THT Forecasts have arrived. The marketing points: Oliver projections for the next six years for over 7,000 major and minor league players. These projections include hitting, pitching, and fielding statistics (the latter based on Brian Cartwright’s own play-by-play system), wins above replacement (WAR) projections, and coming soon, base running as well. You can read more [...]
Author Archives 
The Opposite of News
I’m reading a lot about Adrian Gonzalez these days. Why not? He’s a great player who deserves the coverage. The two basic “stories” right now are: Jake Peavy wants the White Sox to make a play for his former teammate. Gonzalez reportedly is seeking Mark Teixeira money, which the Padres can’t afford. To summarize, other [...]
Padres Prospects Worth Watching in 2010: Pitchers
As threatened in our look at Padres hitting prospects worth watching in 2010, we turn now to pitchers. Here, again in alphabetical order, are 15 pitchers I’ll be keeping my eye on this year:
Me, Elsewhere: Life Is Just a Fantasy
Does anyone even remember Aldo Nova these days? Anyway, my latest look at the BP Kings draft is up at Baseball Prospectus. My first pick? Kyle Blanks, believe.
IVIE 2010: Call for Projections
It’s time once again to assemble our Ducksnorts community IVIE projections. For the curious, IVIE stands for Insipid Value Indication Estimator and, in the grand tradition of assigning cutesy acronyms to projection systems, is named in honor of former Padres first-round pick Mike Ivie. In the past, we’ve solicited guesses in the comments, but this [...]
Friday Links (26 Feb 10)
Oy, what happened to the week? I want a do-over. Anyway, here are your links: Stairs happy to fill niche for Padres (U-T). From Bill Center’s article: “With his phone not ringing with offers, Stairs signed on with NutriSystem and started trimming 32 pounds. He began playing hockey, became an assistant hockey coach at John [...]
Two Innings
We snuck in two innings of baseball on Sunday before the rains came. Arrived at Cunningham Stadium just after the first. Mostly Indiana fans who didn’t appreciate the plate umpire’s wide strike zone (winning presumably lessened the sting). The rain fell slow but steady. Umbrellas opened, and those without scampered up the hillside in search [...]
Friday Links (19 Feb 10)
Links? Sure, go nuts: Padres’ Blanks leaner, keener (U-T). Tim Sullivan talks about Kyle Blanks, who has dropped a lot of weight since the end of last season: “He remembers the early days of that diet as ‘miserable’, but the results were swift and gratifying.” As someone who has lost 20 pounds since October thanks [...]
Can MLB Survive in San Diego?
Websoulsurfer offers some interesting thoughts on the Padres current payroll situation and long-term prognosis. A few points deserve further attention: I have found that no team since the advent of Free Agency has won a World Series with one player making more than 16% of total payroll and no team has made it to the [...]
David Eckstein: Not Very Good, Not a Problem
by Geoff Young on Mar 02, 2010 (5) Comments
Daniel at Friar Forecast wishes the Padres had signed free agent second baseman Felipe Lopez to replace incumbent David Eckstein. Of Eckstein, Daniel says, “He is a terrible player. His fielding and batting are both below average.” I can’t argue the point, but I can approach it from a different angle. Maybe my expectations for [...]