Blogging the San Diego Padres… established 1997

Knuckleballer Jose Canseco won’t be there, but that can’t stop us from having a Ducksnorts meetup at Tony Gwynn Stadium this Friday night. Buy general admission tickets and we’ll meet at the concession stand on the first base side, right behind the main entrance. I’m planning to get to the stadium around 6:45 p.m. We’ll hang out there till 7 p.m., then head up to find seats.

Can’t make this one? No worries, we’ve got more meetups planned. Because, really, you cannot stop a revolution.

One point Sandy Alderson made at last Friday’s Pizza Feed dealt with the importance of not grouping together decisions that should be made independently of one another. His specific example involved trading for a player who became a free agent shortly after being acquired and then signing that player to a long-term deal at least in part due to having traded for him. The names aren’t important, but the concept is — this sort of thing happens all the time, in all walks of life.

Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, in his Inevitable Illusions (affiliate link), discusses this very phenomenon. He notes (p. 25) that people exhibit:

…a propensity to invest ever more, to bring to fruit a certain investment, once we have irreversibly made that investment.

An example that Piattelli-Palmarini provides relates the story of a Mr. Baker, who has paid $200 for tickets to a show. In this scenario, the theater is far away and there is a “terrible snowstorm” that makes driving an undesirable option. As Piattelli-Palmarini observes (p. 25),

…had they bought no ticket at all, they would gladly turn down an offer of $200 conditional on their acceptance to drive the same distance through the storm.

The surprising part is that research indicates “the likelihood is still high that they will go to the theater simply because they have spent $200 on the tickets.” The reason for this is a phenomenon called “minimization of regret.” In Mr. Baker’s case, there is the sense that he wants to get something for what he paid for despite the additional cost — in time and risk — of actually getting it.

In the scenario Alderson presented, a player was acquired at a cost (other players) during the season. Following the season, the decision was made to retain the services of the acquired player. Regardless of whether this was the correct move, the fact that the player had been acquired at a cost during the season should not have been a factor in making the decision.

In other words, the regret a GM might experience at losing an acquired player to free agency should be independent of any regret he or she might feel over having acquired the player in the first place. These are two separate and distinct events, with independent decision processes and outcomes.

From a purely theoretical — almost clinical — standpoint this makes perfect sense. But it also takes awareness to recognize when this situation arises in the real world, as well as training to be able to act and respond in a rational manner despite any natural instincts to do otherwise.

To summarize, there are two decisions that are made in our baseball scenario:

1. the decision to trade for a particular player
2. the decision to re-sign said player

Neither has (or should have) an impact on the other. Yet, we see this error made all the time. Minimizing one’s susceptibility to it through awareness and training provides a GM (and a team) with a competitive advantage over others who lack such knowledge and tools. And in baseball, as we all know, a competitive advantage is a good thing.

The Padres had a 14-12 record in June. That may not sound great, but it sure beats their 10-17 record during the same month last year.

You may remember June 2005. The Pads scored 91 runs in 27 games and allowed 123. Brian Falkenborg, Darrell May, Tim Redding, and Dennys Reyes worked 45 innings between them. Xavier Nady was the offensive star, hitting .250/.304/.615 and pacing the club with five homers.

Bombs Bursting in Air

This season, the man for whom Nady was traded, Mike Cameron, led the way in June. Cameron hit .300/.398/.640, with eight home runs. Only four players in the NL — David Wright, Ken Griffey, Adam Dunn, and Ryan Howard — hit more bombs during the month.

The Padres as a team outhomered their opposition, 29-25, in June. This marked just the fifth time in 15 months since moving to Petco Park that the Friars hit more home runs than their opponents in a month. In fact, only twice had the Padres hit a greater percentage of all homers in their games during a single month: August 2005 (.575) and April 2005 (.545).

And only twice had the Pads hit more home runs in a single month since the beginning of 2004, knocking an even 30 in each of September 2004 and May 2006. Incidentally, if you’re looking for reasons to be optimistic about the Padres’ offense, the fact that two of their top four home run months since moving to Petco have occurred in each of the past two months might not be a bad place to start.

The trend line for homers also is a lot stronger over the first three months this year than it was in 2004 or 2005. In those first two seasons at Petco Park, opponents saw an upward trend over the first three months. The Padres also saw an upward trend in 2004, albeit at a laughably lower level. And in 2005, the Padres’ trend was in the opposite direction.

Home runs are only one statistical category, and three half-seasons aren’t a lot of data points, but this at least looks like progress. We’ll know more after the season. Call it a good indicator for now.

Slide Rules

So, Cameron had a nice month. Who else? The other major contributor on offense was Adrian Gonzalez, who hit .330/.356/.560 in June. The downside is 19 strikeouts against just three walks, but he produced so we’ll let that slide for now.

What we won’t let slide is Vinny Castilla. A lot of folks talked about his improvement in June, but that’s mainly a function of two things:

1. he hit .280, and people can be mesmerized by batting average;
2. he was absolutely putrid for the first two months, so even somewhat below average seems pretty good in comparison.

Yes, Castilla gets credit for the eight extra base hits, which brought his SLG to a semi-respectable .440 for the month. But he also gets credit for drawing zero walks, resulting in an OBP of .276 — lower than his batting average — in June. Castilla still is killing this team, but he’s doing a better job of hiding it.

Perpetual black hole at third base notwithstanding, the offense continued to produce reasonably well, compiling numbers (.273/.331/.436) similar to those in May (.268/.337/.422). A little more batting average and power, a little less OBP (they actually were outwalked by the opposition, 78-74, after having thoroughly dominated in that category the previous month).

Despite the good numbers, however, the Padres weren’t as lucky in June as they had been in May. As we’ve just seen, the club’s batting lines in each of the last two months are nearly identical. But whereas those numbers translated into plenty of runs in May, the Pads weren’t nearly as efficient in June:

In May, the Padres scored more runs than they theoretically should have. In June, not so much. Despite outwardly similar numbers, they dropped from third in the NL in runs scored to 15th. This may be one reason former hitting coach Dave Magadan didn’t survive the month. The injury to Dave Roberts, a driving force in May and one of Magadan’s greatest success stories, may also have been — indirectly — a contributing factor. [Kevin reminds me in the comments that Magadan's dismissal came before Roberts' injury, so scratch that theory. Sorry for the mistake, and thanks for catching it!]

Work Smarter, Not Harder

On the pitching side, the Padres were led by the man who will represent the club at the All-Star Game in Pittsburgh (Trevor Hoffman) and the man who should represent the club (Chris Young). Hoffman worked 11 innings, allowing two runs and saving all eight of his opportunities. Young, meantime, went 3-0 with a 1.17 ERA and 34 strikeouts in 30 2/3 innings.

As a group, the staff posted a 3.61 ERA during June. This was roughly the same as the 3.58 ERA in May, two notable (and encouraging) differences being an increase in strikeouts (7.14 K/9 vs 6.88) and a decrease in home runs allowed (0.97 HR/9 vs 1.21). The opponent OPS was actually a little better in June (685) than in May (707). The outstanding K/BB ratio (2.94) of the previous month slipped to merely very good (2.36).

On the downside, Brian Sweeney (0.90 K/9) and Clay Hensley (2.70) had trouble punching guys out, while Jake Peavy (5.28 ERA) and Jon Adkins (5.59) didn’t do the best job of keeping them from scoring. And on a team level, nobody worked harder to get batters out, as the Padres led MLB with 3.93 pitches per plate appearance in June.

What Next?

Overall, June 2006 was a pretty average month. The Padres didn’t do anything particularly well, but neither did they lose ground. At the conclusion of the month, they had a 42-37 record and were in first place by 1 game. Contrast this with 2005, when the Pads were 43-36 and in first place by 4 1/2 games. Factor in that the team’s run differential of +19 is actually better than the +11 they enjoyed at the same time last year, and it’s pretty easy to see that the Padres are doing a solid job of defending their NL West title.

On the other hand, the division hasn’t been setting the world on fire of late. On June 4, the Pads were 4 games out of first place with a 30-26 record. Although they only went 12-11 during the rest of the month, the Padres picked up 5 games in the standings and took the NL West lead. You can thank the Diamondbacks and their 8-20 tour bus wreck of a month for that.

Going forward, the first order of business is to get Dave Roberts healthy. Since he’s been in San Diego, the Padres have played better when he’s in the lineup. Having Woody Williams back in the rotation will help as well (he threw six strong innings in his return from the DL on Saturday).

Third base continues to be a disaster, with the Padres trailing MLB in OPS (607) at the position despite improvement from main culprit Vinny Castilla in June. If you listen very closely, you can hear the anguished screams of runners being left on base. Or maybe that’s the ocean. Either way, there aren’t a whole lot of realistic options out there, so it looks like we’re stuck with Vinny for a while.

To end on an up note, as I prefer to do if possible, the Padres still are playing pretty good ball. They could be better, of course, but the same can be said of everyone else in the NL West. The division this season is a lot like it was last season, only without a really lousy team for everyone to pound (that would be the Central, and they’ve got two of ‘em).

I said at the beginning of the season that the Padres would win 80 games and finish second in the division. For them to reach that total would require the club to go 37-43 the rest of the way. Honestly, based on what I’ve seen of these guys this year, I think they’re better than that. Then again, the Pads did go 10-17 last June, so anything is possible.

As of today, I’m guardedly optimistic that my preseason prognostication erred on the side of caution. The offense isn’t going to drive the club, but if the pitching keeps up (and it should — nobody, with the possible exception of Scott Cassidy — is having a fluky season), the Padres should continue to win games. Do that enough times and they’re back in the playoffs. Then, after the season is over, a bunch of contracts come off the books and the Padres can continue to streamline the roster with an eye toward the future.

Seemed like a good plan in March, and it still seems like a good plan now.