Got the coffee flowing, music playing: Massive Attack, Groove Collective, and George Benson if anyone cares. The Benson is his The Other Side of Abbey Road, which is full of Beatles songs and which absolutely sizzles. His guitar lines are so fluid, it’s disgusting. I mean, he’s not Joe Pass or Grant Green, but still. Apparently Benson recorded his album just three weeks after the actual Abbey Road was released. How sick is that?
Anyway, you come here for the baseball. Very well, then, let’s get to it:
- The Last 4 Years: Part 1 (Regular Season) (Sdpads1 Blog). The Padres own the fourth best record in the National League since moving into Petco Park. They’ve won 12 more games than the division’s second-best team (Dodgers) during that stretch while spending $136 million less on payroll. Once again, smart money beats deep pockets.
- History shows Prior a bad gamble for Padres (Sporting News, via Jonathan S in the comments). David Pinto examines pitchers throughout history who have missed an entire season and doesn’t like Mark Prior‘s chances to rebound in ’08. Jonathan wonders how accurate comparisons are over time given advances in medical technology, and I have to agree. Chris Carpenter is the only guy on this list who has pitched in the last 15 years, and I’ll be tickled if Prior so much as sniffs that kind of success. I don’t think he will, mind you, but I’m also not sure how much we can learn from looking at, e.g., Mal Eason’s 1902 season or Cy Barger’s 1914 season.
- Dan Szymborski, on the other hand, likes the gamble.
- Prospect View – Matt Antonelli (Baseball Digest Daily). Dave Rouleau profiles everybody’s favorite Antonelli (sorry, Johnny!). Not a lot of new info, but it’s great to have all this stuff in one place.
- Chase Headley: What can we really expect? (Rich Folkers…) Corey wonders… well, I think it’s pretty obvious…
- Our friends at MadFriars are running interviews with the play-by-play announcers from Padres minor-league affiliates. These guys see the kids play every day and offer good insights:
The interview with Rich Burk, voice of the Portland Beavers, is scheduled to run on Saturday.
- Debate: Is Goose Gossage a Hall of Famer? (ESPN). This is one of a series of debates between voters on the worthiness of various Hall of Fame candidates. The thought process is sometimes… interesting. (Vegas Watch gets into this a little more.)
- Two more takes on the Hall of Fame: Dave Studeman examines the current candidates, while Patrick Sullivan identifies the best eligible players not enshrined.
- Take the fifth: Examining bottom starters’ impact (Sporting News, via Didi in the comments). Yikes, not only was our #5 starter terrible in 2007, but also he got way too much work.
- Here are two articles about pitching that I’ve only glanced at and thought, gee, I really should read this more carefully when I have time: 2007 NL Starting Pitching Analysis (Statistically Speaking) | tRA and ROA, a new pitching metric (Lookout Landing).
- Lahman Database Version 5.5 is now available for download. It contains stats from 1871 through 2007 and is guaranteed to blow your mind.
Finally, thanks for all the suggestions regarding PadreBlogs.com. An aggregator is at the top of my list; I’m evaluating a few tools, but the book is priority #1 right now, so testing and implementation may take a while. Unless, of course, someone with mad skillz would like to volunteer their services. 
Oh, and be sure to vote in the spring training meetup poll to let us know which dates work best for you. Happy Friday!
50 … thanks for the link … good one … must read, even!
The first thing in there that stood out for me was his comment about KK … “There is no doubt in my mind that he’ll stay at 3B” … which seems like a strong statement … given the presence of Chase Headley …
50: Good interview. Thanks for the link.
A support for Trammell, who should be in the HoF, in this link:
http://www.nysun.com/article/68941
49: I don’t think that the FO would reconsider getting Bonds in LF. The public outrage against that move would be very damaging. I still don’t want Bonds here.
The public as a general rule are very hard to sway to change their minds so I don’t think it will be as easy as you think to get them to support a Padres team that includes him on the roster even with recent revelations.
Look at how hard it is to convince the fanbase that the Padres are doing more with less by winning since moving to Petco without succumbing to spending big dollars on FA. I still have friends who despise the FO since big money was not spent on FA this off-season (one went as far as cancelling the season tickets he’s had since the early 90′s). They think the Padres are not trying even when I mentioned the winning records in the past 4 seasons.
In any case, getting a slugger for a LF is not a move that will improve the team as much as getting that competent #4 and #5 pitchers that are healthy. I’m still concerned with the rotation that’s relying on rehab projects so far. And in that, I’m just as irrational as my friends who prefer big name sluggers FA to my reliable back-end pitchers.
re: 49
Gee, thanks for giving me all my options. I actually have about a million options, but I won’t detail them here.
I did not say that Bonds is still an outcast. He wasn’t even an outcast before, because of Canseco, Caminiti, etc. (Pete Rose, for example, would be an outcast.) My argument is that his steroid use is a bigger deal, about 100 times bigger, than these other players. In the case of McGwire, Sosa, Clemens, maybe not 100 times bigger than them. But I still think a bigger deal.
I said in my previous post that I realize than McGwire and Sosa helped their careers more, in a way. I realize McGwire had the single-season home run record. But also pointed out that Bonds has the all-time record, what was arguably the most important record in sports.
Maybe it does matter to some that many names were named in the report. It was certainly interesting. But anyone who has followed this controversy since the Caminiti story knew it was a widespread problem. The difference: We now know that F.P. Santangelo took PEDs, instead of just “a lot of players.”
My overall point by saying what’s the point is: No, the Padres marketing department shouldn’t “be looking at” Bonds and how he would fair in San Diego as a personality. The image of Bonds has not changed, not one bit, I would argue. Alderson has said they won’t sign before and I don’t see how Clemens and a bunch of average players being revealed in the Mitchell Report would change that.
Also, it seems we’ve taken quite a bit of time for you to say you were just criticizing my “approach.” Yes, you might not have liked how I said it — I don’t like about 15 things that happen everyday — but I have answered your question about Bonds in San Diego a few times now. So we’ve a discussion about it.
What is the difference between a blog and just a sports web site? Just curious.