Mind is heavily on the book these days. Finished a first draft of the minor-league chapter over the weekend: 42 pages filled with profiles of 74 players. Kind of insane, if you ask me, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Somewhat related, I’ll be unleashing my list of Top 10 Prospects this week — either Tuesday or Wednesday depending on… stuff. Meanwhile, here’s what’s going on in the Caribbean leagues:
Thursday, December 6
Late results from the Dominican Republic and Venezuela:
- Estrellas 2, Escogido 0 (box). Vince Sinisi, batting third and playing left field, went 0-for-4 with a strikeout for Escogido. His team notched just two singles all game, one each by a couple of former Padres catchers, Raul Casanova and Miguel Olivo.
- Gigantes 3, Azucareros 1 (box). Callix Crabbe, leading off and playing left field, had two of his team’s four hits in a losing cause. Another ex-Padre, right-hander Dario Veras (!) collected his ninth save.
- Aragua 2, Margarita 0 (box). Wil Ledezma had a nice outing (6 IP, 7 H, 2 R, 2 BB, 4 SO) in a losing cause. I have no clue how (or if) he fits into the Padres 2008 plans.
Friday, December 7
- Estrella 6, Escogido 0 (box). Sinisi walked twice and struck out twice.
- Gigantes 5, Azucareros 1 (box). Crabbe played center in this one, doubling and walking in four trips to the plate.
- Hermosillo 6, Obregon 1 (box). Marshall McDougall is seeing a lot of action at second base. Batting second, he went 0-for-2 with two walks for Hermosillo. He also completed two double plays (both started by Vinny Castilla, who also homered in the game) on defense. Former Padres right-hander Leo Rosales, sent to Arizona in the Scott Hairston deal, worked a perfect ninth for the victors.
Saturday, December 8
- Guasave 11, Navojoa 5 (box). Oscar Robles hasn’t played the field in a few days; not sure what the story is there. Batting second and serving as DH, he went 0-for-2 before being lifted for a pinch-hitter. Luis Cruz, who has been starting at shortstop in Robles’ place, singled and doubled in five at-bats out of the #6 hole.
- Hermosillo 9, Obregon 4 (box). McDougall singled and walked in five plate appearances. Castilla, batting cleanup, went 4-for-4 with two homers and seven RBI. What’s up with that? Seriously, why didn’t we get any in ’06?
- Mazatlan 5, Mexicali 2 (box). Brian Myrow, batting fifth and playing first base, singled in four at-bats for Mazatlan.
Sunday, December 9
Box scores from the Dominican Republic and Venezuela were unavailable as of this writing.
- Mexicali 7, Mazatlan 1 (box). Myrow went 0-for-2 with a walk. This was the first game of a doubleheader; Myrow didn’t play in the second.
- Obregon 3, Hermosillo 0 (box). McDougall, starting at third in place of Castilla (presumably exhausted from all the home runs), went 1-for-3 with a walk in a losing cause.
Whoomp, there it is…
46. That’s right, but of the 4 teams that made the playoffs the average #’s are 295, 371, 521 and HR every 22AB. SH lifetime is 245, 299, 440 HR every 27AB.
SAN DIEGO (AP) — Randy Wolf will get a nice payday if he can make 30 starts and pitch 200 innings for the San Diego Padres.
The left-hander, coming off shoulder surgery in September, finalized a one-year deal on Monday with the Padres that will top out at $9 million if he reaches all his incentives.
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=AoQiboBZ4f10Pdqkau4DGH8RvLYF?slug=ap-padres-wolf&prov=ap&type=lgns
I’ve posted this before, but Jose Cruz Jr. hit .355/.429/.677 in 62 at-bats in April.
Granted, he was really bad after that, but left field wasn’t a black hole the entire first half. It was in May, June and some of July.
There’s a good chance Scott Hairston could match last year’s LF totals by himself.
I remember a Bill James article from one of his abstracts about the reverse theory of park effects or something like that.
He used the Houston Astros as an example. Long story short, an extreme pitcher’s park like the Astrodome or Petco fools a team into thinking it has really great pitching and really poor hitting.
The Padres, for example, don’t have poor hitting. They ranked in the top half of the league or better in most hitting categories if you compare their road stats to other teams’ road stats.
The Padres’ concentration in the offseason should be with their pitching, not their hitting. Specifically, making sure the Nos. 4 and 5 starting spots are in order.
My goodness… Several things:
9 & 27: Bay for Headley not enough? I’d want more from them… I wouldn’t do Bay for Headley straight up.
38: “Padres General Manager Kevin Towers said he is putting all other moves on hold until he finds out whether Japanese outfielder Kosuke Fukudome is coming to the Padres or not.”
I don’t know, I think the Padres are serious… http://www.signonsandiego.com/sports/weblog/2007/12/fukudome_update.html
54: The Padres ranked near the bottom of all of baseball in team OBP… Good power, no one on base…
53: And a lot of the blackhole-ness of left field during that time spilled into right when OG went down, with right fielders hitting .261/.346/.395 on the year (compared to OG’s .271/.361/.416 line). Hopefully that will be improved next year too.
The Padres were sixth in the NL in road OBP with .333.
It doesn’t matter where they ranked in all of baseball, because they wouldn’t be a .500 team in the AL anyway. It matters were they rank in the NL.
Their ranking of sixth in OBP on the road is an indication of how good they were, not their ranking of 15th in all games.
As for the most important offensive stat — runs — the Padres were fourth in the league in road games. Better than the Rockies and behind only the Phillies, Mets and Atlanta.
As for the Padres’ pitching, often lauded as the league’s best, their ERA was 4.42 on the road, eighth in the NL.
An interesting article on the recent Rule V draftees.
http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/the-best-major-leaguers-50000-can-buy/
From the Washington Post beat writer…
“At the risk of burying the lead here, I heard from two people last week that the Nationals had spoken to the Padres about the possibility of trading for shortstop Khalil Greene. One person told me Chad Cordero would have been the centerpiece headed to San Diego, but another said it would have been Jon Rauch. With conflicting information, I never put it in the paper, and both people said the talks had fizzled.
But the other thing that came up: Lopez might have gone to San Diego as the shortstop (as well as Nook Logan, perhaps) to replace Greene.”
I know…I know…No I did not make this up. It was from his blog post about the Nats Middle Infield.
FUKUDOME IS COMING…
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3149919
To MLB…his decision on which offer to take is still up in the air. Pads and Cubs are still the front runners.
Cubs may be going to $50mm on Fukudome…The Pads have NO interest in Bonds…there has been no contact between the Pads and Aaron Rowand…”It wouldn’t hurt” Anonelli to get more AB’s in AAA…
All this and more…here:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20071211/news_1s11padres.html
63: The quote I heard from Sandy and keep seeing in print is the Padres offer is “one of the two or three biggest offers” in team history. That’s not going to get it done, unless he’s saying the only bigger contract is Jake’s extension. My guess is it’s 4/48 at the most. I will be stunned if we end up with Fukudome.
This Brewers report has them looking for a 3B and putting Braun in LF…Obviously they let Jenkins walk and waived Mench for a reason…Outside of TG Jr, is there a trade possibility here? Frankly, we have two 3 baggers and if that is what they need…
http://blogs.jsonline.com/brewers/archive/2007/12/10/torres-is-reporting.aspx
You have to think they would value Headly more than Blalock.
Re: 61 Cordero? Come on CM tell the truth you were the tipster for the Washington Post beat writer?
Re: 66 — I wish…Actually had the blog sent to me by a buddy in DC…and no, neither he, nor I, have any contact with that beat writer.