Chatting with Sandy Alderson (Part 3)
Wed, Jun 18, 2008
by Geoff Young
This is the third of a three-part interview (Part 1 is here; Part 2 is here) with San Diego Padres CEO Sandy Alderson. Big thanks to Mr. Alderson for taking time out of his busy schedule to make himself available, and also to his assistant, Dayle Tedrow, for her indispensable assistance in making this happen.
Ducksnorts: Something that’s near and dear to my heart: Paul DePodesta has recently started a public-facing blog, which is really cool. When I was working in industry, that was one of the things I was trying to get my company to do externally… I’ve seen a lot of examples — Wells Fargo, Southwest Airlines, IBM — of very reputable corporations doing public-facing blogs, and really to great effect in terms of customer outreach and so forth. That said, it’s pretty revolutionary for the Padres to take that step. What factors influenced you to start that?
Alderson: Well, first of all, I really believe in as much interface with the public as possible. I do a radio show every week — we’ve got Grady [Fuson], Kevin [Towers], Paul — all those guys do a radio show every week, and my attitude is, the more people hear about us and from us, the better off we are because I have a lot of confidence in the people we have here.
The blogosphere creates another opportunity to communicate, and I’ve got a lot of confidence in Paul — in his ability to write, in his ability to self-edit if that’s necessary — to be as straightforward as possible under the circumstances. We ran it internally for, I don’t know, a month or something like that and decided… let’s go ahead. I’m not sure what we get back in the form of commentary is terribly useful because it tends to be — not a fringe element, but I wouldn’t say it’s [laughs] an accurate poll of public opinion.
Ducksnorts: It’s like the radio. [laughs]
Alderson: Right, and I don’t consider that to be perfectly representative either, but it’s another source for us…
Ducksnorts: You’ve got to be out there.
Alderson: Yeah.
Ducksnorts: I think that’s commendable that you guys view it as an opportunity, because [with] a lot of people — not necessarily within the baseball world, but within the corporate world, my experience has been, “this is new, we don’t know what it is, and let’s wait till someone else does it before we determine that, oh, hey, yeah, that was a good idea; we really should have gotten in on that.”
Alderson: The other thing we’ve been toying around with is allowing people like yourself into the press box. I know there’s a lot of controversy about that among mainstream media and so forth, but our attitude is, the more access, the better. In Paul’s case, it’s a chance for him to express himself on an unflitered basis. He doesn’t get interpreted by [radio host] Philly Billy [Werndl] or [newspaper columnist] Tim Sullivan or somebody else. It’s an unvarnished line of communication.
Ducksnorts: It benefits him, and it benefits us, the readers. I don’t presume to speak for everyone, but the people I’ve spoken with, in the circles I travel in, are very excited about it.
Alderson: Great, I’m glad to hear it.
Ducksnorts: Turning back to the draft, and player development — the draft just finished taking place and, as you say, we’ve gone out and gotten a lot of position players this year… There’s been criticism in the past that the Padres have been “overly conservative” in their strategy, with an emphasis on polished college players, and preferring risk avoidance over perceived upside — the Jay Bruces of the world, or the Upton brothers — obviously, those guys weren’t available at our slot, but I think you see what I’m getting at — the guys that are perceived as being once-in-a-generation types… How would you describe the current philosophy/strategy, and how satisfied are you with it?
Alderson: As we discussed earlier, we’ve made pretty significant strides in our farm system over the last couple of years. To some extent, I think a strategy has to be devised in the context of where you are, where you’ve been, and where you want to go. In other words, if we had the #1 farm system in all of Major League Baseball, would we tend to take a few more shots in the dark? Maybe. Would we ever get to be the #1 if we didn’t take a few shots in the dark?
I look at a team like — just to give you an example — Tampa Bay. I think you could go back and look at Tampa Bay over the last 10 years or so, and the reason that they’ve now started to be successful on the field is because they’ve been successful over the last three, four, five years — but not before that — in converting #1 draft picks. You can go back and look at the kind of money that they’ve spent on draft picks, some of whom have worked out and some which haven’t. The guys that are starting to work out for them are not just high-ceiling high school players but high-ceiling college players that happened to be available to them in the first or second slot.
I think there’s a lot made in San Diego of what happened surrounding the Matt Bush selection, and I think that was — in terms of where we’ve come since that time — something of an aberration. The only other possible basis for that assumption is the fact that in the last couple of years there have been some players like Rick Porcello and so forth who’ve dropped, and Detroit or somebody else has swept in and taken those players. In some cases that’s worked, in some cases it hasn’t.
What I’m hoping is that our farm system from now going forward is going to be viewed as a single unit — the draft and Latin America, or our international signings. We haven’t done very much at all internationally, we haven’t been successful at all internationally.
We’ve done quite a bit over the last couple years to improve the system. When your system is ranked 29th or 30th, I think you do things a little differently than if it’s ranked 10th or 12th, or if it’s ranked first or second. If we’ve been a little cautious in the past, it’s probably been with a view toward improving our farm system at a time when it was absolutely barren and we didn’t have terribly high draft picks. If you’re drafting [in slots] 20-30, you’re not going to get Evan Longoria. The fact that we got a guy like Chase Headley in the second round I think says more about the way we’re approaching things than the fact that we took Matt Bush with the first pick in the country. That’s ancient history around here, and the problem is, people don’t understand that.
Ducksnorts: It doesn’t feel like ancient history to fans. Certainly much has changed. Not to mention that there’s nothing anybody can do about that; it’s done.
Alderson: Right. [laughs] The philosophy that we have here — I hate to do this, but if you want to look at a longer record… you have to go to Oakland and look at the stuff that Grady [Fuson] was doing, and while I was there and after I left. The philosophy hasn’t really changed, it’s just been in effect here for a shorter period of time.
Eric Chavez — but he was the 10th pick in the country. Tim Hudson was a guy taken in much higher rounds. Mark Mulder — but he was the second pick in the country.
You take that opportunity to take the #1 guy in the country, and we whiffed on it, but it really was a different time and place. The organization is substantially different now, the philosophy is substantially different, the process by which these decisions are made is substantially different, and the personnel involved are different.
Take our most recent draft. I know there’s been the bloggers — “oh, they took this guy and that guy.” You know, Arizona was going to take [Allan] Dykstra right after us… People make assumptions about what would happen, might happen, and so forth.
Ducksnorts: You’re not drafting in a vacuum.
Alderson: [laughs] No. Again, we were looking for talent and that’s what we took. The other thing that people should understand is that talk about lower ceiling or higher ceiling is really about probabilities. Let’s say the ceiling is 100 and a kid is a high school player and he’s now at 50… You can say he’s very projectable to get to 100, but the fact is he’s at 50 on a scale of 1 to 100. And you’ve got a college kid that’s at 80 and he’s not as projectable. Why? Well, in part because he’s already at 80 instead of 50.
Now that’s just in the abstract. If you take the tools that are available to us, that we try to use — and that’s not to say, hey, we know something you don’t know — but in terms of the way we try to do the analysis — and we’re not unique in this — you take the scouting, you take some of the other analytical tools, there’s no question that there is a higher predictability with college players than with high school players. It’s just the way it is because there’s more data available.
The other thing is that… in the average draft, take the top 30 players that are taken — the first 10 are pretty much consensus; in other words, all 30 boards — first 10 guys, 12 guys, everybody’s [board is the same]; after that it goes like this [sweeps hand over head], because the depth of true quality just doesn’t exist beyond the first — it doesn’t even get through the first round. Some of the guys who were taken in the first round we didn’t even have in our top 50, so that’s got nothing to do with high school…
There’s no question that we put an emphasis with position players on the ability to hit; you can’t hit, you can’t play in the major leagues. You can run like the wind, you can have a great arm, you can do this, you can do that — with very few exceptions, if you can’t hit, you can’t play.
I don’t subscribe to the notion that we’re more conservative. I think we’re more analytical and we do rely on probabilities. At the same time, as our system gets stronger and has more of a foundation, you may see a difference in approach — but again, I think what you’ve got to do currently is think in terms of the draft and the international market as a single entity and that one group of players complements another group of players.
We took a high school kid in the first round, [Jaff] Decker… He may not be a middle-of-the diamond guy, but let’s see what happens internationally, where we’re also committed to improvement. It’s got to be viewed as a composite.
Ducksnorts: That’s a really good point, because so much attention is focused on the draft — especially now that they’re starting to televise it and everything, and the international stuff is still very much behind closed doors, or maybe not so much in the public eye.
Alderson: There was a kid in the draft who — [people ask] “why did you pass on this guy, why don’t you take him?” Well, one of the kids that they were talking about has [long pause] — I mean, there were several issues related to, uh, not typical scouting issues. You can’t expect people to know that, but when they pop off with the absence of information, it’s frustrating.
Ducksnorts: Before the season start I was pegging this team as an 85-86 win team. I’m on record in several places as saying 85 or 86, and right now it looks like it’s going to take quite an effort to get to that total.
Alderson: We’re 6 1/2 out. [laughs]
Ducksnorts: Well, the great thing is Arizona has come back to earth and nobody else seems to be doing anything, so the opportunity is still there… Where is the disconnect? Obviously somebody like Josh Bard is hurt right now, but if you looked at all the expert prognosticators’ expectations of him, Khalil Greene, and a handful of other guys — it’s not even like he’s a little bit off of his normal game — what we would expect of this guy given that he’s in his physical prime; it’s like night and day — you’re not even looking at the same player. How do you account for that when you’re taking stock of your club — doing risk assessment, that sort of thing — and then when you actually get to the point where you look up and go, “oh my goodness, this isn’t where we wanted to be or realistically expected to be”?
Alderson: Well, partly what you have to do is go back and do a little bit of self-analysis, try to figure out, okay, where did we overestimate, why were we so off? The other thing is, you have to recognize that there are these vagaries that exist in life, they exist in the game, and they can manifest themselves over two weeks, three weeks, a months, six weeks, a year.
If you look at the places where we’ve really been hurt, you can say, okay, the [Jim] Edmonds thing didn’t work: is that because he didn’t have any spring training or is it because he’s just lost it? He’s actually playing decently right now with the Cubs, [but] I’m still happy we made the decision we did because it’s allowed us to look at people for the future. Jim Edmonds was not the future of the Padres. Could Jody Gerut or Scott Hairston have a role in that future? Yeah, I think so, depending on how things go.
We never really solved the left field problem except with the Hairston/Gerut/[Paul] McAnulty thing. We didn’t sign [Milton] Bradley, we didn’t get [Kosuke] Fukudome, which would have maybe allowed us to move some people around. Having said that, you look at catcher, you look at — [second baseman Tadahito] Iguchi wasn’t playing particularly well in April. Greene has been a complete disappointment…
Pitching wise, if you look back at April, [Jake] Peavy wasn’t pitching all that well, the bullpen was completely out of sorts, Chris Young wasn’t pitching at his best, Randy Wolf was erratic early, [Justin] Germano was Germano.
Part of it is just the unpredictability of the game, part of it is that we didn’t solve a couple of problems that existed in the off-season that we hoped we’d addressed. The bullpen was a concern of mine to some extend because of the amount of change that had occurred… We still had [Trevor] Hoffman, we still had [Heath] Bell, we still had [Cla] Meredith… we had [Justin] Hampson coming back, but he was hurt…
Ducksnorts: [Joe] Thatcher looked great at the end of last year.
Alderson: We had Thatcher coming back. Kevin Cameron had pitched pretty well. But they were all sort of having to move up a step and it wasn’t successful either because of injury or because of something else, and suddenly we were pretty vulnerable in the bullpen. Who knows, the 22-inning game or what have you, what kind of impact did that have on the ‘pen? But clearly the ‘pen was not performing well…
Ducksnorts: I know we’re running short on time here, but I’ve got a couple of fun ones to end with. You played second base at Dartmouth. What is your fondest playing memory?
Alderson: Well, I don’t have any real fond memories of playing varsity baseball there… In those days we had freshman baseball and varsity. I played freshman and then I played varsity one year, and I probably got about 10 at-bats. I don’t think I got a hit. I don’t really have any positive memories of playing college baseball. [laughs]
Ducksnorts: [laughs] Fair enough. What about your fondest baseball memory, period, if you can narrow it down to one?
Alderson: That would have to be winning the World Series. Especially now, after almost 20 years, winning in 1989, recognizing how difficult it is — I mean, we went to the World Series three years in a row — you realize how difficult it is to get there and then win it.
More generally it’s having been able to share baseball with my family — my kids, my wife, and my dad. My dad wears my World Series ring… It’s been great for the whole family.
Thanks again to Mr. Alderson for being so generous with his time and sharing his thoughts with us here at Ducksnorts. I thoroughly enjoyed speaking with him about the game and the team, and I hope that came through for those of you reading this.
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.
June 18, 2008 at 7:57 am
Great Job GY, its really nice to get an interview with SA with great questions being asked!
June 18, 2008 at 8:04 am
Ouch, Sandy not pulling any punches re: Khalil.
For the record, I completely agree with him.
Thanks again for this series of interviews Geoff. This is great reading.
Does anyone else think that we’re hitting the Yankess and (potentially) the Tigers at the worst possible time? Nothing like coincidence to suck the wind out of your sails.
June 18, 2008 at 8:15 am
DS in the pressbox!!! Wow, but what will this development do to his ego I wonder. Will he bigtime us, will his posts become more infrequent as he rubs elbows with the elite of the baseball media, will he get fat (er?) eating all that free food?
I think that is the coolest, the New Media taking control. Good work, King Geoffrey, we are not worthy.
“Greeen, a complete disappointment.” Boy may be in Florida before he knows it. Isn’t that where we sent Boroughs?
June 18, 2008 at 8:53 am
#2@Phantom: The Yankees just lost their #1 starter. The problem isn’t that they’re hot right now, it’s that they’re more talented than us at virtually every position.
The Tigers, on the other hand, are starting to play like the team that was built over the winter.
June 18, 2008 at 9:01 am
Re. #2: Speaking of Sandy not pulling punches…
“Germano was Germano.” Wow.
June 18, 2008 at 9:25 am
#2@Phantom: I don’t get how this would be the worst possible time. I can’t think of a time earlier in the season that would’ve been better. When the Yankees were running cold, we were colder. Same with the Tigers.
June 18, 2008 at 9:29 am
#4@Tom Waits: Telling it like it is. Last nights game was embarrassing to say the least.
Stansberry couldn’t even get it done at AAA so I would imagine that his days are numbered as a Padre, especially with Luis Rodriguez back.
Anyone else think that we should trade Randy Wolf NOW !
June 18, 2008 at 9:30 am
Great job, Geoff. It’s enough to make you mad at Werndl and Smith.
June 18, 2008 at 9:53 am
#5@Peter Friberg: Yeah, but on the other hand, the Padres knew what Germano was likely to be and penciled him into the rotation.
Peavy, Young, and the bullpen were all candidates to regress.
June 18, 2008 at 10:03 am
DePo with a call for questions …
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=3031950757212286354&postID=1739529046886829565
June 18, 2008 at 10:10 am
#9@Tom Waits: The question is, what kind of expression did Alderson have on his face when he said “Germano was Germano”? I’m pretty sure he didn’t mean, “We know Germano was garbage when we put him in the starting rotation”. But only Geoff might be able to tell us if he thinks that comment was meant to be positive or negative by Alderson.
June 18, 2008 at 10:17 am
One more comment on the Alderson interview, which is not in any way intended to disparage either him or GY:
The reference to Tampa’s “high ceiling college picks” are disingenuous. No informed critic has said that college players are necessarily lower-ceiling. It’s that typically the college players the Padres select have been lower-ceiling, especially among pitchers. On a related note, the idea that the college players we’ve been selecting are “80s” is a laugh.
The Padres are doing better at PR these days, but there’s still an undercurrent of “Here’s some information, carefully packaged (Dykstra’s agent is Boras!), now stop questioning us.”
June 18, 2008 at 10:21 am
#7@JP: I’m all for trading Wolf and other pieces (Giles?) now, unfortunately I don’t think it’s going to happen unless we absolutely tank the next two weeks. I understand we are only 6.5 games back, but it seems like there are some who are hanging their hat on the “the Rockies came from further back than that last year” phenomenon. I really, really hope that our FO isn’t going to hang on to pieces too long in the hopes that the Padres can repeat what was a once-in-a-lifetime run by the Rockies. . .
At the same time, I am also hoping that the team starts playing better and finds itself at .500 by the end of July. But I’m not counting on that.
June 18, 2008 at 10:24 am
#11@JMAR: Is there any way to read “Germano was Germano” other than “Our below-average 5th starter performed in a below-average manner?”
I’m pretty sure the Padres did know Germano was likely to suck, but they were hoping to get lucky, like they did when Germano was first called up. If they didn’t expect him to be below-average……how could they not? The league caught up to him last year, to the point the Padres had to replace him with Cassell and Tomko.
June 18, 2008 at 10:25 am
#12@Tom Waits: I think the key words you used are “informed critic”. I think the majority of fans making noise about our drafts are not informed, they are just critics. That’s not to say that they are wrong for being critics, it’s just that they are often wrong in their reasons for being critics.
Then again, I tend to believe that the vast majority of people are uninformed about most topics in life. . .
June 18, 2008 at 10:26 am
From a commenter at MadFriars …
According to The Associated Press, Ole Miss lost football signee Chris Wilkes of Orlando, Fla., to the San Diego Padres. Wilkes was signed as a quarterback but the Padres took him in 22nd round of the pro draft. He signed with the Padres
http://www.sunherald.com/newsu.....31188.html
June 18, 2008 at 10:32 am
#13@BigWorm: The team is in a tough spot right now. They have to sell tickets, they may find themselves back in the race if Arizona stumbles, but every start made by Wolf and Maddux potentially reduces their trade value. Of course a good start may slightly increase it.
It’s going to require steely-eyed analysis to determine if we should sell early. Do we have those eyes? Part of me thinks yes, the other part remembers that Padre analysts said this team could win 90 games and that Jim Edmonds was a good buy.
June 18, 2008 at 10:35 am
#17@Tom Waits: I would think that they’ll hold on to Maddux and trade Wolf. Wolf seems to have more perceived value as a lefty, anyway.
Is there anyone else we could/should trade for a decent return?
June 18, 2008 at 10:37 am
#6@Dex: I dunno, two weeks ago probably wouldn’t have been such a bad time to face them. It’s kind of inconsequential that they lost Wang since we weren’t slated to face him anyway.
June 18, 2008 at 10:38 am
#16@LynchMob: Wilkes is already headed to Arizona. Big raw kid, supposedly a low/mid 90s fastball.
June 18, 2008 at 10:38 am
TW, come on. The Padres are in the middle of a down year (either under-performing or performing to their under-talented way - debatable, but off topic). However, the previous three years was their best 3 years EVER. Furthermore, the farm (while it admittedly isn’t star-studded like Tampa’s) has encouraging depth and some EVERY nice pieces.
RF: Kulbacki, Jaff Decker, Carvajal, Cooper
CF: Hunter, Cumberland (BA projects him to move there down the road - I think he stays at SS), Antonelli, Macias
LF: Huffman, Headley, Dykstra
3B: Headley, Forsyth
SS: Cumberland - the biggest positional hole in the org
2B: Antonelli (I think he’ll move to CF for the following), Sogard
1B: Dykstra, Blanks, Carrasco
C: Lobaton, Quiles, Hundley
Pitchers: Latos, Leblanc, Miller, Breit, Inman, Garrison…
These all will not turn out of course, but I’m also missing guys who probably will make it to the bigs and be solid/above ave. regulars…
The sky is not falling.
This is a above-average organization.
June 18, 2008 at 10:39 am
that last sentence of the first paragraph should read:
…some VERY nice pieces.
June 18, 2008 at 10:44 am
#21@Peter Friberg: It’s always nice to have some perspective.
June 18, 2008 at 10:45 am
#17@Tom Waits:
From MLBtrade Rumors:
“Executives from the Rockies and Padres are telling other clubs that they will not be sellers. They’ve climbed back into the race with the recent D’Backs slump. Popular trade rumor names like Brian Fuentes, Greg Maddux, and Randy Wolf may be off the market.”
http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/.....est-r.html
I think the Pads will hold onto everyone until the deadline and if they are still within 6 or 7 games they will keep everyone and plan on geting compensatory picks for them.
June 18, 2008 at 10:49 am
#18@Phantom: Why hold onto Maddux? You’re not likely to get draft picks for him, and 10 million for a league-average pitcher, if he resigned with us, is too much. I don’t think they move anybody unless they’re pretty sure they’re out of it, and at that point Josh Geer can pitch 6 innings every 5 days.
Barrett’s not hitting, Clark might get you a C- prospect. Kouz is a candidate, but his trade value seems less than his real value.
June 18, 2008 at 10:54 am
#11@JMAR:
I can tell you that Sandy Alderson is one of the most brutally honest people I have ever met. I don’t know how it was for Geoff but when I met Sandy (this was in ‘05 during that playoff stretch) I brought up Khalil Greene and asked his thoughts on Greene, he was so revealing and blunt I litterally probably stood in front of him with my mouth hanging open for 5 seconds.
Not to make him sound like a total jerk because he isn’t at all but he just doesn’t beat around the bush and I totally love that. I have a friend who is a really famous older military figure and he invited her and whoever she wanted to bring to spend the evening in his luxury booth. He sat there and talked to us the entire game. It was awesome!
June 18, 2008 at 10:54 am
#11@JMAR: It was in the spirit of, “it is what it is.”
#12@Tom Waits:
Of course, Alderson didn’t state any such thing. He was simply explaining a concept.
June 18, 2008 at 10:56 am
#2@Phantom:
How much do the Pads regret signing Khalil, assuming he doesn’t turn it around? Can you say “nontender”?
June 18, 2008 at 10:58 am
Fascinating stuff Goeff. Haven’t talked to you in a while, but hope all is well in Southern So. Cal.
- Anthony
The Oriole Post
June 18, 2008 at 10:59 am
#28@Stephen: They have no one else to take his place…although it would have helped the Pads with his 09 arbitration.
June 18, 2008 at 11:00 am
#25@Tom Waits:
I would trade Kouz and I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t get traded by the offseason.
#26@KRS1:
It’s funny you say that because I bet that’s not the impression many 1090 listeners have. While he can be pretty honest on the air, I hear the “lawyerspeak, full of jargon” reaction, too. He done use big words.
June 18, 2008 at 11:09 am
#21@Peter Friberg: Who said the sky was falling? There’s a middle ground between believing that most picks the Padres make are good and Chicken Little. It’s an above-average organization. It’s a ways from being a great organization.
The Padres and many of their defenders continue to have a schizophrenic relationship with external evaluators of the farm system. People like Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, Keith Law, John Sickels, and others have consistently ranked the 05-08 Padres drafts as anywhere from average to slightly above. Not great. You can’t claim that those grades are uninformed, but that they know what they’re talking about when they rank the overall farm system somewhere in the middle of the pack. When 2008 draftees make up that much of your “depth,” it’s not a good thing. And seriously, Macias and Cooper? Every team in baseball has a Drew Macias. I’m not giving up on Antonelli, but there’s certainly more evidence now for Keith Law’s feelings about him. We can’t just accept the positive (Dykstra has tremendous raw power) and ignore the negatives (he’s not playing a quality LF and many scouts say he has holes in his swing).
As for the Padres’ analytical abilities, how does anyone NOT question them? This team has EARNED being 10 games under .500. They’ve had some bad luck, but they’ve also made a number of poor decisions that turned out poorly (poetic justice).
June 18, 2008 at 11:14 am
#31@Stephen:
I think compared to guys like AJ Smith and other front office sports types he is outrageously candid. He does use big words and maybe that irritates people but I think he is awesome. I don’t always agree (or like he said know all the facts regarding decisions the team makes) but I do really like him.
June 18, 2008 at 11:19 am
#27@Geoff Young: He was talking about upside in the context of defending the Padres approach to drafting. Are we really going to act like his “50 vs 80″ example was some Platonic interlude unrelated to the rest of the discussion about why the Padres do what they do? Particularly when DePodesta brought up the same point before the draft?
June 18, 2008 at 11:22 am
#24@Steve C: That feeling seems to be entirely dependent on Arizona having come back to the pack. We’ll see how things stand in mid-July.
It’s not going to be an easy decision in any case, unless we either get outrageously hot or Arizona / LA blows us away.
June 18, 2008 at 11:27 am
#31@Stephen:
#33@KRS1:
He’s candid, but he’s also very careful. That’s why I don’t buy that the “50 and 80″ comment was an abstraction.
June 18, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Just a great interview, Geoff …
June 18, 2008 at 12:04 pm
VORPs view of 80% of the NL West, courtesy of BP’s STAT OF THE DAY
Bottom 5 2008 NL Offenses, by VORP
Team, EqA, VORP
Washington Nationals, .238, 21.3
San Diego Padres, .253, 49.7
Colorado Rockies, .250, 54.0
Los Angeles Dodgers, .250, 55.4
San Francisco Giants, .255, 66.1
June 18, 2008 at 12:06 pm
#32@Tom Waits: Hard for me to believe that the Padres “EARNED” being 10 games under .500. Aside from Edmonds and Germano (which were both rectified quickly), what decisions did the Padres make in the off-season that “earned” them their current record? The fact that they couldn’t predict that 3/5 of the starting rotation would be hurt? The fact that their SS would have an awful first two months? The fact that their starting catchers couldn’t hit their way out of paper bags despite historical evidence to the contrary?
I mean, you’re completely operating from a hindsight perspective here. Yes, there were some questions and concerns. But nobody predicted this kind of collapse (people said high 70s to mid 80s). I’m OK with you thinking that we somehow doomed ourselves in the off-season. I just don’t think it’s necessarily honest.
June 18, 2008 at 12:20 pm
#39@Phantom: The Padres have been outscored by 63 runs. Their Pythagorean W-L is worse than their actual W-L. In that sense we’re lucky to only be 10 games under. You get outscored by 63 runs before the halfway mark, that’s earning it. That’s what I mean. It hasn’t been a bad bounce here and there. It hasn’t been an unpredictable and occasional implosion by the bullpen.
We’ve had bad luck (Bard) combined with bad decisions (Edmonds and Germano) and predictable regression (Peavy, Young before the injury, most of the bullpen, even Greene) for which there were inadequate fallbacks. There were also some good decisions (Crabbe, Guevara) that didn’t work out, or haven’t worked out yet.
It’s nearly impossible for a team to survive all that at once, but it’s not impossible to plan for the regression and to minimize the bad decisions. If all those things had gone the other way (most everyone performing above historical norms, questionable decisions turning out well), you end up with the 2008 Cardinals.
Really, everyone who is excited about being only 6.5 out now (which includes me) should be wondering how much closer we might be if other decisions had been made. It’s not hindsight, it’s a realization that the Padres chose THIS path, and not others that were available. Their options weren’t frozen. They didn’t have to go Edmonds/Germano. They didn’t have to pick the path of least resistance with Greene.
June 18, 2008 at 12:28 pm
#40@Tom Waits: I still think you’re completely misrepresenting the way the team is playing. You said “most everyone performing above historical norms”. I don’t think anyone here expected players to outplay their norms, but I certainly think most of us expected the team would LIVE UP and MEET those norms. Sure, some of us thought this might be Khalil’s breakout year. But we thought, at the worse, we’d get more of the same we got last year. The fact is, we are getting nowhere near the same from last year.
If Bard and Khalil plays up to their historical norms, we’re probably 2 to 4 wins better than we are right now. If Edmonds plays for us like he is now for the Cubs, that’s probably a few more wins. You say that the bullpen, CY, and Jake were likely to regress. But this much? I understand that Jake probably wasn’t going to be unanimous CY Young quality again, but I think most of us still expected him to do fairly well. I was more bullish on CY, but I really think a lot of people were stunned by the bullpen’s collapse. Yes, a slight regression was possible. But going from the best bullpen to the worst isn’t what most people had in mind.
I think it’s extremely easy to criticize the team at this juncture and say that we could have prevented this. But I’m not sure that there were legitimate moves that this team could and would have made in the offseason that would have been “better decisions.” There weren’t many CFs out there for us to acquire, Kyle Lohse wasn’t in the team’s plans, there were virtually no SS available. If our collpase was so evident during the off-season, what moves should we have made?
June 18, 2008 at 12:28 pm
The one question I would have for SA and the FO in general is: is your bonus cmpensation based on team wins or team bottom line profit?On the surface that may seem impious; however, players’ incentives and most executives’ incentives are public knowledge.
June 18, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Or, Would Danny Ainge be available as GM consultant?
June 18, 2008 at 12:33 pm
#39@Phantom: They are in this position because they’ve continually thrown away their high draft picks. True, that’s past history, but the worry is that they haven’t learned from their mistakes — it looks like last years pick was wasted, the 2006 pick isn’t looking so good now and this year’s pick appears to be a serious reach.
Some of the comments by Alderson are baffling. The Padres greatest weakness over the past four years has been the lack of a 5th starter — and Alderson pretty much admits they went into the season without one (again). Shouldn’t they learn from their mistakes? Or is that too much to ask?
June 18, 2008 at 12:36 pm
#40@Tom Waits: “Predictable” regressions doesn’t exactly cover what has happened. Peavy and Young being hurt for the past three weeks is not covered by “predictable regression”.
Khalil Greene’s regression was predictable? By what metric? I’m legitimately curious about this, I didn’t see anyone predict his falloff.
And show me the analysis that predicted our bullpen would be this bad and I’ll show you an analysis that was written last week.
June 18, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Why even bring up Germano ? It’s a non factor.
He had 6 starts in 2008 and 3 were decent to good starts. Are the Pads not 2nd in the league in QS ?
Starting pitching has not been the problem so far in 2008.
June 18, 2008 at 12:41 pm
#44@Schlom: Can we please stop classifying the Padres very recent draft picks as “wasted”? Saying that any draft pick from last years draft was a wasted pick is kind of silly. . .who knows where those guys will be in two years. If you believe they should have picked someone else, fine, but that is a far cry from a “wasted” pick.
June 18, 2008 at 12:43 pm
#41@Phantom: Completely misrepresenting? Am I making up a negative 63 run differential?
What happened with the Cardinals is that many of their players are exceeding reasonable expectations. That’s the opposite (the other way) from what much of the Padre roster has done. That’s a big reason why St. Louis is sitting on 42 wins. Padre players meeting their norms would have put us close to .500.
Obviously a slight regression was more than possible, since a large regression happened.
Only Jim Edmonds circa 2000-2004 would be worth a few more wins this early in the season.
What’s easier - criticizing the decisions, both when they were taken and now that we’re feeling their pain, or using the blanket of “bad luck” to explain everything that’s happened?
June 18, 2008 at 12:49 pm
#45@BigWorm: Young and Peavy had both regressed before they got hurt. They both had injury flags.
Any player as dependent on balls in play as Greene is a candidate for regression. He’s probably in the lower 15% of his predicted range, but it’s not like it required an act of god for him to play this poorly.
I don’t know that a prediction had to foresee the severity of the BP regression for it to be valid. There were many people who were worried about Hoffman’s age and K rate and Bell’s 2007 innings, for instance.
June 18, 2008 at 12:52 pm
#46@JP: Germano had an ERA+ of 64. That seems to be a legitimate factor.
June 18, 2008 at 12:55 pm
#45@BigWorm: I’d agree that the severity of the regression was unpredictable, but the fact of it happening wasn’t. Did we have to know that Greene was going to put up a 65 rather than an 85 OPS+ to worry about our organizational depth there? Did we need to know that Young would get bopped in the noggin to worry about his having lost time each of the last 3 years?
June 18, 2008 at 12:57 pm
I think we should have picked up Ramon Vasquez to play third base. I KNEW he would have a better year than Kouzmanoff.
June 18, 2008 at 1:02 pm
#50@Tom Waits : A legitimate factor for mediocrity, yes indeed, but how much of a factor is Germano’s 3 bad starts on this season’s poor Padre performance ?
What were the “predictors” for Banks and Baek ?
June 18, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Jim Edmonds has a 122 OPS+ for the Cubs. It was very much a reasonable gamble that he could do something similar to that for us.
Khalil Greene has a 65 OPS+. Josh Bard has a 50 OPS+. Chris Young got hit in the face by a line drive. If you predicted those things, you hit on 17 and got your 4 (to reference DePo’s process post).
The Hardball Times’ projection system had this as the NL West division winners with 90 wins. Winning the division was a realistic preseason goal.
http://www.hardballtimes.com/m.....ns-update/
June 18, 2008 at 1:05 pm
#49@Tom Waits: For a guy who is “completely dependent on balls in play” his career BABIP is pretty damn low. I understand that you’re trying to comment that he doesn’t walk much. But his walk rate is up this year compared to last year. He is seeing more pitches per plate appearance. Given these things, we would probably guess he is improving, not regressing. Do you have an explanation for the complete drop-off in his power?
#48@Tom Waits: You’re certainly not making up the negative run differential. What you are making up is the notion that we all expected the team to outperform their career norms. I don’t think we really expected that of many, if any, of our players. We reasonably expected that they would be close to their norms. Some would do better, some wouldn’t. We sure as hell didn’t expect this.
You’re willing to say that 8 starts by Germano are a big deal, but better play by Edmonds in his 26 games wouldn’t have made a big difference? Huh? You always accuse people of taking one side of argument without the other. How is what you’re doing here any different?
June 18, 2008 at 1:06 pm
#41@Phantom: Here’s where we seriously disagree:
“There weren’t many CFs out there for us to acquire, Kyle Lohse wasn’t in the team’s plans, there were virtually no SS available.”
1. There were CF available, including the guy who’s playing there a lot for us now. Our not getting another CF besides Edmunds is not the same as none being available.
2. How is Lohse (he of the 111 ERA+) not being in the team’s plans a positive? That’s an indictment.
3. That’s another statement that seems to be based on “what happened represents what was possible.” As BigWorm noted, the depth of his fall is surprising, but it seems clear that the team has been ambivalent about him for some time. What prevented them from trading Greene for a major package and then using other pieces to get another SS?
June 18, 2008 at 1:11 pm
#47@BigWorm: I didn’t phrase that right. The Padres wasted the 2003-2005 first round picks. Once because they went cheap (or maybe twice if they knew Stauffer was injured before they picked him) and twice because they picked polished college players over high ceiling younger players. They certainly repeated those mistakes in 2007, and maybe in 2008 (definitely too early to tell of course but the concensus by draft “experts” is that Dykstra was a reach) and 2006 (Antonelli was also seen as a bit of an overdraft, at least according to Baseball America).
From 2003-2005 it’s possible that the Padres might only get 4 wins and a 6.37 ERA out of their three top picks (4th, 1st, 18th overall). There’s a good chance they will get nothing from the 2007 and if the Padres extend Adrian it will be hard from them to get anything from this year’s top pick. Team’s with low payrolls can compete without getting anything from their draft as the Padres have shown, be even then they only won one playoff game.
June 18, 2008 at 1:11 pm
#51@Tom Waits: You were planning on a career low OPS+ by 10 points for Greene in his age 28 season? He has had four full major league seasons and in every one of them he’s been at least averagish. Sure he has no backup at all, but what shortstop does, and what good backup shortstop is acquirable and worth the price to be an emergency plan?
June 18, 2008 at 1:13 pm
#57@Schlom: If the Pads extend Adrian that can always trade Dykstra.
June 18, 2008 at 1:15 pm
#54@Ben B.: Coming off seasons of 88 and 110, a 122 was reasonable? Let’s see what Jimmy ends up with, both in rate and games played.
Catchers are volatile. Greene’s offensive skills lend themselves to slumps. While Bard and KG both hit the bottom of their preseason predictions, how much better would we be if Bard was at 75 and Greene at 80?
There’s no doubt the Padres had a lot of things go as wrong as possible. That’s not the same as being unable to predict that things would go wrong.
June 18, 2008 at 1:28 pm
#55@Phantom: That’s not what I’m trying to say, that’s what I said. Greene’s offensive contributions are based on his putting balls in play, not walking. When the hits don’t fall and don’t go out of the park, you get a 65 OPS+. He could still have a monster second half, but he’s not the kind of guy who can keep his head above water when his power is gone.
I never once wrote that people were expecting Padre players to outperform their historical norms. What I said, rather clearly, was that hitting those norms gets you close to .500. What happened with the Cardinals (in St. Louis, you know) is that many of their players blew right past reasonable expectations.
No player has more impact on any given game than the starting pitcher. It’s fairly hard for a position player to be even 1 win better than his peers over the course of a season. A win is a lot. Now, Edmonds was a gaping wound in the torso of our early season, but in 26 games you’d have to be Superman to be worth a few wins. Last year David Wright over the course of an entire year was worth 12 wins more than a replacement player. That’s a whole season from one of the best players in baseball and he was worth 12 wins. Jim Edmonds would have to be Roy Hobbes to be worth a few wins in 26 games.
The larger problem with Germano is that he was counted on at all.
June 18, 2008 at 1:28 pm
#55@Phantom: Actually, Germano had only 6 starts and 3 were of quality.
June 18, 2008 at 1:29 pm
#56@Tom Waits: I said that Kyle Lohse wasn’t a person that the team was interested in. I’m not sure how that’s an indictment, it’s just a statement of fact. They didn’t feel that he would do what he’s doing for the money he got. He now has an ERA+ of 96, which has been skewed upwards by his performance this year. What was his ERA+ this offseason, probably low 90s? It’s not like Lohse was poised to be dominant this year.
As for Cameron, the team allegedly (we have no idea what really happened) made several overtures to keep him here. He didn’t want to stay. It’s that easy. You can’t blame them for failing to sign a guy who didn’t want to be here. And that said, Cameron wouldn’t have exactly solved our Jim Edmonds problem, as he wouldn’t have been here for most of the time that Edmonds played for us (due to his suspension).
As for Khalil, why would the team want to trade him after the season he had last year? We all knew the power was there, but until 07, he hadn’t managed a full healthy season. His 07 season seemed to validate the team sticking with him despite his low OBP. So I’m not really sure it’s fair to criticize the team for failing to predict his collapse or for not wanting to trade him after his best seaon as a pro (after which he was still under club control for 2 years).
The team made moves that they (and most people) thought would be adequate to good and that the team as a whole would be adequate to good. We’ve suffered devastating injuries and sub-par peformance from several members of our team. If you’re going to disparage the FO for that, then I guess there’s really no point in debating the capability of the FO. You’ll likely never be satisfied.
June 18, 2008 at 1:31 pm
#34@Tom Waits: Interpret his words however you see fit. I’m just telling you what the man told me.
#37@MB: Thanks, glad you enjoyed it.
June 18, 2008 at 1:35 pm
#60@Tom Waits: You’re being rather unreasonable. Kouzmanoff, Greene, Iguchi, Hairston, Bard, Edmonds, Clark, Barrett, Huber and Morton all underperformed their Marcel projections which are based primarily on recent performance.
I’m sure you knew Kouzmanoff would underperform his projections by 20 points of OBP and 40 points of SLG. I’m sure you knew Khalil would underperform his projections by 40 points of OBP and 120 points of SLG. I’m sure you knew Tadahito Iguchi would underperform his projections by 20 points of OBP and 70 points of SLG. I’m sure you knew Hairston would underperform his projections by 60 points of OBP. I’m sure you knew Bard would underperform his projections by 80 points of OBP and 170 points of SLG. I’m sure you knew Edmonds would underperform his projections by 80 points of OBP and 210 points of SLG. I’m sure you knew Clark would underperform by 170 points of SLG. Seriously, Tom. This team has many, many guys way underperforming their projected performance. Please don’t pretend we should have seen all of it coming.
June 18, 2008 at 1:37 pm
#61@Tom Waits: But your statement would seem to be predicated on the argument that Khalil must have had a high BABIP in year’s past and is not having them fall in now. His BABIP has always been low, and this year is no different. I think the problem is less that the balls aren’t falling in and more that they’re not going farther.
Not sure why you get smarmy with the Cardinals being in St. Louis. I’m pretty sure I haven’t said anything to indicate that I’m unaware of where the Cardinals play. Perhaps you should take a step back and relax a bit? It’s just a discussion on the Intertubes. You don’t have to denigrate someone you’re debating just because their argument doesn’t mirror yours. We both see the facts as they relate to this season a certain way. Some of us think this year couldn’t be predicted because of X, Y, and Z. You think that X, Y, and Z are proof that the FO sucks at their job. There’s a fundamental difference in the way we look at the world, but implying that I’m somehow unfamiliar with the basic concepts of baseball does nothing to futher your point.
June 18, 2008 at 1:41 pm