Blogging the San Diego Padres… established 1997

Ducksnorts reader SD Padres Gal was kind enough to send me some photos she took while sitting directly above the Padres dugout in a recent game at Petco Park against the Washington Nationals. I’ve posted the photos at Flickr — check ‘em out and be sure to thank SD Padres Gal for sharing these excellent pics with us.

The Pads made a deal Thursday night, picking up Russell Branyan from Tampa Bay for Class-A right-hander Evan Meek and future considerations. I probably shouldn’t like this move, but I do.

For one thing, Branyan is one of the most fascinating players in baseball. Here are some of his freakish career numbers:

Not that Branyan is anywhere near the complete package the guy I’m about to compare him to is, but the power numbers match up pretty well with those of Troy Glaus (.252 ISO, .477 XB/H, 15.5 AB/HR). Like Glaus, Branyan also sees a lot of pitches and draws some walks.

Flaws? Yeah, he’s got a few. Branyan’s strikeout frequency is epic. You’ll hear Rob Deer‘s name invoked when folks talk about Branyan, but that doesn’t even begin to do the latter justice.

Deer had 4512 plate appearances during his big-league career. Over that period, he fanned 31.2% of the time. Branyan, meantime, has struck out in 35.0% of his trips to the plate. Give him the same number of plate appearances as Deer, and Branyan would have 170 more strikeouts. Heck, even plate appearances against Billy Wagner end in a punchout only 33.3% of the time.

Branyan is the active career leader in strikeout frequency. You know who’s second? Mark Bellhorn, at 29.1%.

Anyway.

I’ve added Branyan to the Padres organizational tree. No word on what impact Branyan’s arrival will have on our Will Play Third Base for Food T-shirts. The guess here is, none whatsoever.

Fans in the left field bleachers are chanting “Beat LA.” Cla Meredith comes on to work the ninth. As Meredith puts the finishing touches on a three-game sweep, a drunk Dodgers fan in front of me is chanting “Second Place” (you can do a lot with three syllables — I went with “What’s the Score?”). Between chants, he’s yelling at anyone who will listen — something about real fans, blah blah blah, look at me I’m drunk, woo-hoo!

He’s like a very angry David Spade. A cross between Gap Girl and Joe Dirt. He’s looking for a fight. Actually, he’s looking for someone to hold him back. Did I mention this guy has a friend? Well, maybe not a friend, but a companion.

Companion dude is having none of Gap Dirt’s act. Like, I don’t know this guy. Yeah, I came here with him but he’s on his own.

It’s equal parts hilarious and pathetic.

But Gap Dirt is on a roll. He can’t stop. Even after the final out, he’s still running smack. And he’s frustrated that nobody will pay attention to him because everyone is delirious from completing the sweep and seeing the Padres get back into the race.

I’ve got no gripe with Dodgers fans in general — I grew up in Monterey Park and Culver City, bled Dodger Blue for the first 20 years of my life. But this guy is out of control.

He’s acting like a Giants fan.

So I make some smart-ass comment like “Good try, Dodgers; you’ll get ‘em next time.” Gap Dirt is ecstatic. Someone has acknowledged his existence. He glares at me and says — wait for it — “I’m not even a Dodgers fan, you idiot.”

What a coincidence; I’m not even an idiot, you Dodgers fan.

I don’t say that, of course. He’s free to have the last word because all anyone has to do is point to the scoreboard. I turn and walk away with a smile, leaving Gap Dirt to contemplate his place in the universe and the fact that he’s out of beer.

Sucks to be him.

* * *

That was some terrible officiating Wednesday night. The strike zone was inconsistent, Julio Lugo was tossed from the game for no apparent reason, Joe Beimel committed a balk that wasn’t called, and the fifth inning was just plain bizarre. There’s some good discussion at Dodger Thoughts on the latter. It was baffling to watch in person, and whatever the outcome, there shouldn’t have been that long of a delay to resolve it. Either rules were transgressed or they weren’t; if anyone should know whether or not they were, it would be the umpires.

Or, in this case, Padres manager Bruce Bochy.

* * *

Chan Ho Park is out at least a month following intestinal surgery. The good news is, doctors were able to identify and correct the problem. Here’s wishing Park a speedy and full recovery.

* * *

Off-day Thursday, then three over the weekend at El Humidor. Padres are a game back in the NL West and in the wild card race. Trevor Hoffman needs 10 more saves to pass Lee Smith as the all-time leader. Life is good, folks.

The other day I was looking at Mike Piazza’s batting line and noticed something weird. Dude has 18 homers this year, but only 28 runs scored. Granted, if he gets on base late in the game and the Padres are leading, Rob Bowen will run for him (which explains his 20 runs scored despite all of 92 plate appearances this season), but still.

So I got to wondering how Piazza’s run totals compared with those of some other guys. The first question I wanted to answer is, “Who scores the greatest percentage of runs as a result of his own hitting?” This is pretty straightforward. I just made a list of everyone who has 300 or more plate appearances and divided home runs by runs. The results are hardly surprising:

Piazza and Willingham are catchers; Howard, Sexson, Ortiz, and Thomas are gigantic, lumbering 1B/DH types; Berkman and Griffey have battled leg problems this year; and Burnitz and Hollins don’t get on base. Probably the most shocking result here is that those last two guys have managed to amass 300 plate appearances.

At the opposite end of the spectrum are a bunch of slap hitters, most of whom get on base at a decent clip:

If you ever need evidence that speed kills, look no further than Gathright. He’s the new Omar Moreno. The only thing that kind of speed kills is a rally. At the other end, Kendall’s presence on this list baffles me. Catchers aren’t supposed to be here.

Among qualifying Padres, Dave Roberts relies most on his teammates to drive him in:

You Mentioned a Second Question?

Yes, and it’s a bit more hypothetical: “If nobody ever hit a home run, who would score the fewest runs.” I know it’s kind of an absurd thing to ask (and never mind the fact that we’d have to take away runs resulting from other players’ homers as well), but bear with me.

The formula is simple: (R-HR)/PA*500. We’re finding the number of runs each player scores independently of his own homers and then expressing that as a total per 500 plate appearances so everyone is on the same footing.

No real surprises here either. More catchers and large first basemen. This table confirms two things:

1. The Pirates (Burnitz) and Devil Rays (Hollins) really stink.
2. If you are a catcher and can’t hit, you still have a chance, especially if your last name is Molina.

And on the flip side:

This is an interesting mix of up-and-coming offensive dynamos (Weeks, Reyes, Ramirez, Utley), established veterans (Lofton, Rollins), guys having a career year (Johnson, Punto), and guys whose mediocrity is largely obscured by a strong supporting cast (Podsednik, Taveras).

Here’s how the Padres do:

Again, Roberts leans most heavily on his teammates, while Piazza is extremely self-reliant.

Other questions we might ask are how Piazza’s numbers this year rank historically — both by season and for a career; and maybe also what are some shared characteristics of hitters who are (or are not) driven in by others — physical size, foot speed, ability to get on base, who bats around them in the lineup, overall success of team, etc.? I’m not sure what we would learn from answering those types of questions, but the exercise might point us in interesting directions.