats Geoff, it’s an honor to be able to post on your site… Thanks and keep up the GREAT work.
September 6, 2007 at 9:15 am
Thanks for all the work you put into DS Geoff. We all know it take a lot of work and time to maintain a site like this and I know we all appreciate it.
Thanks!
September 6, 2007 at 9:49 am
Ditto the thanks to GY.
Keith Law is chatting on ESPN at 1pm EST. The chats are open when they’re happening, but subscriber-only after they’re done.
September 6, 2007 at 9:54 am
11: You should ask him what he thinks about sample sizes…
So, not that many of us were in favor of throwing Jake last nite, but how does everyone feel about yesterday’s game? Jake got roughed up something bad, but I was glad to see the offense in it to the end. That said, MC and MB’s ABs in the 7th absolutely crushed us.
September 6, 2007 at 10:00 am
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/.....id=3006992
Nice summary article by Crasnick, sort of helps you take a breath and get ready to dive into the stretch run.
September 6, 2007 at 10:07 am
Re: 11 Keith Law is useless to Padres fans
September 6, 2007 at 10:10 am
Does anyone know a good site to track the Padres 40-man roster transactions? with all the movement its hard to keep track of who they are kicking off the 40 man to make room for guys like Colt Morton.
September 6, 2007 at 10:10 am
Congrats, Geoff. It’s amazing how you can put up such great stuff day after day. It really is.
September 6, 2007 at 10:12 am
12: I didn’t see the at-bats in the 7th, I just know that they were Ks. Jenga’s godawful approach in the 5th was my personal backbreaker. Can’t be unhappy with 4 runs, but if he keeps his normal discipline we could have had 6 or more.
September 6, 2007 at 10:12 am
12: I believe, that for some unknown reason, Bud bought into the “Must win” hype surrounding last night’s game. By buying the hype and acting accordingly, he has created what I see to be a much larger problem. When you create a must win enviorment and lose, where do you go from there?
September 6, 2007 at 10:21 am
This is sorta off-topic, but has anyone mentioned that baseball-reference added the minor leagues recently?
http://minors.baseball-reference.com/
Pretty exciting!
September 6, 2007 at 10:23 am
About last night:
The bottom line is that the Padres are down one game, with many games to go, and every other wild card contender of note lost last night. It isn’t ideal, but it’s not the end of the world. Let’s not have Jake pitch on 3 days rest anymore and leave it at that.
September 6, 2007 at 10:24 am
20: Agree. We got lucky with the other teams, especially Philly.
September 6, 2007 at 10:42 am
Nice going, Jeff. I can’t remember what the gift is appropriate for the 10th anniversary, but here’s wishing you whatever it is.
I’ve followed Ducksnorts for the last 2 years. I’ve told everyone I know what a great site it is and how much they’ll enjoy it.
I didn’t get a chance to read last night’s comments, so I apologize if this is a repeat, but I’m thinking that Jake needs some work on pitching in “Big” games. I’m hoping that that reputation he is getting in “big” games is dispelled come October.
September 6, 2007 at 11:28 am
19 … now *that* is exciting news, thanks!
BTW, Phil Laurent probably isn’t 2007 years old … and so the average age of the players on the AZL Padres probably isn’t 52+
(I’ve just reported the problem)
September 6, 2007 at 12:11 pm
As JP mentioned in yesterday’s comments, San Antonio won their first playoff game …
http://web.minorleaguebaseball.....;fext=.jsp
September 6, 2007 at 12:13 pm
But the Storm lost 4-3 in 14 innings …
http://web.minorleaguebaseball.....p;sid=l110
Game #2 is *TONIGHT* … up at The Diamond in Lake Elsinore … GO! (that means I’m encouraging *you* to go root for our Storm boyz
)
September 6, 2007 at 12:17 pm
Congrats Geoff! Wow 1997! I don’t think I even had the internet back then.
September 6, 2007 at 12:51 pm
Jason Stark says the Padres will bid for Mike Lowell if he doesn’t stay in Boston…..doesn’t make a ton of sense to me but he’s so superior defensively that I can sort of understand the Padres having some interest about a 1-2 year deal(of course if he settled for a 2 year deal he’d stay in Boston)
September 6, 2007 at 12:57 pm
I like that the odds of the Padres making the playoffs are still better than the D-backs …
http://www.coolstandings.com/b.....gs.asp?i=1
September 6, 2007 at 12:58 pm
28 … not true @ BP, however …
http://baseballprospectus.com/.....s_odds.php
September 6, 2007 at 12:59 pm
27 … you should send Stark an email and ask him about that … explain to him about Chase Headley. I sent him an email a couple of weeks ago and he replied pretty quickly!
September 6, 2007 at 1:32 pm
Re: 27 I think he is just speculating because the Pads had intrest in him last off season and Kouz has not lit the league on fire yet. He also probaly does not think Headley is ready yet because he ahs not seen any time in AAA.
I dont see the Padres signing Lowell unless its for a 1 year deal with an option and they are going to try and load up for one more run before they go all young.
Giles RF
Lorettal/Lamb 2B
Bradley CF
A-Gon 1B
Lowell 3B
Greene SS
Bard C
Kouz LF
Peavy
Young
Maddux
Towers
Germano/Hensley
Trevors last year
might work
September 6, 2007 at 1:37 pm
SI’s John Donovan tabs the Padres as the team to beat in the NL…if they can make the playoffs:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.c.....index.html
September 6, 2007 at 1:42 pm
31: KT’s gonna pitch again? Well, if you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself, right?
September 6, 2007 at 1:46 pm
Re: 33 Josh Towers
September 6, 2007 at 2:05 pm
GY- I, for one, am still anxiously awaiting you branching into the woefully under-served area of Air Supply weblogs!
Congrats on #10!
September 6, 2007 at 2:06 pm
34: Don’t make me put a wink thingie at the end of my posts.
11: Big bad Keith Law said the Padres are No. 2 in NL behind the Mets, although he had the Mets behind at least four AL teams.
September 6, 2007 at 2:40 pm
Since the Padres did not call up P-mac does that pretty much mean that he has no shot at making next years squad? Have they really fully given up on him?
September 6, 2007 at 3:00 pm
I wonder if he’ll have a Jack Custian/Xavier Nadyian resurgence on a team that actually bothers to give him a shot instead of leaving him to languish in a role he isn’t suited for (pinch hitting / defensive replacement).
September 6, 2007 at 3:03 pm
Re dont forget Jason Bayion
September 6, 2007 at 3:05 pm
I don’t see them giving him a shot in LF next year because he’s not a power hitter, and they dont need a 2nd OF with very limited power.
P-Mac’s D really is not that and. He made a few good plays in ST and was never really a liability.
September 6, 2007 at 3:24 pm
38/39 … I notice there’s no “Ben Johnsonian” on the list … so it’s not all “miss”es … and won’t we be surprised if there turns about to be a “Termel Sledgian” on the list?
I’ll bet McAnulty doesn’t get any more Padre ABs … and I’ll bet he does get more MLB ABs … and if they turn out to be productive, then he’ll get a chance at a Jack Custian resurgence … which really is unlikely given the power-element of Jack Cust’s resurgence … what we’re really talking about is more along the lines of Jay Payton, right? Or maybe the power developes and he goes Shane Mackian? Anyway, it seems more likely that he’ll go AL rather than NL (and hence going Nadyian or Bayian prolly isn’t in the cards).
September 6, 2007 at 3:47 pm
I don’t really think it’s Ben Johnson’s fault that the Mets have Beltran/Alou/Green/Milledge/Gomez and defensive whiz Endy Chavez ahead of him on the OF depth chart, but I get the general point. It’s hard to complain too much when the current Padre outfield is producing so well.
September 6, 2007 at 4:24 pm
GY — congratulations. I’m glad to have been a part of things for the last 3 years. DS has gone from being a novelty for me to a necessity. After all, how many people in New Haven CT want to talk Padres?
This site provides your terrific analysis, thought-provoking statistics and stimulating discussion. I really don’t know what I’d do without it.
September 6, 2007 at 4:30 pm
42
If I was a Mets fan, I wouldn’t be that happy with the trade. It was a little puzzling from their standpoint, especially after they signed Alou.
Good thing I’m not a Met fan!
September 6, 2007 at 4:40 pm
Congratulations on 10 years Geoff. I think I’ve been around for nearly half of those and Ducksnorts has been a big part of being a Padres fan for me.
September 6, 2007 at 5:12 pm
I apologize if I missed a similar post here or yesterday, but I looked at the month of September, and found that the shift last night made our starts look like:
Without change:
Peavy: 6, Young 6, Maddux 6, Germano 5, 5th slot 5
With change:
Peavy 6*, Young 6, Maddux 6, Germano 6, 5th slot 4
*Includes the 3 day rest start
So, we lose the difference between Peavy fully rested vs on 3 days but gain Germano vs the 5th slot.
Given we did not know how Peavy would respond, I think it is a smart gambit, despite the results. I love calculcated, smart risks, especially ones that buck conventional wisdom. Conventional wisdom got the last laugh here, but I still like the move.
September 6, 2007 at 5:15 pm
Congrats Geoff. I have been around for just over 10% of that time and have really enjoyed the site. Great analysis, great posts, and great people. Here’s to 10 more years… Cheers!
September 6, 2007 at 5:23 pm
46 … I agree with you … question for you … I heard/read somewhere that pitching Peavy last night puts him in line for the season finale (if necessary) … does that align with your projection? Doesn’t seem to … ’cause if that were the case then it would seem like Jake would get one more start than CY/GM/JG …
September 6, 2007 at 5:26 pm
Congrats, Geoff. If I were out there, I’d buy you some thai buffet to celebrate.
September 6, 2007 at 6:23 pm
48 My calendar shows that Peavy would start if there was a game Oct 1; so our last game would be the 5th slot, under either choice.
And GY, great site.
September 6, 2007 at 6:58 pm
48: Peavy could pitch in the finale, but it would be again on 3 days rest.
September 6, 2007 at 8:19 pm
San Antonio Missions take a 2 game lead in their Best of 5 series by beating Frisco tonight 6-1. Cesar Ramos, who went 6 strong innings, gets the win. Venable collects 3 hits.
Notes : Headley is really slumping and Luis Cruz/W.Venable have been hitting well lately. The key to the Missions late run ? Pitching !!
September 6, 2007 at 8:52 pm
Padres farmhand (AA) 23 year old lefty Cesar Ramos has really had a good year this year (13-8 with a sweet WHIP). Another soft tosser that doesn’t walk many that may benefit in cavernous Petco. Anyone see him pitch last year at Elsinore ? Look at this Missions rotation : 20 year old Will Inman + Wade Leblanc - 23 years old (who has made a good transition to next level)+ Josh Geer (had a great season) and Ramos ! Can one now say that the Padres farm system is bad ? I say it’s been upgraded from bad to fair. I say fair because of what we saw at Portland this year which was the tail end of the depression finally exiting.
September 7, 2007 at 7:24 am
53: Of that rotation, the big upgrade is Inman. It’s great that Geer and Ramos kept their ERAs down, but you just don’t see many successful major leaguers who had K/9s in the low 5s as minor leaguers. Lawrence is thought of as a pitch-to-contact guy, but he was striking out 8 per 9 in the minors.
September 7, 2007 at 7:36 am
Really B-Law had a k/9 of 8 in the minors? Were AA hitters not use to seeing an 82 mph fastball.
September 7, 2007 at 7:47 am
Really. You’re thinking of late-model Blaw, who was working with an undiagnosed shoulder injury. Earlier models of Blaw worked in the higher 80s with sick movement.
September 7, 2007 at 7:56 am
Bingo, 540 Ks in 601 minor league IPs …
http://minors.baseball-referen.....?pid=23265