Blogging the San Diego Padres… established 1997

Back before the season started, when we were waiting to see whether Josh Barfield would win the second base job, we looked at Barfield’s MLEs and settled on Arizona’s Orlando Hudson as a comparable player (start at this comment and work your way down for a more in-depth discussion). Now that we’ve got 4 1/2 months of data to work with, I thought we might revisit that comp and see if it’s holding water.

To the numbers:

Not bad. Barfield is hitting for a little better batting average and a shade more power, but not drawing as many walks as Hudson did. Defensively, Hudson is on another planet (his range factor that season was 5.84; Barfield’s this year is 4.77, which is in the lower half among big-league second basemen), but on the offensive side, there’s not a lot separating these two.

Actually, there is one thing: age. We may have underestimated Barfield’s upside. The season he’s having right now is the one I was expecting in 2007 or 2008.

Okay, how about age 23 comps? An extremely unscientific process reveals the following names (note that these are unadjusted numbers, so it’s possible that some aren’t really all that comparable):

• Roberto Alomar, 1991: .295/.354/.436
• Craig Biggio, 1989: .257/.336/.402
• Royce Clayton, 1993: .282/.331/.372
• Wil Cordero, 1995: .286/.341/.420
• Travis Fryman, 1992: .266/.316/.416
• Barry Larkin, 1987: .244/.306/.371
• Edgar Renteria, 1999: .275/.334/.400
• Jimmy Rollins, 2003: .245/.306/.380
• Ryne Sandberg, 1983: .261/.316/.351
• Garry Templeton, 1979: .314/.331/.458
• Robin Yount, 1979: .267/.308/.371

This is a nice list (hello, Mr. Clayton; what are you doing here?), but one thing I’ve learned when doing stuff like this in the past is that you end up finding a lot of guys who experienced what I call “freakish development.” In other words, we don’t want to get carried away just because Alomar, Biggio, Larkin, Sandberg, and Yount show up on this list. Most players don’t follow their path — if they did, the Hall of Fame would be a lot more crowded or have different standards.

Back to Barfield, I’m not sure how comfortable I am with any of the above names. Renteria and Rollins (never mind the batting average) are probably the closest, if you’re okay with the fact that they play shortstop. They’re not ideal comps, but at this point they seem more reasonable to me than Hudson.

Hey, guess who I saw at the Storm game Saturday night. I’ll give you a hint:

[Update: More photos now up at Flickr.]

Ryan Klesko started at first base and played five or six innings. He walked, struck out looking, and popped to shortstop in his three trips to the plate.

Strange game. Cesar Ramos started for the Storm and gave up 13 hits, but most of those were bad luck. A lot of balls were hit in just the right place or took a crazy hop. Heck, one was a sacrifice bunt where nobody covered first base.

On the other side, San Jose used four pitchers to combine on a 1-hitter. I doubt you’ll ever see an uglier 1-hitter. The Giants’ starter, Darren Sack, walked the first four batters he faced after being staked to a 4-0 lead in the first.

The fourth of those first inning walks, to DH Peter Ciofrone, came with a little extra drama. After a 3-1 pitch to Ciofrone was called a strike, Storm manager Rick Renteria (who was coaching thrid base) started barking at plate umpire Ryan Stockdale, who immediately tossed him. Renteria responded by outlining the strike zone and kicking dirt onto home plate.

Here’s where it gets fun. San Jose catcher Yamid Haad, who apparently is on a rehab assignment and demonstrating to young Giants players how to behave badly, kicks dirt back at Renteria. As you might imagine, the entire Storm bench empties and starts spilling out onto the field. They don’t make a mad charge or anything, but they’re ready. And Haad looks like he wants to take on the world. He just keeps pointing and flapping his jaws the whole time.

Eventually Haad gets run and as he’s walking back to the dugout (still yapping), he receives a shower of boos from the home crowd. Well, I can’t speak for the entire crowd, but I sure was giving him an earful. (There’s something to be said for sitting directly behind the visitors’ dugout.)

The only other downer was an injury to third baseman Chase Headley. He hurt his arm while taking a throw from right field in the first inning and had to leave the game. (You can see him in this last photo — he’s to the left of the Storm trainer, the only guy not wearing white.)

It was good to get away and see some minor league baseball. And it was good to get home and find out the Padres had won.

The Ortega Highway stretches roughly 30 miles from the coastal town of San Juan Capistrano, over the Santa Ana mountains, and into Lake Elsinore. Opened in 1933, it features some of the most beautiful scenery in Southern California.

The road twists and turns at many points along the way — sometimes you wonder if you are even headed in the right direction. It can get congested with other motorists and will try your patience, especially if you are in a hurry to reach your destination. You may find yourself wondering why there isn’t a more direct route. Of course, if you do that, you will miss all the parts of the journey that make it worth your while despite the occasional frustration.

You will miss the trees. Heck, you’ll miss the forest. And most importantly, you’ll miss the descent into Elsinore. As you wind your way down the mountains, the entire Temecula Valley comes into view — farms, subdivisions creeping ever closer to the mountains, and the lake (yes, there is a lake in Lake Elsinore).

You may have been to the town dozens of times, but seeing it from above in its larger context, as part of an entire valley connected by networks of roads and people, you appreciate it that much more. You always enjoy visiting, even though usually you just whip up I-15, in a more direct route that gets you there faster but with less awareness of the larger picture.

Who wants to deal with all the twists and turns of a mountain road that was built more than 70 years ago? Who wants to take the extra time to reach their destination regardless of how beautiful the scenery might be (and especially with gas prices what they are)?

These are good questions. For all the romance of the highway and a road trip, it can be a royal pain in the rear when you’ve got a goal in mind. But if you choose a shorter, more direct route, you run the risk of missing that payoff and not seeing everything there is to see.

Shifting gears for a moment (you are driving manual, I assume), consider the San Diego Padres. For the vast majority of their existence, they have been the doormats of the National League. (Really, if you can’t be honest with yourself on a road trip, then what’s the point?)

The Padres have been to the playoffs four times in 36 years. They have never had three consecutive winning seasons (although that could change this year). From 1999 to 2003, they won 44% of their games. Expectations by fans, management, and even outsiders who marvel at the idea of a big-league ballclub in “that place south of LA” have been understandably low.

But on moving to Petco Park in 2004, things changed. The club started winning. And winning, as we all know, is addictive. Once you start, you don’t want to stop. Don’t believe me? Ask Braves fans who can’t be bothered to show up for the first round of the playoffs. They have a decidedly different level of expectation.

It makes sense when you think about it. They were in town while all this winning was taking place. From their point of view, nothing much changed. Why would they notice?

Why would any of us notice? It’s only by leaving town that you begin to see things differently.

The longer road may be less convenient, but that’s kind of the point. And, of course, there’s that big payoff of seeing the entire town surrounded by other towns, all connected. This cannot be underestimated. When you finally emerge from above and arrive in town, it’s still the same town. And you’re still the same you. But something has shifted, and it’s difficult to pinpoint. Even though it took longer to get where you were trying to go, you maybe decide that this place was worth the wait.

Before our metaphor becomes a hammer, I’ll leave you to connect the remaining dots. The important thing to know is that when I go to watch the Storm play this Saturday night, I will get to Elsinore via the Ortega Highway.