Quick reminder for those of you in the Ducksnorts 2 fantasy league: We’re drafting Friday at 7 p.m. PT. Be there or be stuck with a crappy team.
To the links:
- MB at Friar Forecast continues his interview with Padres front office staffer Chris Long. My favorite part:
Then the robots kill all humans, but hopefully they’ll still play baseball.
Excellent. As a fellow robot, I very much look forward to this day.
- According to the U-T Padresblog, Greg Maddux is fine after getting drilled by a line drive off the bat of Derrek Lee (he sure hates our pitchers, doesn’t he?). Quoth Maddux:
It’s a minor contusion. No worries — for me, anyway. I ain’t worried about it. Perfect spring training injury. It’s got me out of running the next couple of days.
- Tom Krasovic at the San Diego Union-Tribune notes that pitching coach Darren Balsley has made a minor adjustment to left-hander Randy Wolf’s delivery (hat tip to LynchMob in the comments). Wolf, for his part, says his arm feels great, while manager Bud Black likes what he’s seen of the veteran’s change-up.
- Anthony DiComo at MLB.com wonders who has the best rotation in baseball (hat tip to Phantom in the comments). His conclusion? The Padres. Look, I love my team, but this is asinine. San Diego’s rotation might be top 5, but #1? As much as I want it to be true, there’s just no way.
- Krasovic talks about minor-league outfielder Will Venable (hat tip to Phantom in the comments). The Padres are higher on him than many outside observers. As for whether development time lost due to playing another sport will affect him, maybe we should ask Joe Borchard, Drew Henson, Ryan Minor, etc. Yeah, I did wake up on the curmudgeonly side of the bed; thanks for asking.
- According to Padres.com, right-hander Tim Stauffer is having shoulder troubles (hat tip to LynchMob in the comments). Poor kid.
- Speaking of shoulder injuries, Baseball America lets us know just how damaging they can be (hat tip to LynchMob in the comments).
- Meanwhile, the Padres are in China (U-T, hat tip to Matthew Thompson in the comments). Well, some of them are, anyway.
- Steve Henson covers the trip for Yahoo! (hat tip to Phantom in the comments). As Sandy Alderson says, “There is only one first.” Some folks wonder whether this trip will affect the Padres’ preparation for Opening Day. It’s a valid concern, although one hopes that a team possesses the ability to overcome obstacles. It comes in handy over the course of a long season.
- Corey Brock is there and has the photos to prove it.
- For those who care about spring stats, they’re available at USA Today (hat tip to LynchMob in the comments).
- Jason at sdpadrefan.com has posted his All-Time Padre Rookie Team.
- We’ve talked about Royals left-hander Brian Bannister here before, but now Yahoo!’s Jeff Passan is hip to the cat (hat tip to FriarFanDan in the comments). Quoth Bannister:
One thing sabermetrics and statistics have allowed me to do is relax. I know the odds. I know percentages. I know that three out of every 10 batted balls should go for hits, and I deal with it. It’s helped me be a better player
Passan, meanwhile, is linking to actual blogs. It’s just one giant lovefest, really.
- Jonathan Hale at Baseball Digest Daily examines the relationship between weather conditions and hitting, and then follows up with a look at the conditions of parks around the league.
Whew. That was too many. Is there such a thing? On second thought, it was just the right amount. Happy Friday!
Tell everyone to buy the book. I don’t want to work anymore. 
Ive had a couple of padres wallpapers created. Would you be interested in posting them for users to download?
That article about the weather effects is kind of interesting. I’d be curious to see more analysis on that.
Does anybody know (aside from Channel 4), who will be airing tonite’s Chinese affair? Anybody know if the Dodgers’ affiliates will be carrying this (for the pitiable amongst us who live outside of Channel 4′s range).
I like this note from the recap of yesterday’s game …
http://sandiego.padres.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080313&content_id=2425148&vkey=spt2008news&fext=.jsp&c_id=sd
Callix Crabbe continued his utilityman training by playing most of the game at shortstop. Crabbe, who easily leads the Padres in spring at-bats (33), had three singles in four at-bats and made several nice plays defensively.
I’ve noticed that Petco games played in the June Gloom conditions seem to usually be very low scoring games. Someone less lazy than I should do some research on that. The temperature data was very interesting, but only one part of the story. I think humidty is more of a factor than anything else.
Hey Geoff-
Wanted you to know I’m loving the annual again this year. Even better than last year’s edition – perfect way to shift the brain gears from NFL/college hoops into padre baseball. Also makes it seem like summer when it’s 20 degrees outside. Thanks for the great work!
OT … http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=AtSDIy9xwAZn8Vc8mxxlzUARvLYF?slug=ap-cardinals-lohse&prov=ap&type=lgns
Kyle Lohse reaches $4.25 million, 1-year preliminary agreement with Cardinals
GY … thanks for the link to the FF interview with Chris Long … here’s my favorite line …
Draft the right player and he could be worth $50 or even $100 million in value to your club (see Pujols). Draft the wrong players and you’ll waste millions and negatively impact your club for years. It’s an extremely difficult, messy, noisy, and thoroughly insane problem to work on. It’s beautiful.
… he gets it (the theory) … and we just have to appreciate how hard it is to do. I gotta assume that 25 (if not 29) of the other clubs have a Chris Long clone on their staff … just saying that it’s a zero-sum game …
7. I think you are correct in assuming that the great majority of clubs have a high end anaylist working for them, but I am curious as to how many actully listen to them.
#4: Yeah, more work needs to be done. I like the line of inquiry, though. I agree that humidity is another factor that should be studied.
#5: Clayton, thanks so much. Comments like yours remind me why I do this.
#7, 8: My sense is that teams have come a long way over the past decade or two, and that it’s constantly evolving. Cultures don’t change overnight.
#2
LA Times says the game will be broadcast at 10pm on channel 9 here in SmelLA
2: Not sure who’s airing the China game, but I know a couple of hours after it’s over I’m going to be hungry for more Padres baseball.
I thought that the Padres should have signed Lohse, especially since he went for so cheap. However, I could see why they wouldn’t. I wouldn’t expect him to me much better then Greg Maddux (if at all) although as a fly-ball pitcher, starting half his games in Petco might have some benefit. Having a reliable starter that’s good for 35 starts a year would also help a rotation that has multiple injury question marks (CY, Wolf, Prior). Just going on past history, the Padres are probably going to need 35-40 starts outside of Jake, Maddux, CY, Wolf and Prior. Is Germano (or Rusch, Leblanc, whoever) better then Lohse? That’s unlikely.
However, Lohse is more expensive then any of the other options (although I’m sure that the Padres could get him for cheaper then what he accepted from the Cardinals). But with the question marks in the rotation, I don’t see why passing on a reliable starter on a relatively cheap one year deal is a good idea.
10 … re: SmelLA … mind if I borrow that term? Reminds me of this article which the GLBers pointed to a couple of days ago …
http://www.signonsandiego.com/sports/padres/20080313-9999-1s13padres.html
Smog in Beijing may give Dodgers home-field advantage
… what a crack up!
Part 2 of the Chris Long interview was great. I thought it was even better than the first part. And, yes, I’m sure other teams have similar guys and it’s a more efficient market than it was even a few years ago, it’s still nice to know we have guys like Chris and DePo working for our team!
13: Smog in Beijing may give Dodgers home-field advantage. A classic indeed!
#11: Classic!
10: Thanks for the info. I’ll be watching that.
OT … Ben Davis sighting …
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/12/AR2008031203851.html?sub=AR
18 … and you can access this article using this login info from bugmenot.com …
Username you-dont@need.it
Password goaway
Geoff, thanks for posting my ‘All-Time Padre Rookie Team – position players” article in your Friday Links. That’s very cool of you. I have added some side notes to the story, in case any reader wondered why some of the more obvious homegrown Padres (Gwynn, McReynolds, Winfield) aren’t on the team.
20 … I enjoyed reading that!
BP STAT OF THE DAY
Top 5 2008 NL Relievers, by PECOTA Projected WARP
Player, Team, EqERA, WARP
Takashi Saito, LAN, 3.12, 5.6
Billy Wagner, NYN, 3.11, 5.1
Jose Valverde, HOU, 3.50, 4.7
Francisco Cordero, CIN, 3.44, 4.3
Eric Gagne, MIL, 3.42, 3.9
… hmmm … Gagne > Bell? Doesn’t seem right to me …
[removed for redundancy]
#11: Nice. Very nice.
#20: My pleasure. Good stuff there!
If you liked the Chris Long interview, you’ll likely enjoy this teaser from BP …
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=7237
How can a club best use its pitching staff?
GY … I doubt Leno is a Padre fan, but you might want to check … I see he’s pitching baseball books
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/unfiltered/?p=798
I have been trying to see how much of a homer people are here. I’ve made a couple of negative post concerning the Padres to see what attention and ire they would bring. To my chagrin they got little to no response.
After reading the post for several days, I have come to respect a lot of your baseball knowledge and positions. Everyone seems to have a very level head and a love for the game.
I have been converted.
26: Welcome aboard! Make sure you join in the In Game Discussions, I’ve found everyone here to be a lot more civil than just about any other site.
You want ire? Just post about Khalil Greene’s value…
#25: Oh, man; that is sweet.
#26: Welcome! “Everyone seems to have a very level head and a love for the game.” That’s pretty much what we aim for around here.
No level head for me-Realist I hate you……I’m putting you in company with SDSU Baseball Guy…….
since this is message board it might be good to point out: I’m kidding!
27: Did someone say “Khalil Greene’s value?”
30 … glad to see you’re on the ball, Robby!
26 … can never have too many “Realist”s … bring it!
OT … a staggering look at ticket prices …
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=AtC.bzRb2gCZoRqVcDcy2IYRvLYF?slug=ap-toughtickets&prov=ap&type=lgns
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=AuwV4CywNZDStRYytLP1qPb.gYl4?slug=ap-padres-kouzmanoff&prov=ap&type=lgns
Remember, KK is the “Mashin’ Macedonian”, not the “Crushin’ Russian”
The MadFriars have a guy watching spring training … he had good things to say about this … http://www.oursportscentral.com/services/releases/?id=3568786 … signed out of an indy league … seems like a very long shot … but aren’t they all?
Regarding the best pitching staff, I guess some writer’s “analysis” is “Wow, low ERA, they’re really, really good.” Throw in the Cy Young, and and easy argument to make.
NL Road ERA ranking the last few years:
2007: 8
2006: 1
2005: 13
Vs. our offense (road runs scored):
2007: 4
2006: 4
2005: 3
So, if someone looked at this, and did not know anything else, they would say we have a good offense with a decent pitching staff. But, of course, that is completely the opposite of the “conventional wisdom”. It even bleeds over onto this site. OUR OFFENSE IS WAY UNDERRATED BECAUSE OF PETCO AND OUR PITCHING IS WAY OVERRATED BECAUSE OF PETCO.
26: Well, that’s a novel approach. Troll, no one bites, admit you’re trolling but you like reading the blog. I don’t get it, but whatever floats your boat.
27: ARGH! Anthony don’t start that please!
30: No, they said they want to smoke Khalil’s green. Shhh.
OT … I love the bubble-gum prank … http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2131/2328690049_905998f826_o.png
#34: Petco Park’s impact is a little subtler than that, but in terms of the big picture, you’ve nailed it. I don’t believe our bullpen is way overrated, for example. And certain aspects of our offense are way underrated. “Which team had the most road extra-base hits in 2007?” is as close to a guaranteed bar-bet winner as you’ll find. We still need to do a better job of reaching base, though.
OG reaches based 3 times in today’s minor league game …
http://www.signonsandiego.com/sports/padres/weblog/2008/03/giles_reaches_base_three_times.html
GY, scratch Bob Costas from the list of future Annual forward-er’s …
http://thebiglead.com/?p=4995
Another former-Padre sighting …
http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080314&content_id=2426124&vkey=spt2008news&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb
Royals cut three pitchers from camp
Lawrence, Lumsden and Rosa sent down on Friday
(hat tip to GLB, as was true for 39 also)
#39: Fortunately there are many other options.
34: Don’t even bother arguing to people about the Padres pitching and offense, people just don’t know (or care) about park effects. I’m not exactly sure what Geoff mean by Petco having a “subtler” effect though.
The crazy thing about Petco is how it just destroys some hitters, notably Brian Giles and Khalil Greene. Giles was almost useless last season at home (237/345/320, 75 OPS+) but was good on the road (299/374/496, 133 OPS+). So he’s not completely done as a hitter. But he totally changes his approach at home (his walks and strikeouts are way up indicating that he’s taking more pitches while his XBH% is way down showing that he’s not attacking the ball). Khalil’s splits are just as extreme (216/258/412, 71 OPS+) vs. (288/322/519, 123 OPS+) and he strikes out a lot more at home (25% vs. 15%) while walking less (4% vs. 5%). His extra base hit percentage stays the same. It makes you wonder if he has trouble picking up the ball in Petco, or whether he just goes up there swinging at every single pitch (more then usual).
Just looking at the top 10 batters for the Padres last season, it’s amazing that they scored as much as they did at home. Greene, both Giles’, Bard, Cameron and Sledge were all horrendous at home. All but Blum were much better on the road (Kouz was about as close to even for a starter 92 vs. 119 OPS+).
Here’s the best news I’ve read all day …
http://sandiego.padres.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080314&content_id=2426096&vkey=spt2008news&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb
Schmidt plans to pitch through pain
Going on advice from trainers, right-hander to continue tossing
… mind boggling-ly cool.
#42: The subtleties were these: “I don’t believe our bullpen is way overrated, for example. And certain aspects of our offense are way underrated.” IOW, it’s not our entire pitching staff that is overrated, nor is it our entire offensive game that is underrated.
39: That tirade is so far off the charts, as to grant Costats official Bitter old man status.
42. In the article linked at the top, Chris Long said that Greene’s approach to hitting explaines his dramatic home away splits, but Giles is essentially the Anti Greene and as you pointed out, Petco destroys him as well.
I do not believe it matters what the fans perception is. So long as the Padres find a way to use Petco, in order to gain competetive advantage.
Chase jacked a ball in the bottom third. 2-1 Brewers.
http://mlb.mlb.com/news/boxscore.jsp?gid=2008_03_14_milmlb_sdnmlb_1
Go, Chase, Go!
4 IPs from Wolf … but with 0 Ks … 2 ERs …
E: Clark (1, throw), Greene (1, fielding)
49 … good news: Davanon has a hit and a walk so far …
bad news: from the box score:
BASERUNNING
CS: DaVanon (2, 2nd base by Mota/Kendall).
PO: DaVanon (1st base by Mota).