I promised baseball today, and that’s what I’ll deliver. First off, here are a couple articles worth reading:
- An Interview with Ken Burns (Alex Belth’s Bronx Banter)
- Defense Independent Pitching Statistics for 2002 (Futility Infielder)
These are gems. I hate to admit it, but I haven’t seen Burns’ "Baseball" (although I’ve seen some of his "Jazz"). He’s obviously quite passionate about the game. His observation that the quality of pitching has improved throughout history seems pretty dead-on to me, despite what you may hear from contraction apologists.
The DIPS stuff is pretty dense. I don’t pretend to understand it all myself, but DIPS ERA (dERA) is said to be a better predictor of the next year’s ERA than is actual ERA. With that in mind, here is how current Padres fared last season:
dERA ERA dERA-ERA
Trevor Hoffman 2.57 2.73 -0.16
Jay Witasick 3.32 2.37 0.95
Clay Condrey 3.65 1.69 1.96
B. Villafuerte 3.68 1.41 2.27
Brian Lawrence 3.69 3.69 0.00
Jake Peavy 3.86 4.52 -0.66
Eric Cyr 4.59 10.50 -5.91
Jesse Orosco 4.62 3.00 1.62
Kevin Jarvis 4.66 4.37 0.29
Oliver Perez 4.83 3.50 1.33
Kevin Walker 4.96 5.62 -0.66
Mike Bynum 5.19 5.27 -0.08
Brian Tollberg 5.29 6.13 -0.84
Charles Nagy 5.41 8.88 -3.47
Adam Eaton 5.54 5.40 0.14
Jaret Wright 6.36 15.71 -9.35
D. Tankersley 6.78 8.06 -1.28
Ben Howard 9.26 9.28 -0.02
I’ve also listed actual ERA, so you can get an idea of who may have been pitching over their heads last year and who might be in for better things in 2003. There are some seriously small samples here, but Peavy’s dERA is encouraging. Negative numbers in that far right column are a good thing.
And speaking of Padres, now is the time when folks start asking me who I think are good sleepers this year. Without much in the way of explanation or justification, the guys I’m really watching in 2003 are Phil Nevin, Sean Burroughs, Mark Kotsay, Jake Peavy, Adam Eaton, and Kevin Walker. The ones I’m concerned about are Oliver Perez, Trevor Hoffman, and the entire catching corps.
If I had to give you the name of one Padre who I expect to surprise a lot of people this year, it’d be Eaton. He looked real sharp at the end of last season, and I have a good feeling about him. Bear in mind, that’s all it is: a feeling.
Picked up Tony Blengino’s "Future Stars" book last week. His work often gets overlooked, but he does a good job of uncovering guys who are in the deep minors before everyone else "discovers" them. Here are his Top 10 Padre prospects for 2003:
- Mark Phillips
- Khalil Greene
- Mike Bynum
- Jake Gautreau
- Josh Barfield
- Xavier Nady
- Justin Germano
- Dennis Tankersley
- Pedro De los Santos
- Tagg Bozied
Not many people put Phillips ahead of Greene. It’s a bold move, and not as outrageous as some might think. Bynum is too high for my taste; I still see him ending up in somebody’s bullpen. I like Germano a lot, but his upside isn’t what Tankersley’s is. As for De los Santos, Blengino presumably went to press before the truth was discovered. Even before the age adjustment, that was too high for a guy with basically one skill.
Take this as you would any other prospect list. It’s one man’s opinion. Blengino’s is pretty informed, though; he’s worth reading.
Well, I was going to try to end gracefully, but I’m too tired to think. Consider this installment finished.
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