Past, present, future. We’ve got it all. On a personal note, I’m off to Hawai’i first thing Saturday morning for poke, laulau, and a whole lotta hanging around doing nothing, so posting may be light over the next week or so — I’ll queue up the IGDs in advance, but once I’m over there, I tend to lose my motivation.
- Flexibility keeps Balsley thriving, on the job (North County Times). Shaun O’Neill pens a piece on the Padres pitching coach. Aside from the praise of Balsley, it’s interesting to learn that the Padres have a much lower ERA on the road than at Petco Park this season.
- Richard Wade at Friar Faithful has posted the latest installment of the Top 100 San Diego Padres. Hint: he’s a second baseman who played for the club in the early-’80s.
- Tales from the Crossroads: Summer of ’72 (Town Talk). Nice profile/interview of a guy who is sure to place high on the Friar Faithful list, southpaw Randy Jones. I like the angle on this one; it’s done by the newspaper of the town where Jones pitched in Double-A more than 30 years ago.
- David Pinto at Baseball Musings notes that ex-Padre Shane Victorino is playing very well for the Phillies in Aaron Rowand’s absence. Good for him. A lot of failed Rule V guys are never heard from again.
- Speaking of former Padres, reader LynchMob points out that Phil Nevin hit a two-out homer in the ninth to lead the Rangers to victory over Oakland on Thursday. Akinori Otsuka picked up the win. Good to see Nevin getting back into the swing of things for Texas. Earlier in the week he’d lost his starting job to rookie Jason Botts. Even after the homer, Nevin is hitting just .149/.250/.224 during the month of May.
- Baseball America has fired up the 2006 Draft Tracker. The Padres pick at #17 this year. In related articles for subscribers only, the BA team projects the Pads to snag Texas right-hander Kyle McCulloch, who relies more on command than on stuff and who draws comparisons to Brad Radke. Of course, you can still follow along with the folks at Minor League Ball as they prepare for their mock draft.
- Small Ball Who’s Who (Hardball Times). John Walsh investigates the “small ball” set of strategies and which teams excelled at it in 2005. According to Walsh’s methodology, the Padres ranked seventh among all teams in overall employment of small ball strategies. Interesting stuff, although the fact that the Pads “earned” their ranking largely on the basis of their inability to hit homers suggests to me that the measurement system might need a little tweaking.
Cardinals in town for the weekend starting tonight. We’ll get the IGD going around 6 p.m.
Aloha, GY. Don’t forget your speedo
Because it’s been a while since anyone’s said it, I will — Balsley!
BP’s Best National League Matchup (opponents with best combined Prospectus Hit List rankings) : St. Louis Cardinals (4th) @ San Diego Padres (15th)
Generally, a player who comes to the plate has about a one-in-eight chance of returning there as a scoring baserunner. That was about the average last year: about 12 percent. Then there’s Yadier Molina. So far this year, he’s come up to bat 139 times and scored just five times. That’s about 3.7 percent–an incredibly low percentage. Consider that among batting title qualifiers in 2005, the lowest percentage was around 9 percent by David Bell of the Phillies with a handful of players like Jack Wilson, Bernie Williams, Neifi Perez and Scott Hatteberg clocking in around 10 percent.
Molina has mostly batted seventh this year, which usually doesn’t put one in the best slot to get pushed around the bases–although Aaron Miles (.322/.432/.402) has been pretty decent batting in the eight hole in more than half of the team’s games. The Cards as a team are .296/.392/.406 as eighth-place hitters. Molina is also not the fastest man on the planet and, of course, hasn’t been on a base a great deal, currently sporting an OBP of .232. It’s been announced that Gary Bennett is going to be the catcher when Jeff Suppan and Jason Marquis start so we probably won’t find out just how few runs a player can score when qualifying for a batting title.
The Padres are currently ranked 29th when it comes to snaring opposing base stealers, catching just 11 percent. Last year the Mets were ranked 29th, just barely ahead of Oakland. Yes, Mike Piazza was in both places, but the Padres ranked just 26th last year. Interestingly, the team with the best record in this department is Baltimore where last year’s Padres catcher, Ramon Hernandez, is now plying his trade. Of course, we might want to ask just how important this all is considering it only happens about once a game, unless you’re poor Matt LeCroy.
… btw, if any of you find a link to video of LeCroy, I’d love to see it … i missed the highlights/lowlights yesterday …
Supposedly we’re outrighting Brower, calling up Sikorski for Sunday, and plan on giving more 3b time to Blum/Bellhorn. No mention of Leone from my confidential sources.
From the little I know, I’m not excited about our draft plans.
I still dont understand why Leone is in AAA, the padres have no real 3B options on the team at the moment and leone is killing it in AAA, why not give him a shot, im sure he can at lease hit .210 wiht 1 HR and 10 RBI so theres really not much risk in it.
Geoff, I sure would enjoy getting an opportunity to share a cup of coffee or something during your stay here. I realize that you aren’t taking your vacation for my enjoyment but at least give me a call.
Aloha, Hank
I would like to see Leone also but he has a history of having great springs and killing AAA (mainly pacific coast league pitching in PCL Hitters parks) then getting called up and doing nothing in the bigs. I don’t really think that should matter a whole lot but it is something to think about.
re: Leone … there’s also the defense to consider … Leone is average at best … I think Castilla is above average at worst …
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for a change … and I’d be happy giving Leone a shot … heck, I wanted to play Nady there last year … and McAnulty there this year!
Good to hear Sikorski may be getting a chance. I’d love to see if he’s for real.
Have a good time in the Aloha state, GY. I’ve only been there once, but I’m convinced it could be the best place in the world. Have some Mahi Mahi for me.
What kind of major league history could Leone possibly have?
He’s had 102 major league at-bats, all in July and August of 2004.
He’s only been called up from AAA one time before. Where is this pattern?
Tacoma is the opposite of a hitter’s park. Portland is no easy place to hit, either.
Just read the Balsley article … noticed this comment …
The Padres aren’t using an advance scout this year, so Balsley reviews video of opposing batters in addition to looking at his own pitchers.
… whassup with THAT (not using an advance scout this year)???
At the BP Pizza Feed, that’s something I’m going to ask about …
GY – thanks for the link to the article about Randy Jones … his peak years were sure something special for Padres’ fans back then …
This line jump’d out at me …
Jones said he was gratified when his Padres’ jersey (No. 35) was retired in a 1998 ceremony, making him one of just four Padres to have their numbers retired. The others are Dave Winfeld, Tony Gwynn and Steve Garvey.
… which one of those names *DOESN’T BELONG*??? (hint: the blue one)
Some Leone scouting reports say he’s a good defender at 3b. Not in Castilla’s class, but Castilla isn’t what he was even a couple of years ago.
Nobody’s defense is good enough to carry THAT bat. He’d be inadequate as a SS or C.
The Padres go back and forth on the advance scout every year. Hard to believe it’s that much money.
You know what they could do? Pay one Padre fan in each city to act as the advance scout. Put them through a modified scout school. Buy them great tickets for every game, cover parking, a dog, something to drink.
That’s good news on Sikorski, not so good about 3B. I’m all for giving more playing time to Bellhorn and even Blum, but that’s not a permanent solution. It’s just like last year, when they are settling for any improvement on the current situation, and we are supposed to get excited because the current situation is so bad. Still I am not sure what else they can do besides call up Leone. We have nothing to offer and every other team willing to do business with us knows our 3B production stinks. They have us over the barrel. It gets me down just thinking about it because we could have had better options than Vinny if they didn’t jump the gun so fast. They created this mess and it was entirely predictable.
As for the draft, we will have to wait and see. I’m not excited about the rumors that we are going to take the Texas pitcher McCulloch (because he’s a Grady kind of guy). Last year was pretty good, so I remain optimistic that this year will be ok, but then again the talent level stinks. I am crossing my fingers that we will sign Adam Breit (draft and follow from last year). His JC numbers this year are pretty good. We have until monday to get him.