Thursday Links (11 Aug 11)

Despite Kyle Blanks having his string of multi-hit games snapped at five (he singled and walked), Wednesday was a good day for the Padres. Will Venable knocked four hits out of the leadoff spot, Jesus Guzman drove in his 30th run to pull within two of active team leader Jason Bartlett (Cameron Maybin also has 30, and don’t look now, but here comes Alberto Gonzalez with 25!), and the bullpen held on to a huge lead despite their best efforts. I was fully prepared for Willie Harris to hit a game-tying grand slam in the ninth, but it didn’t happen.

Speaking of which, did you notice that the Dodgers blew a six-run lead in their game against the Phillies? The Padres have pulled to within one game of their neighbors to the north in the heated battle for fourth place. Hot damn, this is exciting!

Oh, and congrats to James Darnell for collecting his first big-league hit. He singled to left off Mets right-hander Bobby Parnell in the ninth, which inspired me to make a daft comparison between Darnell/Parnell and Julia Gulia on Twitter. Hey, it’s what I do.

Anywho, we have links…

Trade Deadline

  • Trade Deadline Power Rankings: Part 2, the Victors (Grantland). Jonah Keri likes the Padres’ deadline moves. [h/t reader USMC53]
  • Big Winners (Inside the Padres). Tom Krasovic offers his thoughts on the Mike Adams trade.
  • 17 Favorite Midseason Trades (Baseball Prospectus). Old school… this one includes the trade that brought Mark Grant to San Diego.
  • Trading for prospects? No thanks! (ESPN). Howard Bryant offers interesting opinions on the Padres’ situation. He apparently likes Billy Beane’s favored approach of letting free agents walk and collecting draft picks, aka prospects, better than Jed Hoyer’s of trading soon-to-be free agents for… uh… other prospects. Bryant also manages to praise Texas for turning Mark Teixeira into unproven youngsters, while chastising the Padres for doing the same with Adrian Gonzalez. There’s actually a good discussion at Gaslamp Ball that identifies some of the flaws in Bryant’s logic.
  • Jed Hoyer: Seller (Woe, Doctor!). This sums up the Adams trade rather nicely: “Basically, our pitching just gained some much-needed depth for, hopefully, years to come while all we gave up was 100 IP from a talented yet soon-to-be expensive pitcher that doesn’t fit into our future plans.”
  • How the Padres Blew Trade of Type A Free Agent Heath Bell (Websoulsurfer). One observer wishes the Padres had traded their All-Star closer.

Minor Leagues

History

Whatever

Rise and shine, folks. Thursday’s finale of the four-game set in New York starts at 9:10 a.m. PT. Southpaws Cory Luebke and Jonathon Niese get the call. A split would be nice…

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9 Responses »

  1. I am so happy you included the link to the Howard Bryant article. I stumbled on that and was pretty dumbfounded by what I was reading. The Padres have their fair share of trade mishaps, but the logic and facts behind Bryant’s “argument” about Adrian Gonzalez were pretty weak and misguided.

  2. The Bryant article is simplistic nonsense clearly written just to get an assignment in by deadline. Why would you bother reading anything from ESPN anymore if you’re not a Red Sox or Yankees fan? “Dumbed down” is not strong enough a term for the Worldwide Leader’s attempts at serious sports discussion. It seems that unless it involves Brett Favre, Tim Tebow, anything from Boston or New York, or Kobe Bryant, they don’t really care.

  3. Re: some talk about getting the Puppy Pads every AB and IP possible down the stretch- It’s going to be fun to see what San Diego has and will have going forward; but don’t wear anyone down to the point of risking injury to body or confidence! Even guys like Maybin might need a breather or two through the Dog Days…

  4. I’m really enjoying the post-trade-deadline baseball we’ve been seeing, and not just because the Padres have managed to win a few games. It’s actually really exciting to see Blanks, Guzman, and Darnell get a good bit of big league action. It’s also great to check on Rizzo, Oramas, Erlin, Weiters, etc. down on the farm. I think Jed Hoyer knows what he’s doing, and I’m managing to convince myself that much brighter days are ahead with the young talent that we have.

  5. I meant Wieland, not Weiters. Not sure what my brain was doing when I typed that.

  6. @USMC – your brain was secretly hoping the Padres would aquire a catcher of his caliber.

  7. i guess i jinxed the team with my proclamation of scoring prowess of the Padres on the road. my bad.

    http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/boxscore?gid=310813117

    Eight HRs responsible for all 14 RS, too bad only a solo HR for Blanks & the Padres.