Former Padres outfielder Brian Giles announced his retirement Thursday. I’ve had plenty to say about Giles over the years, most of it good.
I’ll defend the trade that brought him home to San Diego for as long as anyone will listen. And I’ll always appreciate him for carrying the club on his back in 2005, leading [...]
February 18, 2010 – 7:03 am
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 World [...]
February 2, 2010 – 6:58 am
In my experience, things usually are neither as bad nor as good as they seem to be. When the Padres lost 99 games in 2008, many people abandoned hope. I wasn’t one of them and predicted 75 wins in 2009, which is precisely what we got. (In the interest of full disclosure, I’d predicted 87 [...]
February 1, 2010 – 6:18 am
We’ve noted that Bud Black has done a good job of protecting his pitchers in three years as manager of the Padres. At the end of that little ditty, I alluded to another aspect of Black’s managerial style that caught my eye. I speak of his affinity for the pitchout.
Black led National League managers with [...]
January 25, 2010 – 5:49 am
I was flipping through The Bill James Handbook 2010 the other day and got to wondering about Bud Black’s managerial tendencies. Now that Black has three years under his belt, maybe we can start to make meaningful assertions about his style in the dugout.
James evaluates managers according to several different factors — adherence to a [...]
January 20, 2010 – 6:24 am
Ray from Sacrifice Bunt recently asked in the comments:
Does anyone think that [GM Jed] Hoyer is trying to build a team that will make the 2010 playoffs? It seems clear to me that Hoyer is treating this season as a way to get an idea for what he has and what he needs. Not that [...]
January 12, 2010 – 6:13 am
The other day, reader Steve C posed the following question:
Do you think the team is set with the roster as is or would you like for them to add another few pieces?
I responded that I’d like to see a big-league center fielder and/or a veteran backup for Nick Hundley behind the plate. I’ve since perused [...]
January 4, 2010 – 5:19 am
I’m supposed to write something about baseball here. That’s my recollection, anyway.
First, a quick programming note: The long, once-a-week pieces from last year are done. Turns out they required a lot of work, and I’m lazy, so no mas. I’ll be publishing more frequently this year and the articles will be shorter.
If 2009 was Coltrane [...]
By Geoff Young
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Tagged adrian gonzalez, brian giles, claude monet, dick enberg, drew macias, dusty ryan, heath bell, henry blanco, jed hoyer, john coltrane, kevin kouzmanoff, kevin towers, leonard cohen, mark neely, mat latos, nick hundley, piet mondrian, tony gwynn jr, wade leblanc
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October 12, 2009 – 7:22 am
As you doubtless know by now, the Padres have fired GM Kevin Towers. It’s taken me so long to write about this because it is difficult for me to articulate my feelings. His departure hits me harder than those of Bruce Bochy, Trevor Hoffman, Sandy Alderson, or Jake Peavy.
Towers was the primary architect of the [...]
By Geoff Young
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Tagged brian sabean, bruce bochy, david pinto, giants, gm, jake peavy, jeff moorad, kevin towers, padres, sandy alderson, trevor hoffman
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September 28, 2009 – 7:29 am
Reader TexPadre recently posed the following question:
When will Chase Headley show a decent amount of power? Or will he ever?
Headley, you may recall, was the subject of much hype in spring training 2008. He had just come off a monster season (.330/.437/.580) at Double-A San Antonio and people got a little silly, mistaking him for [...]
