The other night, Channel 4 rebroadcast this beauty in Seattle. Jake Peavy dominated, Sean Burroughs hit a bomb to right, and Xavier Nady had two hits. Got me pretty jazzed for the upcoming season.

It also got me to thinking about some of the Padres’ young talent and who might be poised for a breakout in 2004. Peavy and Burroughs are the obvious choices, but both are so young that they might not be quite ready to take their game to the next level. Don’t get me wrong, I think both will do real well this year, but I’m thinking their breakout season will come in 2005.

For this year, I like Nady and Adam Eaton. Before the injury to Phil Nevin, Nady was slated to spend the year at Portland. Instead, he was pushed to learn a new position at the big-league level. He started out strong, failed to adjust when the league figured him out, went back to Triple-A, and finished strong with the big club. Nady’s career path has been a little skewed due to his own injuries and those of others, but take a look at how he compares with another guy who came up relatively late and blossomed in his second season:

    AB  BA OBP SLG ISO
XN 371 267 321 391 124
MO 535 282 326 415 133

 XB/H BB/K AB/HR OPS+
  273  324  41.2  92
  272  528  38.2  93

MO is Magglio Ordonez and hit .301/.349/.510 the following year, with 31 homers. No two players follow the same path, of course, but Nady has had success in the past and it’s not unreasonable to think that given 550 at-bats he could post a .285ish BA, 825ish OPS, and 25 or so jacks. That’s about what Nady’s numbers would look like if he took a similar jump to that made by Ordonez at age 25. Will it happen? Who knows. But I like Nady’s chances more than his 712 OPS as a rookie ordinarily would warrant.

As for Eaton, last year was his first back from Tommy John surgery. He pitched above and beyond expectations, and he was still feeling his way around out there. No statistics to go with this one, but just based on what I saw of him in 2003, I’m thinking he’ll add that extra bit of consistency he needs to move one step closer to the NL elite.

Mailbag

One man’s answer is another man’s question. Regular reader Anthony Trifiletti writes:

Nice work on the Gary Bennett analysis. I think his effect on ERA has as much or more to do with his defensive skills than calling pitches. He’s very good at blocking the plate and handles balls in the dirt well.

If I recall correctly, Bennett came off the DL around the same time that Booker was fired and Balsley came in as pitching coach. Any idea what the staff ERA was pre and post Balsley? I would think the combination of the two could account for the large ERA discrepancy.

Good question. Booker was fired as pitching coach May 17. Bennett returned from the DL less than a week later, on May 23. It may prove difficult to separate the impact of those two events on the Padre pitching staff but let’s give it a shot. I couldn’t find splits for the entire team based on that date, but I was able to look through the logs of the big three starters and here’s the verdict:

Adam Eaton

           IP   H HR BB  SO  ERA
Booker   41.0  36  2 14  41 3.73
Balsley 142.0 137 18 54 105 4.18

  H/9 HR/9 BB/9 SO/9 SO/BB
 7.90 0.44 3.07 9.00  2.93
 8.68 1.14 3.42 6.65  1.94

Brian Lawrence

           IP   H HR BB SO  ERA
Booker   46.0  44  4 20 27 4.89
Balsley 164.2 162 23 37 89 3.83

  H/9 HR/9 BB/9 SO/9 SO/BB
 8.61 0.78 3.91 5.28  1.35
 8.85 1.26 2.02 4.86  2.41

Jake Peavy

           IP   H HR BB  SO  ERA
Booker   54.2  52 10 23  51 4.45
Balsley 140.0 121 23 59 105 3.99

  H/9 HR/9 BB/9 SO/9 SO/BB
 8.56 1.65 3.79 8.40  2.22
 7.78 1.48 3.79 6.75  1.78

Looks like the pitching coach wasn’t as much of a factor last year with these guys as was the catcher (using ERA only):

             catcher        pitching coach
          Bennett  other   Booker  Balsley
Eaton       3.91    4.74    3.73    4.18
Lawrence    3.20    7.02    4.89    3.83
Peavy       3.58    5.73    4.45    3.99

Eaton pitched better (check the peripherals) under Booker. Lawrence caught a lot more plate under Balsley. Peavy’s results didn’t change a lot, although his hits allowed and strikeouts were down a bit under Balsley. Nice thought, Anthony, but in the sample we have to work with, it looks like Bennett helped more than Balsley with the big three.

That’s our time for today. Have an excellent weekend, and we’ll catch you again next week.