Hi, folks! I’m back from vacation and still prepping the announcement I promised. Meantime, I’ve been going through all the comments and emails (thanks for keeping the party alive while I was gone — great discussion, as always!), and here are a few thoughts I have on some of the hotter items:
- Juan Pierre to the Dodgers at $44 million for 5 years is insane. Completely and absolutely insane. I’m very grateful that Ned Colletti seems to share the propensity of his mentor, Giants GM Brian Sabean, to overvalue defense. Having two GMs with that tendency in the division should help the Padres.
- Has anyone noticed the kind of money that is being thrown around at very marginal relievers? Baltimore, to name one example, signed Danys Baez to an unbelievable 3-year, $19 million deal. I know a lot of us are down on Scott Linebrink right now, but in this market, he’s got to be worth about $8 million a year. Seems to me that despite the denials, Linebrink still could be a solid trading chip.
- I was hoping the Padres would be able to land Moises Alou or, failing that, maybe David Dellucci. Those, along with the Sean Casey deal in Detroit, have been among the better signings so far this winter.
- Some have mentioned the Padres’ “failure” to land an impact player at last year’s trade deadline. Bear in mind that for as difficult as it may have been to watch other teams make “bigger” moves down the stretch, the record will show that no team in baseball won more games than the Padres in September. They overcame a 3-game defecit entering the month to overtake the Dodgers and win the division. And with all due respect to George Kottaras, they didn’t separate themselves from a talent like Joel Guzman in the process.
- Khalil Greene isn’t Chris Gomez. Not even close. In his best season as a regular (1998), Gomez had an OPS+ of 99 and an RC/27 of 4.22. In his worst (2006), Greene had an OPS+ of 96 and an RC/27 of 4.50. The #1 comp for Greene through age 26 according to Baseball-Reference is Jose Valentin. The #1 comp for Gomez at the same age was Dave Concepcion. Of course, Concepcion played great defense and stole a lot of bases at a very high rate of success. So Gomez was really Concepcion without the defense and steals. Greene is a middle infielder with power, along the lines of a Valentin or even a Bret Boone.
I’ve got plenty more on my mind, but it can wait. Right now I’m just happy to be home. 
Welcome back Geoff…glad to hear you had a good time.
Since I am the one that has made the reference to KG as “Chris Gomez with power” multiple times over the past few months, please give me a moment to respond.
I started saying that after doing a quick look at the defensive statistics. Up until the “New” defensive statistics started coming out, KG’s range factor, fielding percentage, ranger factor per 9 innings, and expected Fielding Percentage (all found on Baseball-Reference.com), all said that he was either equal to or, in some cases, even worse than Chris Gomez.
Sure KG is Flashy, but the reality is that he is older than Sean Burrougshs, has never played in more than 140 games, has not hit more than 15 HR’s, a lifetime average of .255 and a career OBP of .320.
Quick look at Gomey and you see that he had a higher lifetime average (.260) and a higher OBP (.326). They seem to have a similar number of games played per year.
Yes, Gomey had a much lower slugging %, but that would be exactly what I was referencing when I call Greene “Chris Gomez with power.”
Just for a little more defense discussion…if you take a look at the 2006 Bill James Fielding Bible, Khalil Greene’s 3-year Zone rating puts him just ahead of Derek Jeter…ranked 26th out of 31…TWENTY SIXTH OUT OF THIRTY ONE…
He is ranked below such defensve studs :-p as Deivi Cruz, Miguel Tejada, and Julio Lugo.
Oh yea, did I mention that Greene has never hit more than 15 home runs and he is older than Adrian Gonzalez and Jake Peavy?
Interesting, CM. I don’t have access to Gomez’ 3-year ZR over the same stretch, but here’s how he and Khalil each did at age 24, 25, and 26 according to ESPN:
Age CG KG
————
24 .845 .847
25 .821 .860
26 .843 .851
I’m not a big fan of ZR as a metric, but it does give Greene the nod over Gomez.
As for referring to Greene as “Gomez with more power,” although technically correct, it doesn’t tell the whole story. It’s a bit like saying that Chris Young is Adam Eaton with a better ERA.
After “missing out” on Counsell, I’m intrigued by the Padres pursuit of Graffanino. I don’t think that I’d mind a platoon of Graffanino and Walker at 2B next year. Tony is a really good defensive 2B who could play in the alte innings for Walker, and although he didn’t have huge platoon splits last year, he hits LHP well enough.
I also am starting to fall for the possibility of a Linebrink + Khalil Greene for Manny deal. Our lineup would have a hole at SS (unless Graffanino worked there as well) but the middle of the order starts to look fairly intimidating.
Giles RF
Graff/Walker 2B
Gonzalez 1B
Ramirez LF
Cameron CF
Bard/Bowen C
Kouzmanoff 3B
??? SS
I like that 1-6 quite a bit. Who is available out there to play SS?
Not much at SS: Clayton, Lugo, and a bunch of garbage. The fact that I’m not lumping Clayton in with the garbage should tell you all you need to know.
So…there’s not a lot of SS possibilities. Anybody interested in Julio Lugo? He’s got a 3-year average of .284/.348/.405. That’s pretty solid for a SS. I don’t know that I want to pay that guy 10M/yr though. He’s 31. Would he be interested in a 4/36 offer? He’s got a OBP of almost .370 as a leadoff hitter over the last 3 years. New lineup-
Lugo SS
Giles RF
Manny LF
Gonzalez 1B
Cameron CF
Bard/Bowen C
Kouzmanoff 3B
Graff/Walker 2B
That’s got to be one of the top two lineups in the NL, and we’ve still got our top 3 pitchers intact. Resign Chan Ho or let Mike Thompson start the season as your #5, take a flyer on Mulder or Tomo Ohka/Tony Armas/Miguel Batista. You’ve still got your playoff rotation and we’re going to make the playoffs with that lineup.
Clayton just signed with the Jays. The lack of shortstops on the market would make a Khalil trade less likely, I would think. Lugo is likely to be overpriced and I wasn’t that impressed with him. With that kind of a lineup maybe we could trade for a strong fielding/light hitting guy on the cheap. With Graff at 2nd and Adrian at 1st that would be a tight defense. We’d need it with Manny in left.
Did anyone pick up Leone? didn’t he play 2B as well as 3B? might be worth giving him a shot.
Nice to see you back Geoff. I would like to applaud your relief that we did not sign any “major” names. Given the prices that Lee and Soriano went for, this seems like a good year to lay low. This is one thing that annoys me about KT: he seems to set artificial expectations. It seems every other year or trading deadline he will say something like “We are pursuing a major name” and it never materializes. I don’t mind not getting a major name if said “major name” is too expensive, but don’t blab about it beforehand.
I am not sure what is up with the money this year. Is baseball suddenly more profitable? Or are some franchises suddenly feeling like they have to do something, and something NOW. Matthews, Lee, Soriano, Baeyz: these are frickin’ crazy. The money for the Japanese pitchers rights. Also seemingly insane. This is real money, so I doubt it is insane, on some level, it must make sense. I just have not been allowed to peak at that level yet.
Geoff, I guess your explanation offers the same answer…KG is like Brett Boone just as Sean Casey is like Mark McGwire…
KG’s high is 15 hr’s in a season…15. Boone averaged 23 HR’s and played gold glove defense. I think the most relevant comparison is Jose Valentin and KG does not even have his power.
The biggest problem that we have is the thing that you hit the nail on the head when we talk about who would replace him. Playing a guy like Blum at SS could potentially leave a HUGE hole in our lineup, even with the addition of Manny.
RE 1: Didn’t Khalil have around 15 HRs at the All-Star break before he got hurt? I guess you could count that as never having hit more than 15 Hrs, but isn’t that a little like saying Francisco Liriano has never had more than 12 wins?
If you are insinuating that Khalil will continue to suffer freakish injuries and therefore we should get rid of him, I guess we can’t debate your psychic abilities, but　Ｉ think we can agree that his injuries were not of a chronic or overly serious nature, like a nagging hamstring pull or a torn rotator cuff. Just for the sake of argument, what would 15 Hrs at the All-Star break project out to over a whole season? And for a guy who plays half his games at Petco, what would his HR total look like at most of the smaller parks over a full season?
*Count me off the Manny bandwagon. I’d never root for the guy and have no interest seeing him in a Padres uniform, no matter how good his bat is. He also spent the last two months on the bench and is 34. Hopefully, he’ll stay in the AL.
I think Lugo is looking for some ridiculous 4 yr $32 million deal, so that may remove him as an option.
Re 10: Although I liked what I saw of Brett “Barry” Boone, he was clearly on steroids when he had his career years (all two of them). I don’t remember his bat or his defense as being stellar when he was in SD, although I’d have to go back and check his numbers. Khalil has a quicker bat and just as much natural power. Yes, Khalil has to be more patient at the plate and learn to go the other way now and then, but the potential is there. Don’t underestimte how much injuries can interrrupt your timing, especially for younger players. And Khalil may be “older than Sean Burroughs,” but he is almost ten years younger than Tony Graffanino.
Re 10:
At age 27, Khalil has Boone beat in pretty much every category, with 100 fewer at-bats. Boone also had 15 Hrs (his career high) at age 27, but it took him almost 100 more at-bats to do it — at Riverfront, nonetheless. Boone’s 2000 year with SD is remarkably similar to Khalil’s 2006, with the notable difference that Boone played at SD Stadium, not Petco. So it’s safe to say that if Khalil starts juicing, his HR numbers could jump from 19 to 37 and RBIs from 74 to 141, as they did with Boone in the 2000 and 2001 seasons. To be fair to Boone, he did have more at-bats in 2001. By the way, Boone was 33 in 2001.
A couple of goodies @ BP today …
BP STAT OF THE DAY
Top 5 2006 NL Center Fielders, by VORP
Player, Team, EqA, VORP
Carlos Beltran, NYN, .328, 68.5
Andruw Jones, ATL, .302 , 49.3
Mike Cameron, SDN, .295, 39.8
Kenny Lofton, LAN, .277, 26.1
Eric Byrnes, ARI, .268, 25.1
NEW BASIC CONTENT
Player Profile
Alfonso Soriano
by Marc Normandin
Perception versus performance in the case of the most richly rewarded free agent on the market this offseason.
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=5729
Wow, my ducksnorts links no worky no more. Not sure whats going but glad to see you back…
Manny would be a disaster in San Diego. He’s got a sloppy style and his slow-eyed approach to the, especially left field, would make everybody hate him by the ASB.
Is there another big bopper out there that might “fit” San Deigo?
Funny thing about VORP is that it doesn’t account for defense, correct. If we’re talking about CFers, it’d be nice to have that weighed in, too.
I don’t know that 4/32 is a ridiculous price for Lugo. He plays decent defense at the prime position on the field, has a .370 OBP as a leadoff hitter over the last three years, and has good speed. In this market, that’s at least an 8 million dollar player. I’d much rather have him than say, Juan Pierre.
Coming in to this season, Khalil’s comps:
Ty Wigginton, Dale Berra, Gary Gaetti, Doug Decinces, Jeff Kent, Brook Jacoby, Joe Crede, Jim Presley, Kevin Elster, Tony Perez
He’s basically a 15-HR guy. A line of something like .260/.330/.450 in a neutral park where league average is .260/.330/.420 is what he’s been basically.
Khalil’s a league average kind of hitter that plays roughly average defense at short. That’s a valuable commodity if he can stay away from the injuries.
I guess my biggest gripe is how so many Padres fans talk about how great he is and what a great defender he is when the reality is that he is average (at best) with the glove and his hitting is mediocre.
My ultimate point is that he is replaceable and if he can be used as a bargaining chip to get a RH, middle of the order hitter, we can’t hesitate.
re 21: I agree that Khalil hasn’t been much more than average yet . His blonde locks and the occasional spectacular play lend to the hype, surely. A bargaining chip for a middle of the order hitter sounds reasonable. SS are at a premium this year, both good and bad for the Pads.
I still think with a little more help from Rettemund Khalil can be an above average hitter who gives you 35-40 2B, 20 HRs in a healthy season. For a fairly consistent shortstop with decent range, that’s not a bad thing to have around while he’s still cheap.
What has happened to Luis Gonzalez? 50 doubles last year. Branyan, Sledge, Gonzalez, Kouz — that doesn’t sound so bad. May get us 30 Hrs out of LF. Overall, with what we’d have to give up in players, defense and clubhouse sanity, I’d say it is preferable to Manny. We can always do something at the break if we are desperate. Leaves us money for Maddux as our number 4 guy, too. I could live with a 2-yr. deal for Maddux as our final big acquisition this offseason (not including Tony Graffanino, of course!).
How about KT offering the BoSox Cla for Manny and 25 mil.? I hear they need a closer.
Luis Gonzalez is old and deteriorating fast, and he played in one of the best hitters parks in the majors last year. His OPS+ was only 97, below average. He looks like another hitter we’ll have to let some other team overpay for, unless he can be signed cheaply for one year.
He is old and crumbling, but I think Gonzalez might accept a 1-year deal from the Pads. He wants to play here, and no one seems to be in a hurry to give him 2 years. Let him start 90 games like Piazza did. Just an IBM (idea besides Manny). The doubles number should translate well to Petco.
And speaking of Piazza, can’t the Pads bring him back for 1-year at 6 mil.? The Bard-Bowen combo might not work out as well as it did last year. Piazza catches 75 games, Bard 75, and Bowen 15. Piazza spells Adrian at first once in a blue moon and is a potent bat off the bench in late innings to go with Branyan. He still has tremendous power, calls a good game, and the running/throwing didn’t hurt the Pads as much as one might have expected. I’d pay just to watch him hit another triple.
Agreed on the triple. Having him and Gonzalez on the bases at the same time was poetry in motion.
And according to Ken Rosenthal, Piazza has been offered one year, 7 million by an AL team, most likely the A’s.
http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/6214654
If Rosenthal is correct, unless Piazza desperately wants to catch again (or stay in the NL for less money), looks like it’s Bard and Bowen. Don’t see the Pads going any higher than 6 mil. per year (and that might have been the top figure including incentives).
Funny. Khalil is the new Kevin Elster.