I meant my comment more as a “don’t feed the trolls” sort. Feel free to make your own judgment, but I think it degrades the quality of discussion.

His comments on team chemistry are spot-on. The 96 and 98 teams supposedly won because of great chemistry. Well, sure, if by “chemistry” people mean fat-soluble organic compounds with 17 carbon atoms arranged in four rings, not team golf outings or barbecues.

That thought is the same way Yankees fans think that they’d be better off with a Scott Brosius at 3B then A-Rod. Since the teams were different when they each played you can’t quantify the difference it’s easy to chalk up the differences “We won 4 WS with Brosius, none with ARod so obviously the reason we aren’t winning is ARod.” The same thing with team chemistry. The Padres didn’t win in 1997 because of poor team chemistry but then they got Wally Joyner in 1998 so they went to the WS.” Nevermind the acquisition of Kevin Brown.

That statement you made in #97 was exactly what the LA media used to run DePo out of town as well as the same way they attack Billy Beane and “moneyball.”

Intangibles & Variance. I have watched enough baseball to know that some roles in winning baseball cannot be measured by stats alone. Stats are a huge part of the equation but not all to undertstanding the prismatic culture that is TEAM SPORTS and for that matter life.

To me, it seems wise to balance out some of your fanatical positions (single set of assumptions based largely on a good dose of hindsight) with an acknowledgement that when BBlack says that Estes has quite a bit of life on his fastball and he performs well in a dozen or more starts at AAA that giving Estes a shot ain’t such a bad idea..even in light of what he did in 2003.

Exceptions to rules are what makes the game fun dude.

That gutsy Estes start against all odds last night can go a long way towards giving this club some spirit. Remember Fernando Valuenzuela’s 1996 Padres season after 5 pretty bad years ? I can just imagine what your April and May posts would have looked like that year.

KTowers - May 2008
Wally Joyner improved the chemistry of our club and a real strong character guy into our clubhouse. And I don’t think we would have won the division in ‘96 and ‘98 and went to the World Series without Wally Joyner.

The better statistical models of player performance, like PECOTA, have categories for “Breakout” and “Collapse,” which represent players doing things very different than they’ve done in the past.